Listening to the news about the asian Bird flu !

it has been discovered up in canada.

fox live news on tv

hope it doesn't get down here!!

To Late!

Hog

i'm sure!!

"DON'T BE KISSING NO CHICKENS"!!

they might have the flu !!

Don't forget your flu shot this year. The bird flu is bad, not because it's going to make you sick, but because it transmits from birds to humans. Other than that, you probably have better odds of being hit by a Toyota. Now the H5N1 flu is what's bad. It's very bad. If the current bird flu, the one just found in Canada, mutates to the H5N1 strain, us, our families, neighbors, conservatives, liberals, crackers, wet backs, many of us, many many of us, will start laying down and going to sleep like we were in a field of poppies, and we won't be coming back for the holidays. No one can tell what the actual numbers might be. Tens of millions? hundreds of millions? billions? Just be glad it's the regular old bird flu and not the H5N1. That will be judgement day. Even the rapturists will be too sick to care much about who wrote revelations if the H5N1 pays a visit. Happy Halloween.

Like Steven King's

The Stand !

"Revelation" . . . there is no "S".

Aghhh! You librarian Tuckers!

Yea Phuckd. I totally forgot about that book. Read it when I was a kid. No one really knows what H5N1 would be like if it happened, but it could and will eventually. I think it's possible that the numbers won't be astronomically high since we have so much medical technology today and can really zap secondary bacterial infections, but I'm no expert.

The sad part is we could develope a vaccine for H5N1 because we possess the technology to do it now by point mutation technology. Take the avian flu virus, or even a common flu virus, mutate it into a non-infectious strain, then mutate it into the H5N1 strain, and freeze it. At the first sign of H5N1 in nature then we could direct the world's resources into vaccinating as many as possible and at least have a fighting chance.

But there's not a "buck" in it so our "leaders" won't touch it. We'll just have to see what happens if M-day comes (mutation-day). Probably won't happen in our lifetime anyway. Maybe future generations will be more willing or or able to plan ahead. As it is now we're sitting ducks ... err, uh, apes.

Hey Dr. you been sleepin at the wheel lately?

The Pres. just held a confrence with all these Dr.s; and Scientists to discuss this very thing.. not just the bird flu, but the H5N1 and the strains from these... now our Congress is mass pushing through a bill that because these Vaccines will be "Expermental" then folks cannot hold the Pharmacuticals company's nor healthcare clinics liable if it kills there entire family... but yet the "Threat" alone could cause the Government to "Quarintine" certian Areas of the United States if there is a Breakout of these Virus's....

and to top it off.. use the US Military to enforce the Quarintines... you need to get with your local legislation.. you'll miss your house and car payment if this happens in a Neighborhood near you ;0)

Hog

only time will really tell the true outcome of all this.

Hi Hog!

nope..not sleeping at the wheel...just trying not to think about it!

i'm a firm believer in gods will.....not to get all religious....but if it's going to happen , there isn't "anything" anybody can do about it!

but hey...it could just end up like the "dreaded" mad cow stuff !!

and who knows like dr pepperhil said...it may not happen in our lifetime! it may already be here...or it may have been caught early enough to be stopped...or at least kept to a minimum.......

only time will tell

be well , be good ,

light a cigar , grab a drink of your choice and don't stress!

:^)

I believe the "Doc" that USAHOG was referring to was Dr. Pepperhill.

the bird flu has been over here for over a year...it died down. many died. the thing is you need to cook your chicken thoroughly--like pork, and you should be ok. it is not airborn (for humans), as of now. it is best to kill them all though, as it might mutate...as most things in nature tend to do.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051107/bird_flu_scare 

posted October 24, 2005 (web only)

Scare Scenario

Dr. Marc Siegel

When I see the posters for the soon-to-be released Chicken Little movie, I have to wonder what the lead character would have to say about the current bird flu craze. Would he say the sky is about to fall on him? Or would he come to his senses and understand that even as an American chicken, he is more likely to be killed by panic than by the flu?

The American public is profiting the least from the ongoing hysteria surrounding avian influenza. The drug manufacturer Roche is suddenly in great demand for its antiviral drug Tamiflu, which has only been tested against bird flu in the test tube and has no current use, because the virus has not mutated to a form that can easily be transmitted among humans. A common misconception--that Tamiflu is some kind of a bird flu vaccine rather than an antiviral that at best decreases symptoms of infection--has led to a lot of impulse buying. As with the antibiotic Cipro, prescribed to treat anthrax back in 2001, Tamiflu is becoming a treatment for the fear of a virus rather than the virus itself.

