Chertoff: Bird flu possible in U.S. within months

[sabra]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/03/09/chertoff.bird.flu/

Chertoff: Bird flu possible in U.S. within months
But, he says, 'We're going to be able to deal with it'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Migratory birds could carry the avian flu virus to U.S. shores in the next few months, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned Thursday.

Chertoff attempted to reassure the public by saying the federal government has experience in dealing with such outbreaks.

"I can't predict, but I certainly have to say that we should be prepared for the possibility that at some point in the next few months, a wild fowl will come over the migratory pathway and will be infected with H5N1," he said.

H5N1 is a strain of the avian influenza virus that has killed at least 95 people since 2003.

[acmavm]

1. Around November no doubt. n/t

[Rockholm]

59. Just in time to "seal" those fall elections.

Booga booga booga.

[MadMaddie]

2. Fear, Fear, Fear...

Here we go.....Ready for the ride....

[tridim]

3. "At least that's our hope"

"The more the better, because we need another method of spreading fear for votes" -Chertoff's evil brain

[louis-t]

4. Time for * to buy another 10 million doses of Thera-Flu

:sarcasm:

[Javaman]

48. I assume you mean Tamiflu...nt

[louis-t]

57. Oh... yeah!

giggle.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

75. What's the difference? Neither one will work against Avian Flu.

[me b zola]

88. Ah, but there is one little difference

Rumsfeld is said to own millions of $$$ in stock of Tamiflu. Every time you see Tamiflu being pimped it is nothing more than rumdum receiving another bonus.

[Atman]

5. Yup...November 06

Possibly October...they'll need time to whip up the fear and postpone the elections, or whatever the fuck their game is.

[kestrel91316]

34. Yep, my vote is on cancelling the elections outright,

due to the "extreme national emergency". Betcha H5N1 "mutates" into a form more dangerous to humans right here in the US (in a blue state) in mid-October.

[Javaman]

62. naaa, their holding that jewel for the presidential election in 08. nt

[Warpy]

6. Chicken will be off the menu

once it hits overcrowded factory farm operations. Chicken will become too expensive.

It would be wise to keep your cats indoors for the duration.

Other than that, tell me to panic if it jumps species.

[JuniperLea]

7. How the hell would he know

He couldn't even see a hurricane that had pictures broadcast to the entire world, yet he would have us believe he can tell us a microscopic flu bug is on its way.

Just in time for elections, no doubt. Or, they know the jig is up and they are trying to squeeze the last bit of gold from terrified pockets so they can all skip town on their ill gotten gains before their asses end up in jail.

[Mojorabbit]

8. Birds spring migration to alaska from overseas eom

[400Years]

9. remember when west nile virus was going to kill us all

[NYC]

33. Giuliani was spraying us with malation.

Lucky us.

[Art_from_Ark]

35. And E. coli, and ebola, and the swine flu,

and the Hong Kong flu, and so on and so forth, nado nado, ad infinitum...

[raccoon]

43. Yes, and mailed anthrax killed some, and that just went down

the memory hole, didn't it?

[donkeyotay]

66. Whatever happened to West Nile, SARS and anthrax, anyway?

Bird flu solves the terra dilemma: if we are attacked, will the nation decide the GOP hasn't protected us? It could back fire. Bird flu is perfect - all the components of a terra attack with none of the potential blame. Between this and the life-choice redux, we will have yet another miraculous GOP win in 2006.

[murray hill farm]

10. well, we have know that...it is just the timing of telling us now.

The migratory patterns will bring it to canada first..and then several months later throught the united states..it is moving via migratory patterns now..and, of course it will come here..there has not been any doubt of that..but it will be birds...the more it moves and spreads, the more the likely chance that it will mutate..this too is something we have known...but the announcement of it now....is just cause they gotta have something NOW.

[mike_c]

11. by June IMO....

Maybe earlier.

[XemaSab]

20. I thought you were a bird flu nay sayer?

:shrug:

[mike_c]

22. nay sayer?

Um..., no. I've been just the opposite. Or is this ironic humor? If so, you must forgive me-- I've just come from a round of grad student committee meetings and my humor reflex is disconnected. How's the job search going?

