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China needs to crackdown on the ridiculous open air weird animal markets, and have people stop sleeping with their goddamned poultry. Seafood, fine -- no one's

China needs to crackdown on the ridiculous open air weird animal markets, and have people stop sleeping with their goddamned poultry. Seafood, fine -- no one's breathing in fish feces, getting some squid diseases. But birds, reptiles, weird shit like that running around contaminating the air people are breathing. I've seen it firsthand. Please, enough already. It's demonstrably hurting their own interests at this point, after 3 recent outbreaks of world news-worthy diseases originating in such circumstances.

MeltySmelty 7y ago
it's basically a 3rd world country in most areas. good luck.
tanilama 7y ago
This. But seriously, you can't stop individual eating weird stuff. This might be more like a cultural issue. Somehow some people still believe eating wild exotic animal strengthen their body.
- JshWright 7y ago
  Eating isn't the issue, and it's not the "exotic" animals that are generally the issue. It's the widespread exposure to large populations of animals that act as reservoirs for these viruses (where they can run through many, many generations very quickly and spread once a variant that is transmissible to humans pops up)
  - tanilama 7y ago
    I would argue it is the eating that creates a market and incentive for such encounter to happen in the first place.
    - JshWright 7y ago
      The previous Coronavirus (SARS) to come out of China was traced back to wild bats (that were not being sold in markets). It remains to be determined where 2019-nCoV originated. Most of the diseases that come out of China and spread to any great extent are avian or swine flus, which originate in chickens and pigs on massive, largely unregulated, farms.
      - S_AU 7y ago
        I think when you compare the scale and scope of SARS with the WNV, I think there should be slightly less finger pointing. The US, North America and Europe are not immune to sharing their viruses globally. Lets not pretend 'the west' has the problem of virus control sorted. It starting there less often because there are less wild and animals around.
        JshWright 7y ago
        Oh absolutely. I don't necessarily agree with the top level comment (or at least I think it's incomplete, as you've described).
- baybal2 7y ago
  Worse, a double digit chunk of population in China not only doesn't believe in Western medicine, but Western medical science as such, like really not believing in microbes... Unlike the popular notion, it's not only the "cultural revolution generation" of 60+ people. The amount of weird people believing in all kinds of cults, antivaxing, and trying treating cancers with yoga and unicorn poo peak in people in their forties. China is a picture of society where the type of loonies like "new agers" have won. TCM now gets peddled from Chinese state TV, just like a certain yoga practice was 20 years ago. When it will pass the boiling point, I feel TCM peddlers will get steamrolled just like them, but that's not gonna happen while Xi is standing in for it. Yes, Xi believes in TCM
  - vanadium 7y ago
    TCM, I assume, means Traditional Chinese Medicine.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    I am not surprised that traditional Chinese medicine gets advertised in China. I would be very surprised if they started advertising traditional Indian medicine there though.
    - baybal2 7y ago
      The thing is it has never been in that position to begin with. Out of hand quackery is a relatively new phenomenon. Even just 20 years ago, "TCM" was still considered something only lunatical old people do. But then China opened, and new wave of weird novelties deluged the society: "new age" cults, antivaxers, hipsters, gurus, psychodelics, psychics, antiscience and other stuff like that. The contemporary brand of quackery has gotten into mainland China from... Hongkong out of all places. Back in times when just anything Honkongese was considered super cool in the mainland, quack pharmacies that were treated like jokes in HK somehow managed to slip in, and became the new fascination of Chinese nouveau riche, and a token sign for their "sophistication" And then over the time, it turned to out into what it is now, now being believed in quite seriously
    - hnick 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
forkLding 7y ago
This sounds like a first-world comment, those open-air markets form because the merchants are subsistence farmers or people living outside the city without a lot of money and have to travel into the city. The farming in China isn't as industrialized or corporatized as in America and you will encounter poorer farmers or small traders who basically sell at these markets without having to spend a lot of money for rent because it isn't a high-margin business. Think farmers' market but filled with poor farmers. These merchants aren't forming open-air markets for fun, it's because they have to. If you force them out, then you will end up destroying poor people's lives. The food and grocery companies in China who are selling in supermarkets are already in the supermarkets. EDIT: I dislike eating 'exotic' meats and discourage the practice, however there's a fine line when you enforce the ban live animal market policy. Note that it has been enacted in Wuhan when the disease started. I also support stronger regulations and animal protections on these live animal markets and am not deflecting blame from these live animal markets but straight-up banning is not the right solution.
- whalesalad 7y ago
  At some point it’s the job of the government to protect people when they can’t protect themselves. Live and let live is fine until your actions are causing people to die all over the world due to completely new, evolved and deadly viruses. All the brutal shit starts in places like this where humans and animals are mixing in dirty environments and freak meetings literally birth a destructive new threat instantly. So on one hand you can interpret this as a “first world comment” but on the other hand you need to acknowledge that this level of negligence is no longer limited and isolated in scope to one tiny part of the world. It goes global overnight. There is absolutely no excuse for that.
  - forkLding 7y ago
    It's about tradeoffs, if you ban live animal markets all over China for long periods of time, you will instantly cause far greater destruction on peoples' daily lives in China as people will suffer from poverty. There's probably millions of people going to go hungry because they lost their source of income and poor farmers in China don't have that much social mobility to get another job.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
infinity0 7y ago
ITT: hypocrites talking shit about TCM, which is fair enough, but then making non-scientific assertions about how eating "weird" stuff - presumably, organs & animals they don't normally eat - causes diseases. PROTIP: it's actually microbes & other unsanitary conditions, and you can perfectly make "weird" stuff clean (& tasty). Go read a book, lol. Apparently TCM is quite popular in Switzerland, I have no idea why...
oiasdjfoiasd 7y ago
Jesus, the ignorance and naivety of this comment lmao. Have you ever left your home?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
anon463637 7y ago
Although true, Western meat agriculture isn't similar but different: zillions of animals, stacked one on the other and humans going in to clean up after them getting all that waste all over them. Either way, it's a bioreactor for evolving a pandemic. This is likely how we acquired many horrible persistent diseases: smallpox, avian flu, influenza, measles and many more.