Another main profiteer of the bird flu panic is our federal government.

Driven to avoid another disaster debacle like Hurricane Katrina, the Bush Administration is galloping to the rescue in advance of anything happening. The President's recent suggestion that he might use the military to control an influenza pandemic reminds us how quickly civil liberties can be sacrificed in an emergency. But more than that, it is a hysterical suggestion. Pandemics infiltrate a community person by person. A show of military force would likely cause a panic that would spread a virus more quickly.

Most bird flus don't mutate sufficiently to pass to humans. And those that do are usually responsible for our yearly influenza outbreak. On the average of three times per century, a mutated avian influenza is a bad enough bug to cause a pandemic. The bird flu of current concern, A(H5N1), is a big killer among birds but is still several mutations away from being able to routinely infect us. The estimated sixty-five people who have died of it over the past two years did so because of their close and repeated contact with birds, not because of casual contact. Cooking a chicken kills the influenza virus.

So why all the panic over a potential threat? In part the public hysteria is due to the fact that basic information about this potential pandemic has been misconstrued or ignored about this potential pandemic, much in the way previous health threats in the news--anthrax, smallpox, West Nile virus, mad cow disease--were all magnified beyond their ability to do great harm.

In each case there is a doomsday scenario that is packaged and sold to the public by the media, which consequently makes some undeserving manufacturer rich or collects votes for an undeserving leader.

In the case of bird flu, direct comparisons to the scourge of 1918 may well be overblown. Many people died of pneumonia during that outbreak of the Spanish flu because there were no antibiotics to treat it. There were also no vaccines, no antivirals and little in the way of public health or the sanitary conditions Americans take for granted today. We also have our top scientists and epidemiologists tracking this avian flu, which was not the case in 1918 prior to the essential mutation.

Fear leads to a diversion of resources; our fear of bird flu is being translated into a proposal for massive stockpiles of perishable drugs and vaccines. Congress could calmly and rationally designate funds to upgrade our flu vaccine manufacturing capacity using the genetic technology we already use routinely for other vaccines. Instead, our government allows pharmaceutical companies to use an outdated chicken-egg medium that requires three to six months to develop a vaccine against a particular strain. This slow process is then a justification for panicked stockpiles.

Bird flu is better studied in the laboratory than in a news conference.

This virus deserves public attention only insomuch as it motivates our government to improve emergency services while bringing methods of vaccine manufacturing into the twenty-first century.

i was a bit more succinct, but i was in the Rembrandt, wasn't i? out here, the chicken farmers did not die, actually. you see, in japan/asia, it is not just raw fish that they eat--raw beef, raw horse, and yes raw chicken. that is the big trouble out here. i reckon most of north america will be fine, but if you can catch salmonella, you can catch this. wash the cutting board and your hands well...cook well...you should be ok. i did not stop eating chicken, when most people here did. they bought into the hype.

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/hanchette178.html 

MOUNTAIN VIEWS: BIRD FLU SCAM TO COST US PLENTY

By John Hanchette

_______________________________________________________

FORCED INOCULATIONS BEGINNING OF BUSH'S BAD BIRD FLU

PLAN

By John Hanchette

OLEAN -- Last week's column warned of imminent federal legislation that would toss powerful pharmaceutical companies billions of dollars and complete protection from liability suits in case untested and experimental bird flu vaccines damage American recipients. It drew heavy response.

The bill (S. 1873) -- a big congressional wet kiss to the drug industry -- is dressed up in a noble-sounding title: "Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act."

In essence, however, it would force Americans to receive inoculations against a disease that has yet to kill one of them, while removing their constitutional right to seek redress in our courts in case of injury or death from the shots because of company negligence. The proposal, now moving its way through the Senate, would also ban citizens from using the Freedom of Information Act and other popular informational laws to discover whether the new vaccine (when it is finally produced) was effective and safe, and even whether anyone had suffered adverse reactions to it.

Some of the e-mails and letters were laudatory, but sadly and predictably, many readers missed the point.

One wrote that I could only have reached my conclusions if I started from the position that the pharmaceutical companies were "evil" and that the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and "practically every virologist and epidemiologist in the world is part of a conspiracy." Or was I saying that I have "some sort of privileged information that H5N1 influenza will never mutate and begin to infect humans and even if it does, it won't reach the USA?"