[XemaSab]

23. It's going okay

I'm expecting a call for a second interview tomorrow! :bounce:

You seem to be the one saying that bird flu is much ado about nothing, most of the time.

PS all grad students are assholes and should be given the boot.

[mike_c]

25. no no, just the opposite....

I argued with Henry Niman back when he posted here-- Niman constantly said "this is the big one" about every human case and I've consistently argued there's no evidence of the crucial recombinations having occurred yet, but they very likely will. I've also argued for a biologically realistic view of the outcome, which is to say, it's a crapshoot with a near apocalypse at one end of the continuum and something on the order of the Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968 at the other end-- the reality will likely be somewhere in the middle. Personally, I lean to the bad end of things, but then I'm generally a pessimist. I have a full course of Tamiflu chillin' in my freezer.

on edit-- anyway, I'm betting that the Bering Sea flyway will be the primary route of entrance into the the Americas if the introduction is natural. If anthropogenic, it could enter anywhere.

[shance]

12. Who would benefit from such an outbreak? Would Chertoff?

Disaster and War Profiteering. One wonders if anything is sacred anymore.

It seems clear it nothing is with these individuals.

[sueh]

13. They always try to scare us when things are going badly for them. n/t

[Demeter]

14. Terra! Terra! Terra!

Anything like Tora! Tora! Tora! ?


There is no credibility left--if any kind of an epidemic breaks out, it will firm up faltering poultry prices, scare the sh*t out of the Red States, and give BushCo no purchase whatsoever.

[uppityperson]

15. Come on, it is a real fear, someday may kill a percentage of those dead...

from car accidents.

[hatrack]

16. Viral Terror - AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

Run for your lives to the Republican Party!!!!

:eyes:

[xxqqqzme]

17. "...we should be prepared for the possibility..."

should be??? but will not be - who could have known......it would spread so fast....jump species...whatever the excuse will be for them doing nothing.

[depakid]

18. 'We're going to be able to deal with it'

Just like New Orleans.

DU really is an amazing place. People will dance to the tune every time Gallup puts out some absurd poll "results" as though they're absolute truth, but they won't believe rational claims made by scientists and public health officals around the world.

Bizarre.

[truth2power]

19. Yeah. "Federal government has experience

dealing with such outbreaks."

Yikes! Now THAT is scary..

[Mojorabbit]

28. I agree

It's like no one took biology in school.
And then there is ...


WHO fears H5N1 in Baku

GENEVA/BERLIN: Eleven suspected human cases of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus, three of them fatal, are under investigation in Azerbaijan, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.

Maria Cheng, spokeswoman for the UN health agency, said that the suspected victims, including eight members of a single family, all came from the same village near the Azerbaijani capital Baku.

"It is possible that they caught H5N1, because we already know that poultry were hit by the virus in neighbouring areas," said Cheng.

Flocks belonging to the patients had also been infected, but experts had yet to identify by what, she added.

Samples from the suspected human victims were being sent to a WHO-accredited laboratory in London to establish whether they had the H5N1virus, Cheng said.

In Berlin, the German national veterinary laboratory said on Thursday a stone marten on the German island of Ruegen has been infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus.
http://www.godubai.com/gulftoday/article.asp?AID=50&Section=Main

[Clara T]

21. Chertoff is a lying fascist- Here's proof

Chertoff Chasing Chicken and Crying Wolf- "Come back here you fowl creature."

Fowl play: The poultry industry's central role in the bird flu crisis

GRAIN | February 2006

Read the press release (Feb 2006)

Read GRAINs letter about bird flu to the FAO (Feb 2006)

Chicken concentrate

The transformation of poultry production in Asia in recent decades is staggering. In the Southeast Asian countries where most of the bird flu outbreaks are concentrated -- Thailand, Indonesia, and Viet Nam -- production jumped eightfold in just 30 years, from around 300,000 metric tonnes (mt) of chicken meat in 1971 to 2,440,000 mt in 2001. China's production of chicken tripled during the 1990s to over 9 million mt per year. Practically all of this new poultry production has happened on factory farms concentrated outside of major cities and integrated into transnational production systems.<1> This is the ideal breeding ground for highly-pathogenic bird flu -- like the H5N1 strain threatening to explode into a human flu pandemic.<2>

