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Wild monkeys with killer herpes are breeding like crazy in Florida
- ntumlin 8y agoDon't take this as me wanting it to happen, but what would it take for the decision to be made to kill these monkeys, and who would make it? Is there a state or federal agency that's ever determined an animal to be a threat to people in an area to the degree that they then tried to wipe it out? Does it matter that the monkeys got put here because some company thought tourists would like them?
- pm90 8y agoLikely the CDC. Wonder why they haven't already acted on this.
- psychoknot 8y agoUnfortunately people caught on to what we were doing after Michael Brown, so probably not
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- zafka 8y agoI would be more inclined to fund a vaccination program if possible.
- FreeFull 8y agoThere is no herpes vaccine. It's hard to develop one, due to the way the virus evades the immune system.
- yakshaving_jgt 8y agoThere are a few promising technologies in the works though. The helicase-primase inhibitor Pritelivir is more effective than Acyclovir and related nucleoside analogues. It is also understood that the efficacy of both drugs accumulates. A few labs are working on CRISPR therapeutics for HSV, most notably Keith Jerome's work at Fred Hutch. Another company, Phylogica, are taking a different approach. I'm not exactly sure of the mechanism. https://phylogica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/181206_In-vivo-success-peptide-vaccine_1880059.pdf https://phylogica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/181206_In-v... n.b. If anyone here suffers from HSV (statistically, many of you do), consider ordering Pritelivir from Japan. It is marketed under the brand Amenalief, and it's for a different strain of HSV so you would be taking it off-label. Usual disclaimers apply; I'm neither a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor responsible for what you do.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 8y agoI'd pay a pretty penny for a cure, or total suppression of transmission. It's not life altering in any way besides the fact that HSV2 has such a strong stigma in the US and tends to turn away a non insignificant number of romantic partners. From a health perspective, I had a rash once in my life and basically entirely forgot about even having it (outside of taking 800mg of Acyclovir every day), but from a social perspective, it adds a 50-70% chance that someone will turn you down. Dating is non-trivial already, adding another 2/3 dropoff to your dating life is no joke. On the plus side, it was nice to see a show like Adam Ruins Everything cover the issue to try to dispel some of the stigma, but I suspect that it will not be addressed within my lifetime. Additionally, in the state of California it's a well known way to shake down people of wealth. I always disclose my status before getting intimate, as required by law, but I also need to make sure that I have your consent somewhere in writing. Otherwise later you can claim that you were never told, you got the virus, and it's my fault, and now you're entitled to restitutions for the stress and damages to your lifestyle. It becomes a he said vs she said and practically a coin toss that decides if you are to part ways with anything between $100k to a few million. You always think "Is this person going to be the one who decides to use me to make a buck?". My legal counsel always advises that a new partner send me an email consenting to the risks she would be exposing herself to by engaging in intercourse. If that's not romance at its finest, I don't know what is.
- honkycat 8y agoIMO this is the most pragmatic solution. Why keep around an invasive species that carries a deadly virus?
- will_brown 8y agoBecause the solution is typically implemented with a bounty program which is known to result in the intentional release of more of the invasive species to collect more rewards.
- jessaustin 8y agoThat scenario might have happened with e.g. "wild" hogs, but where are the fraudsters going to get a bunch of non-native monkeys? They aren't available at the local livestock auction...
- jobigoud 8y agoSame. Capture a few and have them breed and collect the reward for the offsprings.
- jessaustin 8y agoHow many Floridians would hear about wild animals with horrible deadly diseases and think "I need to start breeding these in my basement"?
- theandrewbailey 8y agoA lot, actually. Florida has lots of old people, rednecks, and drug addicts.
- will_brown 8y agoFlorida is the gateway to the America’s. It’s how all these invasive species got here in the first place. People breed alligators in their bathtubs, release giant pythons. Maybe they don’t need to breed the moneys but do things to support their population growth (kill predators if any, leave food, etc...) or they can breed monkey without the disease. The invasive monkeys did get here and released in the first place after all.
- Nordo 8y agoI certainly would want it to happen if I lived there. I like all sorts of wildlife, but introducing invasive species is not something to be taken lightly. Perhaps it's something for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to consider? They seem to be the one in charge of Burmese Python control in the Everglades.
- userbinator 8y agoThe US has laws that essentially "unprotect" certain invasive species and encourage the hunting of them. Unfortunately, infected monkeys aren't really useful for anything.
