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> This is a direct consequence of their agricultural practices Sorry, but you seem very certain of this claim, and I don't see evidence to back it up. Please

> This is a direct consequence of their agricultural practices Sorry, but you seem very certain of this claim, and I don't see evidence to back it up. Please point us to evidence that Chinese agricultural practices are directly responsible for pandemic viruses. If anything, the common agricultural practices of over-using antibiotic, which the both the US and China engages in, is what most scientific studies have pointed to sources of public health concerns because they can breed super germs. Point us to evidence of practice unique to Chinese agriculture that's causing pandemics. It is concerning when an audience that's supposed to be fact-based like Hackernews is circulating this type of uninformed "cultural shaming". Please exercise evidence-based reasoning, and exemplify the values of Hacker News community when you feel the urge to cast broad judgment about an entire cultural system. I'm not here to defend the Chinese agricultural system specifically, but I'm happy to stand up and call out this kind of nonsense whenever and wherever it pops up, may it be directed toward an Asian culture or Western one.

FpUser 7y ago
I suspect it wont be long before someone calls your post whataboutism. I relatively recently discovered HN and originally had high hopes bot those quickly evaporated. It looks to me that "exercise evidence-based reasoning" and HN are 2 things that do not have much in common. And the system of downvotiong does not make it any better.
thu2111 7y ago
There have been a lot of papers and investigations that suggested a link to wet markets for this and prior pandemics of respiratory diseases. Here's a paper from 2004: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673603153299 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067360... "Wet markets—a continuing source of severe acute respiratory syndrome and influenza?" Not many parts of the world have this practice and the places that do have nasty viruses.
- skoutus 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing that particular report. There's a couple of things worth pointing out. 1. This report is also strangely claiming that the H1N1 swine flu most likely "came from a frozen source and a laboratory seems the most probable culprit", a claim that both the WHO and CDC refuted. This raises a red flag for me. 2. I appreciate you sharing the article, and I want to read it critically. Unfortuantely this article does not provide any hard evidence (from tests or physical analysis) showing a clear direct link between SARS and wet-market. It doesn't even have a methodology section, so I'm not sure why it's in a scientific publication. I'm guessing this is a paper that tried to summarize current findings, but the best evidence this paper can give is this: "The host range of SARS coronaviruses in wild or farm-raised animals is not resolved. Yi Guan and colleagues14 recently established a potential zoonotic origin of SARS coronavirus (CoV) and wet markets as a possible source of the original outbreak." In other words, they think it could from wet-markets but they don't even know the transmission vector. Where's the hard science to back up the provocative title that "wet market is a continuing source of severe acute respiratory syndrome and influenza"? I guess putting a question mark in the title lowers the burden of proof for the author. 3. I do take one point from this study seriously: The butchering process of animals should be regulated. When animals are butchered at an industrial scale in factories, health inspectors can easily check the butchering process. But when they are done at very small scale in smaller wet-markets, it is very difficult to inspect them. This is a rightful public health concern, whether or not it is the source of influenza. 4. Actually, the US and Europe still have wet markets, and the public seem to love them. They're called fish markets, where fishermen sell their daily catch directly to consumers. They'll cut and clean the animals right in front of customers. To be clear, they have tighter regulation than the wet markets we see in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, but they are exactly the the same kind of markets: they allow farmers and fishermen to sell directly to consumers in small daily batches, which can include butchering services.
  - thu2111 7y ago
    Good analysis, thanks. My confidence in that conclusion is now lower.

FpUser 7y ago

I suspect it wont be long before someone calls your post whataboutism. I relatively recently discovered HN and originally had high hopes bot those quickly evaporated. It looks to me that "exercise evidence-based reasoning" and HN are 2 things that do not have much in common. And the system of downvotiong does not make it any better.

thu2111 7y ago

There have been a lot of papers and investigations that suggested a link to wet markets for this and prior pandemics of respiratory diseases. Here's a paper from 2004: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673603153299 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067360... "Wet markets—a continuing source of severe acute respiratory syndrome and influenza?" Not many parts of the world have this practice and the places that do have nasty viruses.

skoutus 7y ago
Thanks for sharing that particular report. There's a couple of things worth pointing out. 1. This report is also strangely claiming that the H1N1 swine flu most likely "came from a frozen source and a laboratory seems the most probable culprit", a claim that both the WHO and CDC refuted. This raises a red flag for me. 2. I appreciate you sharing the article, and I want to read it critically. Unfortuantely this article does not provide any hard evidence (from tests or physical analysis) showing a clear direct link between SARS and wet-market. It doesn't even have a methodology section, so I'm not sure why it's in a scientific publication. I'm guessing this is a paper that tried to summarize current findings, but the best evidence this paper can give is this: "The host range of SARS coronaviruses in wild or farm-raised animals is not resolved. Yi Guan and colleagues14 recently established a potential zoonotic origin of SARS coronavirus (CoV) and wet markets as a possible source of the original outbreak." In other words, they think it could from wet-markets but they don't even know the transmission vector. Where's the hard science to back up the provocative title that "wet market is a continuing source of severe acute respiratory syndrome and influenza"? I guess putting a question mark in the title lowers the burden of proof for the author. 3. I do take one point from this study seriously: The butchering process of animals should be regulated. When animals are butchered at an industrial scale in factories, health inspectors can easily check the butchering process. But when they are done at very small scale in smaller wet-markets, it is very difficult to inspect them. This is a rightful public health concern, whether or not it is the source of influenza. 4. Actually, the US and Europe still have wet markets, and the public seem to love them. They're called fish markets, where fishermen sell their daily catch directly to consumers. They'll cut and clean the animals right in front of customers. To be clear, they have tighter regulation than the wet markets we see in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, but they are exactly the the same kind of markets: they allow farmers and fishermen to sell directly to consumers in small daily batches, which can include butchering services.
- thu2111 7y ago
  Good analysis, thanks. My confidence in that conclusion is now lower.