Nevertheless, the many papers, statements and strategy documents coming out of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Health Organisation (WHO) and relevant government agencies contain barely a whisper about the implications of industrial poultry in the bird flu crisis. Instead, fingers are pointed at backyard farms, with calls for tighter controls on their operations and greater "restructuring" of the poultry sector. The big poultry corporations are even trying to use the bird flu outbreaks as an "opportunity" to do away with what is left of small-scale poultry production.<3> "We cannot control migratory birds but we can surely work hard to close down as many backyard farms as possible," said Margaret Say, Southeast Asian director for the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council. The reactions from some scientists are no less outrageous. Researchers in the UK are pursuing transgenic bird flu-resistant chickens. "Once we have regulatory approval, we believe it will only take between four and five years to breed enough chickens to replace the entire world population," said Laurence Tiley, Professor of Molecular Virology at Cambridge University.<4>

Wild birds and poultry should not mix?

The movement of migratory birds has caused outbreaks to emerge in several countries and regions simultaneously.

FAO, November 2005<11>

Despite such statements from the FAO or the WHO, there is still little evidence of migratory birds carrying and transmitting highly pathogenic H5N1. After testing hundreds of thousands of wild birds for the disease, scientists have only rarely identified live birds carrying bird flu in a highly pathogenic form.<12> As the FAO has stated as recently as November 2005, "To date, extensive testing of clinically normal migratory birds in the infected countries has not produced any positive results for H5N1 so far."<13> Nearly all wild birds that have tested positive for the disease were dead and, in most cases, found near to outbreaks in domestic poultry. Even with the current cases of H5N1 in wild birds in Europe, experts agree that these birds probably contracted the virus in the Black Sea region, where H5N1 is well-established in poultry, and died while heading westward to escape the unusually cold conditions in the area.

One popular incident cited in the case against wild birds was a mass outbreak of H5N1 among geese in Qinghai Lake, Northern China. A theory was quickly constructed of how the virus was then carried westwards by migratory birds to Kazakhstan, Russia and even Turkey. But bird conservationists, and notably the organisation BirdLife International, pointed out that Qinghai Lake has many surrounding poultry operations. They also noted that there is a fish farm in the area that the FAO helped construct, and that chicken faeces are commonly used as food and fertiliser in integrated fish farms in China.<14> Furthermore, many trains and roads connect the Qinghai Lake area to areas of bird flu outbreaks, like Lanzhou, the source of infected poultry that caused an earlier outbreak of H5N1 in Tibet, 1,500 miles away.<15> However, none of these alternative scenarios drew much attention from the FAO or other major international authorities.

http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=194



Dahling I promise you I haven't got the bird flu

[achtung_circus]

24. He's trying to lower expectations

From an animal health clipping service to which I subscribe:

Bird flu could hit Americas within a year: UN
March 8, 2006
Reuters
Irwin Arieff
UNITED NATIONS - Dr. David Nabarro, coordinator of the U.N. drive to contain the pandemic in birds and prepare for its possible jump to humans, was cited as saying that bird flu, already spreading across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is expected to jump across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas within a year, adding, "It is certainly within the next six to 12 months. And who knows, we've been wrong on other things, it could be earlier."
Nabarro was cited as predicting the leap across the Atlantic Ocean would take place in two stages, carried in the next few months by wild birds flying from West Africa to the Arctic region, and then brought southward to North and South America six months later, adding, "I just think that every country in the world now needs to have its veterinary services on high alert for H5N1, to try to make sure that they don't get caught unawares and find that it gets into their poultry populations without knowing. And I will bet you that many countries in the Western Hemisphere are doing just that."
The story says that for the immediate future, the spread of the disease among birds in Africa is the main focus of the U.N. team -- which includes the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health.