MeltySmelty 7y ago

it's basically a 3rd world country in most areas. good luck.

tanilama 7y ago

This. But seriously, you can't stop individual eating weird stuff. This might be more like a cultural issue. Somehow some people still believe eating wild exotic animal strengthen their body.

JshWright 7y ago
Eating isn't the issue, and it's not the "exotic" animals that are generally the issue. It's the widespread exposure to large populations of animals that act as reservoirs for these viruses (where they can run through many, many generations very quickly and spread once a variant that is transmissible to humans pops up)
- tanilama 7y ago
  I would argue it is the eating that creates a market and incentive for such encounter to happen in the first place.
  - JshWright 7y ago
    The previous Coronavirus (SARS) to come out of China was traced back to wild bats (that were not being sold in markets). It remains to be determined where 2019-nCoV originated. Most of the diseases that come out of China and spread to any great extent are avian or swine flus, which originate in chickens and pigs on massive, largely unregulated, farms.
    - S_AU 7y ago
      I think when you compare the scale and scope of SARS with the WNV, I think there should be slightly less finger pointing. The US, North America and Europe are not immune to sharing their viruses globally. Lets not pretend 'the west' has the problem of virus control sorted. It starting there less often because there are less wild and animals around.
      - JshWright 7y ago
        Oh absolutely. I don't necessarily agree with the top level comment (or at least I think it's incomplete, as you've described).
baybal2 7y ago
Worse, a double digit chunk of population in China not only doesn't believe in Western medicine, but Western medical science as such, like really not believing in microbes... Unlike the popular notion, it's not only the "cultural revolution generation" of 60+ people. The amount of weird people believing in all kinds of cults, antivaxing, and trying treating cancers with yoga and unicorn poo peak in people in their forties. China is a picture of society where the type of loonies like "new agers" have won. TCM now gets peddled from Chinese state TV, just like a certain yoga practice was 20 years ago. When it will pass the boiling point, I feel TCM peddlers will get steamrolled just like them, but that's not gonna happen while Xi is standing in for it. Yes, Xi believes in TCM
- vanadium 7y ago
  TCM, I assume, means Traditional Chinese Medicine.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  I am not surprised that traditional Chinese medicine gets advertised in China. I would be very surprised if they started advertising traditional Indian medicine there though.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    The thing is it has never been in that position to begin with. Out of hand quackery is a relatively new phenomenon. Even just 20 years ago, "TCM" was still considered something only lunatical old people do. But then China opened, and new wave of weird novelties deluged the society: "new age" cults, antivaxers, hipsters, gurus, psychodelics, psychics, antiscience and other stuff like that. The contemporary brand of quackery has gotten into mainland China from... Hongkong out of all places. Back in times when just anything Honkongese was considered super cool in the mainland, quack pharmacies that were treated like jokes in HK somehow managed to slip in, and became the new fascination of Chinese nouveau riche, and a token sign for their "sophistication" And then over the time, it turned to out into what it is now, now being believed in quite seriously
  - hnick 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