- will_brown 8y ago>Is there a state or federal agency that's ever determined an animal to be a threat to people in an area to the degree that they then tried to wipe it out? In Florida alone that has happened with pythons in the everglades and lionfish in Florida oceans (at least south Florida). Edit: and African snails. And in a roundabout way mosquitos, but of the lot are not invasive to Florida.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- driverdan 8y agoNon-blogspam source: https://www.wftv.com/news/local/wild-monkeys-with-herpes-in-central-florida-population-on-the-verge-of-doubling/898061214 https://www.wftv.com/news/local/wild-monkeys-with-herpes-in-...
- fludlight 8y agoThat site may not be blogspam, but it is definitely some sort of spam. Sadly, this is par for the course: almost all news sites are absolute garbage these days. Worse, they are trapped in a death spiral that forces them to be more spammy each passing day.
- Justin_K 8y agoDo you work for that station? Your source has two ads and a request to send notifications before the fold.
- driverdan 8y agoUse uBlock Origin to make your life better and eliminate ads. It's the source cited in Ars' article. They added nothing to it.
- gbrown 8y agoYou think Arstechnica is spam?? They do some great science reporting.
- slcjordan 8y agoI remember reading "Summer of the Monkeys" in elementary school. I guess I didn't understand the level of foreshadowing in that book.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoArt imitates life or is it life imitates art.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- umsure201 8y agohttps://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cut_off_florida.gif https://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cut_o...
- ams6110 8y ago"Wild Monkeys With Killer Herpes" is the name of my next movie. Or band.
- 0x8BADF00D 8y agoThey should quit monkeying around so much. ;)
- droopyEyelids 8y agoCurious to learn more about this herpes variant? Check out wiki, which has links to some papers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_B_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_B_virus
- daveslash 8y agoI might be excessively critical, but I don't like these two sentences in the article: - "... a type of herpes lethal to humans." - "But in humans, McHV-1 can cause a flu-like illness that can progress..." I'm not clear -- is this always lethal (as I understand the first sentence to be) or is there some survival rate (as I understand the second sentence to be). I haven't yet found any clarification on McHV-1 online yet -- anyone know? [edit: formatting]
- yakshaving_jgt 8y ago80% mortality rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_B_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_B_virus
- ethbro 8y agoVery few things are always lethal. Or always safe. For context, the current Ebola Zaire outbreak in northeast DRC has about 60% mortality.
- deadfall 8y agoI'm actually from that area and recently been back to take the glass bottom boat tour. The monkey's are pretty illusive and usually stay away from humans and live in the Silver Springs state park, which is next to the Ocala national forest (second largest nationally protected forest in the US). I remember the guide telling us only a few people have died from contact. In those cases were reseacher/scientist that had been studying the monkeys and had been urinated on (in the face in one case). The monkey's do bring tourist dollars to a pretty poor economic area.
- newnewpdro 8y agonit: elusive
- eschulz 8y ago*second largest national forest in Florida.
- SeriousM 8y agoSo the zombie apocalypse could be real?
- ohiovr 8y agoThey weren’t infected by the rage virus
- herogreen 8y agoIf you want to learn more about viruses and (some) of their roles in evolution of species, I recommend you the book "Virolution". (Thanks to the HN commenter that suggested it in a comment I read months ago). This article is an example of one case that the book mention: two species that have diverged recently can "compete" using viruses.
- kevmo 8y agoI live about a mile away from the area where these monkeys like to hang out and go kayaking in Silver River State Park. I always immediately head the other way if I see them. Everyone who frequents the area is warned to avoid them. The guy who introduced them to the area put them on an island in the middle of Silver River, and they swam away the first day.
- ChuckMcM 8y agoIt will be interesting to see how they fare against the pythons[1]. [1] In a new study, researchers found that the voracious appetite of the Burmese python can outpace even the reproductive speed of the marsh rabbit, a small brown bunny that seems to have disappeared from the Everglades National Park. -- https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-invasive-pythons-eat-rabbits-florida-everglades-20150317-story.html https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-invasiv...
- tracker1 8y agoWhile completely off topic, for some reason in the back of my mind, I had the thought... "just wait until they can talk and develop tools," weak reference to Planet of The Apes.
- HirojaShibe 8y agoflorida is going to be the death of us all.