[Sadie5]

26. Chertoff knows because???

The fix is in. He will release a few infected birds so they can drive up shares of vaccine to line their own pockets. Probably will grip the US voters just as they trudge to the polls in November. Don't ya worry now...we gots the Prez to watch over those terrorizing birds. Thats a good job for Bush, a bird handler.

[VegasWolf]

27. Can't wait for the Katrina Administration to figure out what to do!

Pardon me while i;

:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

[antonialee839]

29. Even if he has to drag it over here himself.

[seafan]

30. Keep everyone fearful; it overrides rational thinking. Can't have that.

Jeb's been pounding on this nonstop.

[hedgehog]

31. I don't understand pictures of guys in suits chasing chickens

Birds with the flu are sick or dead. These guys are chasing and killing healthy birds. Can someone explain to me what the point of that is?

[allisonthegreat]

32. And the fish is loaded with mercury...

And with mad cow disease...we are doomed!

[Mojorabbit]

38. They are culling all poultry in areas where

there has been an outbreak healthy or not. There are also now asymptomatic birds that are carriers but do not get sick.

ie
Latest death raises fears bird flu may have adapted

The death of a nine-year-old girl from bird flu in Zhejian province has baffled mainland health officials and raised more questions for the World Health Organization than answers.

Andrea Chiu
Thursday, March 09, 2006

The death of a nine-year-old girl from bird flu in Zhejian province has baffled mainland health officials and raised more questions for the World Health Organization than answers.

"In the earlier stages of avian flu outbreaks, there were large poultry die-offs that were obvious signs for officials to detect," said WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi.

But the most recent bird flu cases in China have occurred in areas where there have not been large poultry outbreaks, she said.

The young girl was the second victim to fall to the avian flu virus that killed a Guangdong man last week.

A 26-year-old woman from Anhui is in critical condition with the deadly virus.

Earlier reports said that the young girl had contracted the disease from sick chickens at her relatives's home in Anhui province, but the recent cases have raised questions for which there are no ready answers.

"We don't know whether the use of vaccines is reducing the viral load and not causing birds to die, or if the birds may continue to shed virus without symptoms. We don't know if the virus is adapting itself into the poultry," Bhatiasevi said.
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=13764&sid=6965945&con_type=1&d_str=20060309

[Delphinus]

68. And if they cull the entire population ...

what happens then? Have we wiped out an entire species of bird? Are we committing genocide against fowl, just like we have against the Iraqi people? (I know it sounds like a dumb question ... sorry.)

[Mojorabbit]

69. They killed all the poultry in

Hong Kong several years ago to stop it in it's tracks but it came back this year anyway. I think it is useless to do it esp in areas like Africa where there is starvation esp culling of healthy flocks since is has already spread to so many places but I am not in charge. There is also the fact that a lot of poultry have been bred through generations to survive well in specific locations. Sure would hate to lose that biodiversity. People in India and other countries are killing wild birds out of fear. So sad.

[Delphinus]

71. Thank you, so much, for

replying and answering a lingering question I've had about this.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that feels like this.

[gkhouston]

60. bird droppings are chock-full of H5N1.

Those "healthy" birds may be infected but not yet symptomatic. Even if they're actually healthy, they could be scattering poop from infected/dead birds. No, it's not just a theoretical risk. A lot of the victims in Asia worked with poultry and at least one was a woman thought to have been infected after sweeping a barnyard; inhaling the dust from dried droppings while sweeping apparently got enough virus in her lungs to cause infection.

[brooklynite]

36. Seal the borders!

Where are the Minutemen when you need them?

(Actually, I suppose we could post DIck Cheney out on the Maine coast...)

[brooklynite]

37. Seal the borders!

Where are the Minutemen when you need them?

(Actually, I suppose we could post DIck Cheney out on the Maine coast...)

[dusty64]

39. Its scary that I believe

our government wouldn't hesitate to onleash a deadly virus on the population to control us, but I do. As far as they diseases are concerned, I really believe meat eating and factory farming is going to kill us all!

[mtnester]

40. Of COURSE it is...you do not think the EU will stand by while everyone

in the world BUT the US gets it?

Fergit the EU..make that the whole rest of the world.

