Comments on: A bird flu resource guide

We could be just a mutation away from a deadly superflu, but many questions remain. Here's a reality check.

[Bob_Barker]

Quack.

Oh noes it's teh bird flu! I think this is being blown out of proportion. Why does everything have to be a "global threat" ready to kill us all? Wasn't SARS supposed to kill us all too? Weren't WMD's supposed to kill us all? Let's go live in a bunker the rest of our lives. Sensationalism plain and simple.

[heystoopid]

Blindsided !

We are being blindsided by a faulty science which is totally supported by greedy drug companies, looking for even more ways to extort money, from the mass media stampeded public on the latest fad fear, of media creation to masquerade as news. Let the propaganda continue unabated!

[shoffmueller]

They'll be the ones to save us, those greedy drug companies

in the end, it will be the drug companies who save millions (billions) of people, as they have done for decades. If you think they're too greedy, stop taking your pills.

[Kostagh]

Definitely out of proportion!

Mutation can occur both ways.
If I remember well from my university days, a virus or bacteria that kills its host dies with it. So it's not the unadapted virus that survives. More than 99% of all viruses and bacteria existing on Earth are not only non-lethal but some even usefull (such as those helping our digestive system).
When it was first brought to Europe by the conquistadors, siphilis was a violent disease killing in a matter of days. In time, the bacteria and the human have adapted to each other. So was the chickenpox or smallpox to the indians.
Adaptation and mutation occurs (it is said!) accidentally but only those "mutants" that are better adapted to the environment survive. And adaptation definitely means letting your host survive and prosper so that you can prosper with it!
I believe it's just one huge hoax! The chances of this virus becoming harmless are AT LEAST as large as those of it becoming lethal. So... why all the histeria?! After all, common, usual human influenza STILL kills each year MORE people than the bird flu virus has killed so far. So is AIDS. Cancer. Smoking. Traffic accidents. Airplane crashes. Domestic accidents.
We're definitely over reacting! Bird flu has been here for hundred maybe thousands of years and contact between man and birds was much more close in the past than it is now (after all, how many of you have seen a living chicken in the past year?) and yet there have been no bird flu epidemics...
Maybe it's just a way of making more money quicker...!?

Out of proportion, yes, but hoax/conspiracy no...

For years the CDC and various academic groups
have reminded us that we're overdue for a flu
pandemic. Historically they've happened every 25
years or so, but the last one was in the late
sixties and only killed about 35,000 people in
the US (around 1 million worldwide). Compare
that to the flu outbreak of 1918 that killed
500,000 in the US (about 0.5% of the population)
and about 50 million worldwide.

The avian flu is probably hyped because as it is
it has a 50% mortality rate in humans so far
(about 100% mortality in infected birds). The
1918 flu had a mortality of about 2.5% and SARS
had a mortality rate of about 4.5%.

It's rare for viruses to jump species, but this
one has. It's more rare still for it to become
transmissible (no evidence of that). For what
it's worth, mutations affecting the mortality of
the flu aren't necessarily related to those
affectings it's transmissibility. The flu could
easily still have a 50% mortality rate (or
higher) if it became transmissible. The good
news is that viruses with a high mortality rate
mercifully tend to incapacitate and kill very
quickly (maybe in a couple of days for a nasty
flu), which greatly limits their spread.

The thing that really makes difference today
isn't so much the mortality rate, but the fact
that compared to 1918, there are 4 times as many
people on the planet -- necessarily living
closer to one another, and moving around more
often and farther than ever before.

It's not really that the chances of a flu
pandemic are very high, or that this one is any
worse (as far as mortality goes, in healthy
people it's no worse than bubonic plague), but
that the press is keenly aware how poorly we (at
least in the US) handle large scale
catastrophes. On the off-chance that a pandemic
does occur, it could largely be mitigated by a
proper response. The problem is, how likely is
that? Probably zero. Hence the hype.

[mrjohna]

Free Pandemic Bird Flu Preparedness Guide

A free Pandemic Bird Flu Preparedness Guide is available at http://www.pandemicinfosite.com

[robbinmco]

Interesting topic. I saw a program on television that was a mock documentary (Discovery, History Channel, Science Channel; it might have been on one of these) of a pandemic flu situation that became so bad that scientists "flipped the switch" to re-create the Big Bang (Genesis Project?). A black hole begins, sucking up a large city, land, the earth. This aired 2-3 years ago. Does anybody out there know what the title of this program, and what channel this was on? And maybe, where can I find a copy?