He ended by quoting some venerable Chinese philosopher's advice to "plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small."

Well, yes, point taken on the aphorism -- but that's exactly the philosophical tack I'm following here: identifying a cancerous piece of federal business and dissecting it while it is still an undivided cell.

If this bill -- which is absolutely laden with hidden agendas -- metastasizes into actual law, Senate 1873 could further ruin an already devastated national health care system.

Sure, the bird influenza that has killed 62 Asians may mutate into easily contractible flu for humans. I acknowledge that. It may soon reach the United States. I acknowledge that. But my beef is the thematic hidden agenda in this dangerous Senate bill that is designed to protect wealthy corporate contributors from any consequences of money-motivated, irresponsible scientific research and development. The legal precedent would be ruinous and take decades to set right.

One thing the bill-backer friends of Big Pharma are trying to slip through with this legislation is a market exclusivity provision that would extend patents on hugely profitable drugs that are about to evolve into the category of cheaper generic medicines.

Further, it would prohibit federal drug buyers from contracting with generic medicine makers to save taxpayers billions of dollars -- a current admirable practice.

Further, it would allow federal health officials to purchase medicines, vaccines and other palliatives by simple fiat without taking bids.

Further, and most onerously, the bill would vastly broaden the definition of products eligible to be characterized as "countermeasures" to terrorism -- in other words, potentially classifying commonly purchased substances like ibuprofen and aspirin as terrorist-fighting devices.

I'm not the only one who's noticed the exclusivity aspect of this legislative turkey.

The Coalition for a Competitive Pharmaceutical Market (CCPM) is an unusually broad-based national coalition of organizations powerful on Capitol Hill in representing employers, health insurers, chain drugstores, generic drug makers and pharmacy benefit managers.

Last week, this huge group urged the Senate to revise the "biodefense" bill to remove the broadened definition of terrorism "countermeasures" because the proposal allows it to be done "in a way that could grant existing everyday medicines -- rather than novel products related to (defense) against bioterrorism -- multiple years of additional market exclusivity."

This, contends CCPM chairman Annette Guarisco, "would unnecessarily drive up prescription drug costs for private and public payers without advancing our nation's bioterrorism preparedness."

Even the big health insurance companies and pharmaceutical management lobbyists were startled by the brazen provisions at the expense of common citizens Senate 1873 portends.

Mark J. Rubino, chief pharmacy officer for Aetna Inc., states, "For private and public purchasers seeking to provide consumers with therapeutically equivalent, but more cost-efficient generic drugs, the market exclusivity provision included in the Biodefense bill takes us in exactly the wrong direction."

Mark Merritt, president of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, said, "This drug monopoly extension proposal is a sweeping and unprecedented measure that would rewrite drug-patenting and force working families, the disabled, and seniors to pay more for their prescription drugs. Perhaps most troubling of all, this measure has moved forward without any regard to the cost (effects) it would have on on Medicare, Medicaid, and private payers. America's working families, seniors, and small businesses deserve better."

Some who read the column accused me of overstating the liability protections for Big Pharma contained in the bill. Surely, they wrote, I was guilty of hyperbole or making things up. Surely, federal legislators wouldn't remove the cherished American right to redress wrongs or seek compensation for uninvited injury.

Oh, yeah? The language seems pretty clear to me. It provides incredibly broad and iron-clad protection from any American seeking legal remedy from Big Pharma and just about everyone else involved in protecting against bird flu. Look up the draft bill's Section 319F-3 (a) if you don't believe me.

"Authority -- As provided in subsection (b), and subject to subsection (b) (1) C, a manufacturer, distributor, or administrator of a security countermeasure, or a qualified pandemic and epidemic product, or a health care provider shall be immune from suit or liability caused by or arising out of the design, development, clinical testing and investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or use of a countermeasure, or a qualified pandemic and epidemic product, described in subsection (b) (1) (a)."

That just about covers the waterfront, as they say. The only avenue of relief an injured vaccine or medicine recipient or survivor could follow is requesting an investigation of their allegation by the Secretary of Health and Human Services -- who would have to find "clear and convincing evidence" of "willful misconduct" that "caused the product to present a significant or unreasonable risk to human health and proximately caused the injury alleged by the party."