If a bird does not fly in, it will be shipped in, walked in...I gar-on-tee it.

(props to Justin Wilson and the lovely accents of the New Orleans folken for that wonderful pronunciation of the word "guarantee"...better, dontcha think?

[triguy46]

41. Why is it when I see his name or hear his voice...

my immediate response is "what an asshole."

[triguy46]

42. What is the terra color today? I need to get dressed and I want

to be color coordinated.

[raccoon]

44. because he looks like Satan! (at least how Satan is portrayed) nt

[silvermachine]

50. Or Mephistopheles...

[raccoon]

51. Oh, gosh...what a (family) resemblance there! nt

[raccoon]

45. Just because something is POSSIBLE doesn't mean much.

It's POSSIBLE that Bushco (and the other power elites) might start a New Deal as FDR did.

But the PROBABILITY of it happening is quite different.

"But, he says, 'We're going to be able to deal with it' "

Now THAT'S what scares me. The way the dips dealt with Katrina?

[Solly Mack]

46. Yeah well, I'm living around it now

and everyone is going about their daily lives as usual too

[DoYouEverWonder]

47. Hey jerk (Chertoff), since I happen to live in FL

I'm much more concerned about the next HURRICANE SEASON. Especially since it is now apparent that the HS/FEMA doesn't have clue in regards to disaster response.

Oh that's right, it's an election year and our Gov is the pResident's brother, so I guess will get all sorts of assistance if anything happens.

[leesa]

49. He WISHES! I'll bet he put a STAT order into the lab this morning.

"Look guys, my ass is on the line...the gigs up, they know we did 9-11 with the UAE and heads may roll, let's kill as many as we can, so we can declare the dictatorship already"

[Bridget Burke]

52. So the birds should worry!

Yes, Bird Flu is a threat to the poultry industry. Steps should be taken to lessen its impact & to protect bird handlers.

Human-to-Human infection is the real danger--when & if the flu mutates. Until then, NO vaccine can be prepared. (Not that the government's pharm buddies can be trusted not to screw that up.)

Chertoff is acting like the current Bird Flu will immediately kill thousands of people--trying to start a panic. Meanwhile, those of us who realize the longer term danger are quietly worried; we know that the Bozos are in charge.

[PassingFair]

53. Thank GOD Cheney knows how to kill fowl!

"at some point in the next few months, a wild fowl will come over the migratory pathway and will be infected with H5N1,"

He is our FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE!

Whittington was just "collateral damage".

Thank GOD for Dick!

We are safe.

[Marie26]

54. Wasn't it established

that migratory birds weren't the problem? I thought doctors traced the flu to the shipment of farm-raised birds like chickens. Why is Chertoff talking about migratory birds?

[Mojorabbit]

55. No

From what I've read they they don't know for sure. I think they believe it is a combination of wild birds, smuggled birds, and poultry farming. One case in Asia was traced possibly to fertilizer a woman was using in her potted plants that contained chicken manure. The case of the turkey farm in france is possibly from hay that was put into the closed indoor farm for bedding. There was a case in Turkey where two children got it from contaminated gloves their father had used to pick up dead birds.

[SaveElmer]

56. It is thought...

By many that smuggled and imported poultry is the primary way in which poultry flocks are getting infected. Migratory birds are a source, but probably not the primary source. Unless the virus mutates to a H2H form, the US is in little danger from migratory birds. The nature of our poultry industry here, which is closely monitored makes it unlikely there will be any significant outbreaks here.

An outbreak on a Turkey farm in France was probably due to migratory birds, but poultry is the main culprit I think.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

74. "It is thought" by whom, exactly? What is your purpose....

...for attempting to discourage people from having the opinion that the Bird Flu can be a threat?

Why do you persist in telling people that migratory birds are playing no role in the spread of this disease?

[SaveElmer]

80. Did you read my post...?

Apparently not...

What I clearly said was that it is thought that migratory birds were A source of spread, but not THE primary source of spread. Poultry smuggling and trade are a far more likely source of infection in poultry. And I was careful to note the case in France where wild bird feces were though to be the cause of infection on a Turkey farm.