forkLding 7y ago

This sounds like a first-world comment, those open-air markets form because the merchants are subsistence farmers or people living outside the city without a lot of money and have to travel into the city. The farming in China isn't as industrialized or corporatized as in America and you will encounter poorer farmers or small traders who basically sell at these markets without having to spend a lot of money for rent because it isn't a high-margin business. Think farmers' market but filled with poor farmers. These merchants aren't forming open-air markets for fun, it's because they have to. If you force them out, then you will end up destroying poor people's lives. The food and grocery companies in China who are selling in supermarkets are already in the supermarkets. EDIT: I dislike eating 'exotic' meats and discourage the practice, however there's a fine line when you enforce the ban live animal market policy. Note that it has been enacted in Wuhan when the disease started. I also support stronger regulations and animal protections on these live animal markets and am not deflecting blame from these live animal markets but straight-up banning is not the right solution.

whalesalad 7y ago
At some point it’s the job of the government to protect people when they can’t protect themselves. Live and let live is fine until your actions are causing people to die all over the world due to completely new, evolved and deadly viruses. All the brutal shit starts in places like this where humans and animals are mixing in dirty environments and freak meetings literally birth a destructive new threat instantly. So on one hand you can interpret this as a “first world comment” but on the other hand you need to acknowledge that this level of negligence is no longer limited and isolated in scope to one tiny part of the world. It goes global overnight. There is absolutely no excuse for that.
- forkLding 7y ago
  It's about tradeoffs, if you ban live animal markets all over China for long periods of time, you will instantly cause far greater destruction on peoples' daily lives in China as people will suffer from poverty. There's probably millions of people going to go hungry because they lost their source of income and poor farmers in China don't have that much social mobility to get another job.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

infinity0 7y ago

ITT: hypocrites talking shit about TCM, which is fair enough, but then making non-scientific assertions about how eating "weird" stuff - presumably, organs & animals they don't normally eat - causes diseases. PROTIP: it's actually microbes & other unsanitary conditions, and you can perfectly make "weird" stuff clean (& tasty). Go read a book, lol. Apparently TCM is quite popular in Switzerland, I have no idea why...

oiasdjfoiasd 7y ago

Jesus, the ignorance and naivety of this comment lmao. Have you ever left your home?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

anon463637 7y ago

Although true, Western meat agriculture isn't similar but different: zillions of animals, stacked one on the other and humans going in to clean up after them getting all that waste all over them. Either way, it's a bioreactor for evolving a pandemic. This is likely how we acquired many horrible persistent diseases: smallpox, avian flu, influenza, measles and many more.