LONG BEACH, CA--(Marketwired - May 18, 2013) - AvianFluTalk.com, an online discussion forum created in 2005 to track the potential threat of an avian flu pandemic, has been the venue for a serious discussion regarding the new SARS-like coronavirus infecting patients at a New York Hospital leaving several in critical condition and resulting in 3 deaths.It goes on to summarize the original Marketwired report, but Marketwired is just a news-release agency, not a news source, and the contact information takes us right back to AvianFluTalk.com. The only other website to pick up the story is Before It's News, which is barely operating in this space-time continuum (today's top story: NASA Curiosity find Nazi helmet on Mars).
Full disclosure: I dislike a site on first sight when, like AvianFluTalk.com, it runs white text clear across the screen on a black background. That instantly says something about the authors' lack of concern for their readers, since such a layout make it dramatically harder to read and understand what's on the screen.
That apart, I would grudgingly respect the content if it were adequately sourced and included confirmable sources. AvianFluTalk.com's sources are some guy on YouTube whose sister-in-law is a nurse. What's more, the thread began on May 12 and carried over until the early hours of May 13 before apparently dying out—until revived by the Marketwired news release and the Wall Street Journal.
What's more, the hospital in question is St. Luke's, not far downtown from the campus of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons—and Dr. Vincent Racaniello, who would be among the first to hear of MERS on his own turf.
What's even more, imagine a mob of New Yorkers, of all people, shutting up over something like a dangerous new virus—not just the nursing staff, but the doctors and support staff, not to mention the families of the supposed MERS cases. If they're tweeting real H7N9 on weibo in China, rest assured that a lot of people would be tweeting real New York MERS on Twitter.
So I remain profoundly unconvinced by these rumours. If you do give them some credence, however, I will not try to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. No doubt you already hold the deed to it, and many other bridges as well.