I also did not insinuate that Bird Flu could not be a threat...it is not a threat now to humans, and may not be a threat. There is enough alarmist reporting the way it is...type in "bird Flu" on google, hit the news link, and you can sse it for yourself...

You have pet owners dropping their pets off at shelters because a couple cats contracted the disease...you have poultry consumption dropping precipitously because people are panicked into not eating chicken. Right now the main threat is to the economic livelihood of millions of people, because alarmist reporting by the media panics them into unwise action.

What is needed is balance, and there is good news out there in the fight against the virus. There is by no means anywhere near a consensus that this virus will cause a pandemic. There are examples of successful campaigns to combat the virus (Vietnam, Thailand, Turkey).

There are place to go and find this information if you are willing to look for it, some of the Bird Flu Wiki. To give the impression that this virus is going to be here imminently and will cause widespread disease here is not supported by the facts. Misrepresenting what I said does not advance your argument.

[Frank Cannon]

58. GASP!! 95 people dead since 2003!!! This is HUGH!!11!!!

Of course, regular, garden-variety influenza kills tens of thousands of people EVERY YEAR, but don't let that keep you from being frightened out of your wits. The Bush administration is here to save you.

I know this virus hasn't changed to a human-to-human vector yet, but forgive me for not being terrified. I'm old enough to remember when swine flu was going to "end human life as we know it". And frankly, if this administration tells me that the sun is coming up tomorrow morning, I'm making serious plans to be out of the solar system by nightfall.

[Mojorabbit]

61. The US is not the center of the universe

The rest of the world is plenty worried. You can be prepared just in case or not. If it does happen there won't be any help coming.If not you have some extra food in the pantry. My brother in law works management in food distribution. The big plan is to disquise food delivery trucks and have drivers out of uniform. Don't want them being mugged for their cargo.

[Frank Cannon]

65. Mojorabbit, my fear-of-death glands have done run out

For the last five years, I've been told by both our joke of a government and our joke-of-a-government-controlled media that I'm just one day away from a painful death at the hands of disease/terrorism/insert-fear-of-death-vector-here.

At the same time, I have it from the highest authority that I am GOING TO DIE sometime! YIKES! What am I going to do!

However deatb happens, it's gonna happen, to you as well as me. But one thing I will NOT DO is be afraid. That's exactly what they want you to be. I won't have it.

[Mojorabbit]

67. Oh I know what your sayin

but I am not afraid. I am however prepared. Two different animals. My first responsibility is to protect my family. Being that I am prepared, I no longer worry about providing for them in a just in case scenario. Progressives are to dear to lose any to waiting till it is too late to stock up on some supplies. :)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

77. Let us know when you've gone....

...we'll throw a party.

[Frank Cannon]

82. Gee, Media_Lies_Daily...

that was quite insulting. What did I ever do to you? :shrug:

[stepnw1f]

63. And Just Like 9-11 They Will Allow it to Happen

They'll just throw their limp arms in the air and claim, "Who Knew!" Fucking nazis!

[hedgehog]

64. All kidding aside, just what does this bunch of clowns have in mind?

Remember, we've been here before (1919) and come through without even enough of a burp to be worth a sidebar in a high school history book. Unfortunately, this isn't 1919 and people are more likely to panic in my opinion.

Food shipments - grocery stores are re-stocked daily - have you ever seen the panic buying ahead of a hurricane or snow storm?

Hospitals - emergency rooms get overloaded with cardiac cases on hot, humid summer days, what's the plan if 50 flu cases show up? 500? 5000? What if the nurses don't show up for work? What if housekeeping doesn't show up for work?

Banking - gotta keep plenty of currency around to avoid panic

The worst possible scenario would be law enforcement officials unsure of their authority. People trying to exit New Orleans after Katrina ran into some pretty close calls with cops from out of town giving them conflicting orders and threatening to enforce those orders at the point of a gun.

[progressivebydesign]

70. We've had bird flus over here for years. No panic with me.

Birds get flus, they get Newcastle's disease. It will be devastating for the poultry industry, if it goes that far, but not one human has gotten this from anything but eating raw bird or drinking their blood (disgusting much?).

