Ebola

I suppose so. My experience is with radioactive contamination suits. Our innermost gloves were just plain cotton.

Of course. But you should wonder why they eat disease-ridden bushmeat.With things like AIDS and earlier outbreaks of Ebola, why are people still engaging in this risky behavior?

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Of course. But you should wonder why they eat disease-ridden bushmeat.

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With things like AIDS and earlier outbreaks of Ebola, why are people still engaging in this risky behavior?

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Sorry, but this is ridiculous for multiple reasons. First, people eat bushmeat because they're hungry. They want to survive. So they eat what's available. It's really not very complicated.Second, bushmeat isn't any more disease-ridden than wild game elsewhere in the world. In the US, you can get rabies, hantavirus, trichinosis, plague and tularemia from wild game. American hunters are also exposed to all kinds of nasty disease just by being in the woods, including Lyme disease, EEE and West Nile. And American hunters are rarely flirting with starvation -- so why do they keep engaging in this risky behavior?Third, the risk to those who hunt or eat bushmeat is actually quite low. There have only been a few tens of known transmissions of Ebola and a handful for HIV, spread over decades and hundreds of millions of people.

Its called hunger. When it gets really bad, people get irrational. They are not to blame.

Of course now I expect you to present me with the infection rates in the U.S. from wild game. Don't forget to mention any diseases that became human-human transmissible and have spread across the globe creating regional epidemics and killing large numbers of people.You will also have to show me the relevant laws regarding bushmeat and demonstrate how they are similar to the laws in U.S. states regarding game.Maybe you're right. Maybe it's just the (un)luck of the draw for these poor African folk. Or perhaps cultural failings really do play a significant role in the acquisition and spread of these diseases along with the inability to stop them.Whatever the case, though, I'm sure you'll settle the matter with some good evidence.

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Of course now I expect you to present me with the infection rates in the U.S. from wild game.

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No, no, you go first. I wouldn't want to distract from your presentation of the data showing that Africa has higher infection rates in wild game than other regions, and that those infection rates pose a greater threat than malnutrition to the individuals involved.

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Don't forget to mention any diseases that became human-human transmissible and have spread across the globe creating regional epidemics and killing large numbers of people.

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Why would I want to mention those? You were asking why people eat bushmeat. Very few people pay a lot of attention to distant consequences of their actions. That goes for Africans eating bats and Americans driving cars.

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You will also have to show me the relevant laws regarding bushmeat and demonstrate how they are similar to the laws in U.S. states regarding game.

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Huh?

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Maybe you're right. Maybe it's just the (un)luck of the draw for these poor African folk. Or perhaps cultural failings really do play a significant role in the acquisition and spread of these diseases along with the inability to stop them.

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Maybe you're right, and eating whatever is available when you're hungry is a cultural failing. Or maybe you're trying to find a simplistic answer that fits comfortably with prior beliefs about people and culture.Look, eating when you're hungry isn't a cultural failing. No doubt the for it takes in West Africa results in part from cultural factors, but so does every other human behavior. Humans hunt bats, they drive cars, they smoke cigarettes, they carry handguns, they cut funding for public health readiness, they jump out of airplanes. They do lots of things that carry risk for themselves and for others, and they all involve cultural practices and values. I've seen nothing to indicate that, given the actual situation most Guineans find themselves in, eating bushmeat was irrational. But you don't seem interested in discussing what their actual options were, or what the tradeoffs might be. You just seem to want to find a reason to dismiss the epidemic as their fault.

This is pretty fucking disgusting, Jon.Have you ever been so hungry that you considered eating some dead animal off of the ground?Since you haven't, how can you blame someone's culture for being in such a predicament?Some cultures literally find themselves in a lifeless wasteland. People will do whatever they can to survive. There's no blame to be had for trying to save your life by finding anything to eat.What's next? Scurvy - failures of the sailing culture!

You want us to believe that there is little difference between hunting game in the U.S. and bushmeat consumption in West Africa.If you didn't want to support this claim, then you shouldn't have made it.

I understand.You don't want to talk about the real problem because it makes you feel uncomfortable. Why are these people starving?

There's no reason to lie about me.What is disgusting is your nonchalant dismissal of staving people trying to keep themselves alive by eating whatever they can find as being a bunch of dumbasses eating meat that they know is tainted.You characterization is what is disgusting. And there is no realness to it. They live in a region of the globe where you can't produce enough food to feed all the people that live there.They literally do not have enough food to eat.But fuck 'em, right? They're just stupid for eating whatever they can find rather than starving to death. Stupid africans... can't they get anything right?Amirite guys! Yeah!

As we all know, people choose to be homeless in the US because they prefer the fresh air and also prefer the taste of 3 day old garbage to fresh produce.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Overreact much?Bushmeat handling/consumption is clearly a problem. It has led to epidemic diseases in the human population.Do you oppose any and all regulation on the 'grounds' that there are people who depend on bushmeat for protein?Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

Nope, that was exactly the correct amount of reaction.But I suppose I can't expect you to stand by your vile attitude and face the reactions it deserves.Now run away and pretend like this didn't happen.

You want us to believe that there is a big difference between hunting game in the US and bushmeat consumption in West Africa. If you didn't want to support this claim, then you shouldn't have made it.

Message 26 was the first post that mentioned U.S. hunting together with bushmeat consumption; it was a post by you implying the practices were similar.If you didn't want to back up your claim that the practices were similar, you shouldn't have brought hunting in the U.S. into the topic (it's certainly not relevant).I'm under no obligation to simply accept as true any nonsense you throw into the debate. Also, telling you that I don't think you're right and asking you to prove your nonsense does not constitute a unique claim.If you want to back off from your initial statement implying a similarity, then I am prepared to drop the entire topic of how similar/dissimilar the practices are.