"The Confluence Of Two Great Pandemics"

[cali]

Laurie Garrett, on C-SPAN, is talking about the possibility of the bird flu hitting Africa. Truly terrifying. She also just stated that there are "quite a few cases of bird flu in humans in Iraq."

[Maddy McCall]

1. Did she make any predictions about it hitting the Americas?

It's coming soon, I'm afraid.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. The effects on Africa will be devastating even if it doesn't go "human".

I heard a report on BBC about what effect the bird flu will have on the 3rd world, especially African nations whose people depend on poulty for subsistance.

The upshot being that the people won't need the human strain to die, the economic effects of dying poultry will do the job.

We Americans have no idea how close to starvation billions of people are around the world.

[acmejack]

3. A very grim fact TyL

We have no appreciation of the blessing that 2000 calories a day is. Let alone the enormous amount required to accumulate the tremendous girth carried by too many of our Countrymen.

[Yuugal]

4. I guess I'm all feared out......

I'm not losing any sleep because of bird flu. I'm way to cynical to believe its actually as big a threat as everyone thinks. Whether its a meteor hit, or killer bees, Hong Kong Flu, etc, etc, etc, they are always finding new ways to make us feel in danger. I have better odds of hitting lotto than I do of getting bird-flu.

I already live in fear of asshat republicans ruining our democracy, bankrupting our treasury, and stealing my vote. Thats enough fear for me.