There are at least seven tough legal tests contained in that one paragraph. And if the HHS Secretary refuses to even investigate the complaint of injury or death, such decision is completely "within the Secretary's discretion and shall not be subject to judicial review."

If the secretary does find for the complaining injured party -- which is extremely unlikely -- the drugmaker or distributor or health care provider named in the determination can petition the federal court in the District of Columbia for "judicial review" of the HHS ruling. But no subpoenas shall be issued, "nor shall other compulsory process apply," and no third parties can intervene. The drug company appeal "shall automatically stay the Secretary's determination for the duration of the judicial proceeding."

There are six more pages of legal gobbledygook backing this up, one of them defining the scope of protection from lawsuit as extending to allegations "relating to, or resulting from the design, development, clinical testing and investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or use of product" defined as measures against pandemics or terrorism. There, is that specific enough for you? Is that an imaginative figment?

Interpretation of this congressional language: Pigs will fly backwards and upside down before the common citizen gets any redress or compensation for injury or death resulting from a bird flu vaccine or medicine.

Why are vaccine safety advocates so adamant that John Q. Public might get screwed by all this protect-Big Pharma bird flu legislation? Because it has happened before.

In the 1970s, the panic over swine flu led to an ill-advised vaccine push that crippled many recipients and cost the drug makers millions.

In the 1980s, a dangerously reactive vaccine against whooping cough injured and killed thousands when a safer foreign alternative was already available but stubbornly unapproved by the FDA.

In the 1990s, the federal health establishment insisted -- and still insists -- there is no connection between toxic mercury preservatives in mandated childhood vaccines and the astounding increase in autism (from 1 in 10,000 births to 1 in 166 births), despite ample scientific evidence to the contrary.

Experimental anthrax vaccine is still being tested on troops without informed consent, and was almost tested on infants until a big public fuss erupted.

The yearly hoohah over getting your flu shots to protect against contractible human flu results in less than desired protection because the scientists are always fighting the previous year's struggle that has already mutated or died out.

Both the federal government and big pharmaceutical firms will go to almost any length to protect themselves from blame when vaccines are involved.

Now we read the government experts and private researchers are predicting a minimum of 200,000 deaths and perhaps as many as 2 million deaths if the Asian bird flu mutates into a disease that can be passed from bird to human and then human to human.

"This is shoddy science at best and beyond belief that any reputable scientist could get away with such nonsense," writes Dr. Joseph Mercola, an alternative health physician and author of the popular Total Health Program. "Most of the people (in Asia) who acquired this infection were bird handlers who were in continuous contact with these sick birds. Does anyone in their right mind envision similar circumstances in the United States?"

The issue is certainly timely. This column's date of publication (Tuesday, Nov. 1) will see President George W. Bush go to the National Institutes of Health to tell us how he will spend -- at his executive discretion -- nearly $8 billion that was quickly added to the 2006 funding bill for HHS last Thursday in light of the concern over bird flu. He is expected to devote much of it to stockpiling vaccines once they are developed. The federal government has already committed to buying $162.5 million worth of experimental vaccines against the bird flu strain -- doses which may or may not protect humans -- from Chiron Corp. and Sanofi-Aventis. The feds are also ordering millions of doses of Relenza and Tamiflu, two human anti-flu drugs that seem to slow down the advance of bird flu but not completely halt it.

Meanwhile, the best possible outcome -- that the H5N1 bird flu strain fizzles out or never mutates to threaten humans -- is triggering a new concern among federal officials: that all the frantic warnings so far may have created a sense of public cynicism (or at least skepticism) over global health admonitions about pandemics.

"Will critics say we have been crying wolf?" worried HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt at the end of last week. Will the public "lose the sense of urgency we feel about this issue?"

Well, maybe, Mr. Secretary. But Americans would lend you a lot more credence if you ensured they were treated fairly.

John Hanchette, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University, is a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning national correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today and was recently named by Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of the past 25 years. He can be contacted via e-mail at [email protected].

Last One, then you can be the Judge!

Hog

_______________________________________________________

Tuesday, October 18, 2005 6:37 AM

Avian Flu Epidemic Scare is a Hoax

http://www.mercola.com/ImageServer/Public/2005/october/10.9flu.jpg "

If you have been viewing the media you must have seen the scare the media and the president are seeking to orchestrate on you and the public. According to a draft of the government's plan to fight a potentially cataclysmic pandemic this new avian super-flu could kill nearly TWO MILLION Americans.

