In Cecil Adams’s column on the harvesting of perfume goo and pre-eaten coffee beans from civet animals, Cecil says the perfume civet and the coffee civet are two different species, probably one more jumpy than the other. Recently, though, virus-chasers have found civets that carried the SARS virus. Up to now, we don’t know how the virus jumped from animals to humans. Could it be that the civet-poop coffee is the link? Somebody has to harvest the coffee:eek: and perhaps the brief exposure to hot water is not enough to kill the virus before the consumer drinks it.
Yike. Somebody take over from here. I’ve got a case of the heeby-jeebies.:eek:
Be at ease, AskNott, be at ease. Should you be a concerned exotic-coffee drinker, know that the link of civets with SARS is theorised because the animal is eaten, not waited upon for the bowel motion.
The first time I posted this thread I had the column link in it. However, it disappeared without a trace, leaving me with a “can’t display that page” message. Then I had to shut down for the thunderstorm, and I guess I missed the link the second time through. Thanks, samclem, for supplying the column. Thank you, Ice Wolf, for showing the link to the news story. I’m still wondering about the consumers of perfume and hyper-expensive coffee (ick), but I guess the SARS-to-civet-eaters link has been recognized. It’s a good thing that “eating pussy” is a figure of speech outside of Guangdong.
Not directly though. It’s theorised that it spreads betwen civets and humans the same way it spreads within humans: body fluids including faeces and repirtory tract fluid (ie sneezing).
As that link says: “isolated coronavirus from the faeces and respiratory secretions of a species called the masked palm civet”.
People caught the disease by handling the animals they were raising ot eat, not by eating them. This is the same way that influenza is spread between ducks and people. Eating is not necessary.
Now given that the virus can be found in the faeces, I’m not sure the fear is so totally ludicrous. Of course AFAIK there have been no SARS cases in Indonesia, so there’s no need to worry yet.
The coffee beans are roasted before being sold, too. I doubt that the virus would survive that process.
Also, it appears to be a different species of civet. Kopi Luwak is the product of beans, err, “enhanced” by Paradoxurus hermaphroditus, as opposed to Paguma larvata, the civet in the article - although their ranges apparently overlap, and they are very similar animals.
Some part of me wants to be rather nastily amused at the thought that people who pay ridiculous sums for coffee beans picked out of civet shit should come down with a disease of some kind for their pretensions. Trouble is, they’d give it to everybody else, of course.
