Bird Flu

[michaeledward]

Step right up, folks. To raise the fear level to Orange Alert, be sure to watch tonight ...

Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America

http://abc.go.com/movies/birdflu.html

There are times that test humanity and challenge the soul of a community or a nation. News images and headlines tell stories of rising waters, quaking ground and tragic acts by man himself. But the real story, the human story, is found in the lives changed forever, in the strength of the survivors, and the resilient hope that gives them the courage to recover.

Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America follows an outbreak of an Avian Flu from its origins in a Hong Kong market through its mutation into a virus transmittable from human to human around the world. The meticulously researched film stars Joely Richardson, Stacy Keach, Ann Cusack, Justina Machado, Scott Cohen and David Ramsey.

Sounds like a fun night in Wonkaland....

 

[Don Roley]

Sounds like a fun night in Wonkaland....

People have died from this. Kids have died from this. Small children whose only sin was to have chickens that got infected.

I know you don't like anything the president does. I realize you take the chance to attack him every chance you get. I may even agree that this independent media source is building up a story.

But after reading an account of the last few hours of a child dying of bird flu, seeing you make fun of the threat really rubs me the wrong way.

Please try to refrain in the future.

 

[michaeledward]

People have died from this. Kids have died from this. Small children whose only sin was to have chickens that got infected.

I know you don't like anything the president does. I realize you take the chance to attack him every chance you get. I may even agree that this independent media source is building up a story.

But after reading an account of the last few hours of a child dying of bird flu, seeing you make fun of the threat really rubs me the wrong way.

Please try to refrain in the future.

How many people have died from this bird flu? Specifically? Over how much time? Would you care to make some comparisons to any other diseases? All deaths are tragic. But how about reading about the last hours of a child dying of dissentary ... how tragic is that?

Answers to rhetorical questions

• Since 2003, The WHO states 114 people have died from Bird Flu
• Since 2003, the CDC statistics demonstrate that 6 million have died from Diarrheal diseases.

I guess it goes to show ... one death is a tragedy, a million, a statistic.

How much money is the Walt Disney Company going to make off of this fear mongering made for TV movie?

If my observations rub you the wrong way, please feel free to add me to your Ignore List.

 

[7starmantis]

Ok, lets try and keep some sense of politeness (is that a word?) in here.
While everyone has there own opinions about issues like this, comparing one disease to a group of diseases and comparing a disease that is not currently contagious (on the human level) to those that are is not any way to make a solid point. The discussion about Bird Flu is really all about what it can, might, could, or will do; not what is has done already or is currently doing. I thought we all understood that.

7sm

 

[michaeledward]

It was almost a year ago that I heard the President give an eloquent, articulate, and informed answer to a complex question about the H5N1 Bird Flu virus.

Yesterday, the President could not complete a sentence in the English language when talking about the war in Iraq and the North Korean test detonation of an assumed nuclear weapon. He did say some nice things about the clothing a couple of reporters were wearing.

The Presidents inarticulateness yesterday was so bad, that the Mike Barnicle show on WTKK did not broadcast the entire press conference. This is the same station upon which I heard the complete Press Conference and Bird Flu question last year at this time.

I post this here, now, because, aren't we all supposed to be quarrantined from the deadly Bird Flu by now? And, why was he so articulate on that obscure subject a year ago, and unable to address coherently, the reality of the current situation in foreign policy?

Things that make you go, Hmmm?

 

[michaeledward]

The President just addressed the Bird Flu and the United States plan for a possible pandemic. He is requesting 1.2 billion dollars for vaccine to protect some 20 million Americans (presumably Health Care Workers and Republican Donors).

I think this is a scare tactic. The 'Terrorist Threat Alert' moving up and down is no longer working. We need a new bogey-man to keep us afraid. The President has suggested that an outbreak of Bird Flu could require the military to put in place a quarrantine.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22590623/

So, today, we hear the fears of a bird flu pandemic were 'overblown', the risks were 'overstated.

Vallat said the H5N1 virus has proved extremely stable, despite concerns that it could mutate into a form that could spread easily among humans.

"We have never seen such a stable strain," Vallat said.

He said concerns a few years ago that a flu pandemic from H5N1 might be imminent lacked scientific proof.

"It was just nonscientific supposition," he told reporters.

Hmmm ...

 

[Shuto]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22590623/

So, today, we hear the fears of a bird flu pandemic were 'overblown', the risks were 'overstated.



Hmmm ...

Is the threat overblown based upon what we know today or what we knew two years ago? Did they know then that it was an unusually stable strain or is that more recent knowledge?

 

[michaeledward]

Is the threat overblown based upon what we know today or what we knew two years ago? Did they know then that it was an unusually stable strain or is that more recent knowledge?

I think with the quote I included, we knew at least that we didn't know.

"It was just nonscientific supposition," he told reporters.

It is one thing to say 'we don't know if the sky is falling' ... and quite another to say 'the sky is falling'. And I think the language of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as well as the financial allocations by the President, put them squarely in the latter group.

 

[Shuto]

I think with the quote I included, we knew at least that we didn't know.

"It was just nonscientific supposition," he told reporters.

It is one thing to say 'we don't know if the sky is falling' ... and quite another to say 'the sky is falling'. And I think the language of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as well as the financial allocations by the President, put them squarely in the latter group.

True, but if flu viruses normally mutate at a higher rate then the likelyhood of a lethal mutation increases and the warning isn't as overblown.

If they said 'the sky might be falling' they would most likely have been ignored. In retrospect, that may have been a good thing. But if the viruses turned out to be less stable and it mutated so that it could easily pass between humans then a well qualified and ignored warning would not have been a good thing.

I am no flu expert, but there sure were a lot of experts who thought this was a real threat at the time. To criticize past decisions based upon new knowledge and understanding is just as wrong as knowingly overstating a threat.