But I nearly fell out of my seat in the airplane as I was flying back from a conference in Ft. Lauderdale when I read that in the BEST-case scenario, only 200,000 people might die.

Then they post the frightening picture from the 1918 flu epidemic to heighten the fear. It just amazes me how they can get away with this type of reporting that is so obviously manipulated by the government and drug companies to scare you into taking the flu vaccine.

The popular media continues to reinforce this unbased fear. In the editorial section of the October 17, 2005 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Henry Miller, former director of the Office of Biotechnology at the FDA, seeks to frighten the US public by telling us that the avian flu virus can jump from birds to humans and produce a fatal illness in 50% of those infected.

Ah there's the rub. 50% fatality rate sounds pretty scary to me. What Dr. Miller and the other experts fail to explain is how these numbers were derived. Did they examine everyone who contracted the avian flu and use those numbers or did they examine the sickest of the sick who had come down with the avian flu and determine the mortality from there?

Of course it was the later, and from the 60 people who have died from this in THIRD world countries we are being told that anywhere from 200,000 AT BEST to two million people at worst will die from the avian flu.

This is shody science at best and beyond belief that any reputable scientist could get away with such nonsense.

Daily Show Parody

Fortunately contemporary comedians can see right through this nonsense. Here are the links to Jon Stewart's scathing and brilliant Daily Show piece on bird flu. But I have to warn you that it may cause you to hurt yourself from laughing so hard, especially the World Health expert comments on the avian flu killing 150 million people and even funnier comment of George Bush on bird to people transmission.

Quicktime Link (106 MB) MP3 Link (6.7 MB)

http://video.lisarein.com/dailyshow/oct2005/10-06-05/10-6-05-avianflu.mov 

What Happened to Common Sense?

The avian flu epidemic hoax reminds me just how uncommon "common sense" is. Folks where is the sound basic science here? How do they make the giant leap of faith that 60 deaths will translate to 2 million or even 200,00 deaths in the US from a virus that does NOT readily spread from birds to humans or humans to humans?

Most of the people who acquired this infection were bird handlers who were in continuous contact with these sick birds. Does anyone in their right mind envision similar circumstances in the US?

Research like this would typically be thrown in the trash if it did not strongly support some ulterior purpose.

What might the purpose of these scare tactics be you ask?

Well how about the US purchasing huge quantities of antiviral drugs and an increase in flu vaccine production along with purchasing 20 million doses of the highly questionably effective Tamiflu. Guess how much one treatment of Tamiflu costs? Give yourself a slap on the back if you guessed $100.

Donald Rumsfeld to Profit Big Time So those 20 million doses the government has authorized will cost US Taxpayers 2 BILLION dollars.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will likely profit handsomely from the announcement the government is purchasing $2 billion of Tamiflu, the drug developed by Gilead Sciences when Rumsfeld was president of the company. He is reported to hold major portions of stock in Gilead

Not very different from his previous experience with aspartame where he was president of Searle and was able to get asparatame approved after being blocked by the FDA for more than a decade.

Now I think very few of us would mind if this drug actually worked and prevented even a few people from dying. But does it do that? Not really. About all anyone can expect from this drug is that it might make the symptoms a bit less severe. On the downside (aside from setting you back $100) Dr. Tenpenny explained in her Flu Tele Clinic last week Tamiflu can actually cause the virus to mutate into a more dangerous and potent viral strain.

Yesterday US Congress asked Roche, the maker of Tamiflu to suspend its patent and have others make it because they could not likely keep up with the demand, but of course Roche refused saying Tamiflu is hard to make and it would take another company three years to "get up to speed".

What they were really saying is they could care less about the public, what their primary focus on was to not share their windfall profits mandated by the US Congress.

Worthless Flu Shots Of course let us not forget the flu shots which many will use get when they confuse avian flu with the regular flu. Please understand even if you believe the flu shots work, the flu shot you can now purchase is in no way shape or form designed to protect you against the flu. They are completely different strains. (Avian flu is H5N1 strain).

But rest assured the makers of flu vaccines will not lose this unusal opportunity to rape the American public of even more profits. Today we learned that those getting the flu shots may see a 25% increase in prices at clinics, doctors' offices and medical centers because of increases in the wholesale cost of the vaccines.

History Repeats Itself Investigative journalist Ida Honorof for decades published a consumer newsletter and broadcast a regular radio program. Honorof received a first prize award from Associated Press for investigative journalism.

