A few Bird Flu facts. Not time to panic, but... [View All]

[smoogatz]

My brother's an epidemiologist. My in-laws are both physicians. None of them have an agenda--no grant-funded flu studies to promote, no political axes to grind, no desire to distract the public or the media from Bushco's troubles. They're worried about avian flu. Not losing sleep, yet, but definitely concerned. My brother--a very smart guy--explained to me that this strain of avian flu is a very close relative of the 1918 Spanish flu, an extremely nasty bug that killed 675,000 Americans. He says that the odds are very good that the current bug will mutate in such a way that it can be transmitted from human to human--probably in a matter of months, rather than years. In densely populated areas, a mutated flu would move very quickly from person to person, and kill within a matter of days. Old people and children would be especially vulnerable. My in-laws tell us that, at the moment, treatment options are very limited. Roche is working on a vaccine, but it will be at least a year, most likely, before a safe version is available, and who knows how long before there are enough doses to vaccinate every American. Some antivirals may be effective--but again, the number of available doses is extremely limited.

On edit, I've been asked by Stephanie to include the following: I posted this originally because I'm a bit troubled by the proliferation of "Bird flu is a Bushco scam (or plot)" posts--the problem's not going to go away just because we pretend it's a hoax. What we can do is put pressure on the government to force the big pharma companies to share information about promising vaccines, and when one is developed, to waive exclusive manufacturing and distribution rights. It's crazy that information that could save millions of lives is proprietary.