[Media_Lies_Daily]

76. We haven't had the H5N1 variety of Avian Flu, and....

...this variety has not yet created a variant that will easily transmit from human to human.

[Critters2]

72. I'm scared

so I guess it's working :sarcasm:

[RazzleDazzle]

73. wishful thinking on the part of the admin's vampiric vulture

[twaddler01]

78. Any info from CDC or WHO?

:shrug:

I don't consider him a source...

[Mojorabbit]

79. He got the info

from WHO. They just had a big meeting so that is why all the media reports in the past few days. We will have it in the US soon but probably only in poultry or wild birds. This is not unexpected and unless you have close contact with either the risk is low .If it happens and we react like other countries around the world have, the poultry industry will go belly up as no one will buy or eat chicken. This will cause the price of other meats to go up. It still has not gone to sustained human to human yet and may not ever do so though it is looking like it has a good chance more than any other virus that has come along in a long time. That is the big worry and if it does the danger of infection will not come from birds if it happens but from other people.
If you would like to follow it here are two news links updated frequently
http://www.flulab.com/
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/newsfeed/?name=Bird+Flu

[anitar1]

81. They must be holding prayer sessions every morning

in the White House. Please , Lord, Bring on the bird flu so we can sell more useless vaccine to these wimps.

[Mojorabbit]

83. I think it is the opposite

I think they are soiling their pants that it might happen on their watch. There is not a damn thing they can do to stop it if it happens and they will be blamed.

Meanwhile here is a great article published today in the Canadian Press

Bird flu targeting the young
With the WHO set to announce the 100th death from bird flu any day now, data compiled by the Toronto Star lead to one particularly compelling question: Why does the H5N1 virus attack the young?

The Star's analysis shows that all but six of the 97 people who have died globally so far from bird flu were under 40.
snip
The 97 deaths in the third wave are now spread across seven countries — Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, China, Thailand, Turkey and Iraq. The infection rate is already double this year over last, with more than three human cases a week as infected birds spread the virus further afield.

"A lot of the human cases of bird flu have occurred in people under 25 and we're still not exactly sure why that is," said the WHO's Maria Cheng.
snip
WHO officials stress the number of deaths from H5N1 bird flu is extremely low compared to the 250,000 to 500,000 who die annually from seasonal human flu, or the nearly 800 people who died during the SARS epidemic in 2003, 44 of them in Toronto. But health experts also warn no bird flu has ever sickened and killed so many people as H5N1.

snip
The H5N1 virus has already earned the notorious reputation of being the worst flu in birds. An unprecedented 200 million have died or been slaughtered. It is so highly pathogenic, infected chickens drop dead in 48 hours. This month, the virus showed up in several domestic cats and a weasel-like animal called a stone marten in Germany and Austria, creating fear in the European Union that it might easily be infecting other species.

snip

Virologists know infection occurs through contact with blood, feces and other body fluids, and WHO officials recently reiterated the flu virus is also airborne, posing even a greater threat than AIDS.
snip
Cheng said there may be other cases in which people became infected through human-to-human transmission, but there isn't enough evidence to prove it. There may also be many less severely ill people going unnoticed.

"But we haven't seen any substantial change in the virus and that is really the trigger we're watching for."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1142031016596&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home

[SaveElmer]

85. I have to say...

That is the first time I have heard WHO admit there may be people infected with mild or no symptoms...

[BiggJawn]

84. I'm conflicted. Part of me says "Could be..." and...

...part of me says "S'Yeah, when has Jherkoff *EVER* spoken the Truth?"

"Be vewwy, vewwy AFWAID!!!!"

[zann725]

86. 93 people WORLDWIDE in THREE years? Since when was THAT a "crisis"

More people die of regular "flu" each year just in U.S.

The only way this COULD become a crisis, is IF it's "made" one by less than well-meaning powers-that-be.

[SaveElmer]

87. Potential Human Crisis...

Since human infection is still very rare....

It is now a crisis in terms of pultry , and in terms of the economic livelihood of many poor people.