The Los Angeles Times and other publications credited her with breaking some of the biggest horror stories of our time.

Ida Honorof wrote, "the most brazen, obscene electioneering ploy" ever and added that it was proposed by the President "and his coterie of scientific hacks, fabricated to cause pure unadulterated panic and guarantee political capital, rammed through without consideration of people's health and lives and approved by a band-wagon Congress" eager to make the nation's "health" a bipartisan concern.

The above quote was not written about the avian flu epidemic but the 5 million swine-flu vaccine program of 30 years ago. The hastily contrived program for swine flu resulted in hundreds of Guillain Barre Syndrome paralysis victims as well as countless deaths for a flu pandemic that never materialized.

The pocketbook purloining proposed by the Senate is more than 3,000 per cent greater than that of 30 years ago! Has your paycheck increased 3,000 per cent in the last 30 years?

Practical Options First step for anyone caught up in this avian flu hype nonsense is to take a deep breath and relax and realize the truth here. Unless you are full time bird handler in a third world country that has a seriously challenged immune system you probably have a much better chance of wining the lottery than dying from the proposed avian flu epidemic.

Review the simple lifestyle measures I outlined earlier this year that will serve to boost your immune system to not only address any form of the flu but also other infectious illness like the cold. When you have a healthy lifestyle and follow basic steps of the Total Health program, for the most part you just don't get sick.

This is the routine surprised comment that most patients tell me after they have been on the program. The Total Health program works for me, most of my patients and can work for you. Just give it a try and let's stop enriching the drug companies for toxic alternatives that don't solve the problem.

For more information about the avian flu you can obtain the Flu Tele Clinic I did last week with Dr. Tenpenny.

USA Today October 8, 2005

©Copyright 2005 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved. This content may be copied in full, with copyright, contact, creation and information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Dr. Mercola is required.

Wow really Hog? I feel so relieved because I really trust politicians to plan, execute, and follow through with the promises they make. Making a vaccine to keep in reserve offers no profit potential, and moreover, will cost a great deal of money because to be effective would have to be available on a world wide basis, which even our current flu vaccines which a fee is charged for aren't today. The only way to get the congress or big pharma's atention is to wave many large denomination dollar bills in their face. So I feel greatly relieved that Bush held a conference on a bill that's going to get shelved before ever reaching hearing, gutted, and re-appear as some other, totally unrelated bill. If I'm wrong I'll gladly eat crow on this one. Odds are it ain't gonna happen though.

BTW Hog, your long winded cut & paste says "Avian flu is H5N1 strain," Which is whack. The current bird flu is not H5N1, if it were we'd likely be heading into one of the biggest mass deaths humanty's seen for a long time. Avian flu is NOT H5N1, which human beings possess no known antibodies against.

http://tinyurl.com/9aarp 

Bush Outlines $7.1 Billion in Flu Preparations

Dr.Pepperhill, would you like hot sause with that crow?

please make sure you thoroughly cook it as well..

You need to catch up on the Biodefense Bill along with the National Homeland Security Act...

Hog

Why Dr. you act like I'm trying to take Money right outa your wallet...

I'm just posting articles I have read, and what I've seen Our Government Doing to the American People...

Fair and Balanced.. I'll report, you decide! LMAO

Hog

Fair is fair Hog. After looking into it I admit to being misinformed and thank you for your posts. However, after looking into it things do seem worse in some respects.

The three things necessary for this beast get legs are:

A.) A flu virus must have a mutation different from the common ones we're already exposed to, which means we have no natural defense against it, like the H5N1.

B.) That new strain must pass from bird (pig, whatever) to human, although the mutation could happen in humans themselves.

C.) The new lethal strain must be transmissable from human to human.

The bad news is A and B have already happened. The good news is C hasn't. Back when I was in school only B had occured, and the worry was over when A would happen, but it's here now. From what I've read up on avian flu this morning I'm definitely not worried about it. So far it passes from bird to human, that human has a high risk of mortality, but that's as far as it goes; it doesn't spread from human to human. Unless you work on a chicken ranch or something you won't catch it.

I did see the Bush plan in this morning's paper encouraging funds to be allocated to this problem, which is a good thing. The problem is that it remains up to the congress to implement it, so then we go through the whole - it gets to hearing (hopefully), they argue about it, and usually gut it if it doesn't benefit them or their contributors directly. But good for W, at least he put it out there on the table.