Experts dismiss scare over bird flu

[DoYouEverWonder]

Nov 1, 2005

At a time when headlines trumpet the potential dangers of "bird flu," Gary Butcher is the man of the hour.

Butcher has been an extension veterinarian at the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine since 1988. He was trained as a veterinarian specializing in avian diseases, and has a Ph.D. in poultry virology.

As the only poultry veterinarian in the state, Butcher fields phone calls and e-mails about avian flu every day.

Lately, he's been traveling the world, speaking to alarmed government officials and industry groups dispelling the myths and reinforcing the realities of avian influenza or so-called "bird flu."

Gary Butcher begins his presentation with a slide that shows a "news flash" from the British press agency Reuters reporting that avian flu "poses the single biggest threat to the world right now."

The H5N1 avian flu virus has led to the death of 150 million birds, either through infection or culling to prevent the virus from spreading. So far, however, the number of people who have become infected remains small, with 121 confirmed illnesses and 62 reported fatalities as of Monday. No one has yet been proven to have given avian influenza to someone else.

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051101/LOCAL/51101021/1078/NEWS&template=printart


Seems Bush is being a little overzealous? Or is it just his last desperate attempt to keep his grasp on power, while enriching his buddies with one last money grab from the Treasury?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. I hope this guy is right

and it is just a scare. I've never lived through something like this and I am not anxious to.

[skooooo]

2. What makes you think..

...it would be his last grab on the treasury???

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Cause there's nothing left

n/t

[salib]

3. Need to stop playing the media's games

The issue is NOT whether the flu poses a threat. The issue is how to be prepared. The repukes have little to offer besides marshall law and quarantines. We have so much more to offer. That is what we need to talk about.

[Mike03]

24. Agreed

I would also like to see the discourse move beyond the "will we or won't we" stage and move onto issues of preparation. Following Katrina there were a number of excellent threads on disaster prep.

[trotsky]

4. Money grab, definitely.

Just another way to enrich his wealthy base further. Plus it makes it look like he's doing something, since he's obviously failing in the "war on terror."

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. And it maintains the state of fear

that he has kept us under since 9-11.

That is the only way he can maintain his power is through the use of fear. He's convinced his supporters that he is the only one who can keep them safe. However, I think Katrina showed the world that Bush could care less about keeping anyone safe.

[twaddler01]

37. He is too busy

doing nothing...

[wordpix]

22. you're exactly right

[deadparrot]

7. But...but...

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

*runs in circles*

[HeeBGBz]

14. It'll be okay

Or it won't. The pointy finger of death is a frosty mistress. Whether she comes with a chicken or meteorite.

[pokercat999]

31. Now that gives me pause.

just imagine this meteor makes it through the atmosphere burns down to about the size of a baseball and hits you smack in the chest. You of course explode into a zillion little pieces of fried meat. What freaking luck! i mean how many billions of square feet are on the earths surface and you happen to be occupying the one square foot that this meteor needs to become a meteorite.

[HeeBGBz]

32. I've thought about that

Lie in bed at night and expectantly contemplate a meteorite the size of a walnut doing a William Tell to my applehead.

One could not deny ones number was up.

[MADem]

42. This bird has been discovered to carry the virus!!!!

[halobeam]

8. What I find interesting is that congress allowed about 6 billion or so

added for preparedness... THEN Bush asks for 7 billion for the same thing, all except of course aiding (financially) local govt. with the means necessary to help their own communities.. Interesting huh?

my take.. he's a day late asking for the money, acting as if he's the first one on top of this and additionally, if local govt can't help their communities... guess who'll have to be called in? You got it, the military.

Never hurts either, for Bush to look like he's doing something, too... LOL

Another joke compliments of DimSon.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. I am even more proud.

Just think of it. Last week, we did great. (actually, the truth started coming out in public, and like really dirty laundry, even the press noticed) OK, the news did it for us, but it was still a great week.

This week, the President's Brain had concocted a perfect Texas Two-step to take over the MSM agenda, starting with scAlito's nomination, followed up by a poorly read speech by President Bush about terra and Avian Flu. If the Dems had reacted like they had over the past 5 yrs, ie, doing their "dead log in the forest" imitation, the Rovester would have won.

Had that happened, this morning we would have been shivering in our shoes, wondering when that Kentucky Colonel and his fried flock of flying flu carriers would be opening a new franchise near us, and killing us off with avian borne diseases.

But it did not happen. The GOP was suckered by a 1-2-3 series of punches, one to the head, the second to the gut, and the third slightly lower. No wonder Frist looked like a sober Bush for a bit.

We changed the frame, we changed the debate and we defanged, temporarily, the Rovester. But we cannot claim victory just yet. This was but a start. Now is the time to be the most careful and appropriately aggressive, for an angry Rover is the most dangerous. And even Trent Lott was pushing Rove to resign. (talk about revenge being served cold. Lott was positively on ice.)

The real problem is that Card probably tried (unsuccessfully) to resign over the weekend. Rumors abound that the president lost it several times, and Rove's weekend plot was only approved as a default plan because everyone else was busy running from the president and scared/angry/abusive to each other.
This promises to be a very interesting week.

Why does our government remind me of the Italian governments from 1960-1980?

[leveymg]

10. He may be right. But, is $20 bucks for each American too much to spend?

What if the genes of this virus do mutate so it gains the surface proteins that would allow easy human-human transmission? It's happened several times this century, with millions of deaths.

No, on this one, it seems prudent to take the steps being described: expand monitoring, containment and treatment efforts abroad; fund the development of new vaccines; stockpile anti-virals; plan for quarantine at points of entry; and fund perparedness for local-state-federal coordination in the event of a domestic pandemic outbreak.

What the hell else can we do? I would add that the federal government should break Roche Pharmaceutical's patent on the existing vaccine and make sure that every pharamceutical company worldwide is now prepared to produce sufficient quantities of generics, at the very first sign of human transmission.

[wtmusic]

11. This guy knows more than Dubya AND Alfred Hitchcock?

Them birds is terrorists, pure and simple.

[ixion]

12. this should be the lead in every major print and broadcast

new publication, IMO.


Damn the MSM for trumpeting WH scare tactics. :grr:

[BrklynLiberal]

13. Gee, you think this has anything to do with this admin"s enthusiasm?

Rumsfeld's growing stake in Tamiflu
Defense Secretary, ex-chairman of flu treatment rights holder, sees portfolio value growing.
October 31, 2005: 10:55 AM EST
By Nelson D. Schwartz, Fortune senior writer

NEW YORK (Fortune) - The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.

Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)'s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.
The forms don't reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47. That's made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.

Rumsfeld isn't the only political heavyweight benefiting from demand for Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. (Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales.) Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.
<snip>

more....

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/?cnn=yes

[KaryninMiami]

19. It's a double header-- pharma $$$ and spreading fear to America!

Two for one- Way to Go Rummy! Now they've come up with another way to profit from terror and if they are lucky, build up the fear in America again (since that's been pr oven to increase their poll numbers). Guess they gave up on subway terror alerts for a while and have switched over to bird flu.

Their timing is so obvious it's beyond pathetic. Give me a break.

[BrklynLiberal]

15. How about nominating so everyone can see this....?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

16. done did it. good point. great issue

[54anickel]

17. That last line...makes me think back to when we had a shortage of

flu shots - wasn't that somehow DimSon's fault as well? Can't remember the details anymore - something about not allowing imports? Protecting his pharma buddies?

"While we are putting all our attention on this avian influenza, another virus is going to come up and bite us in the bottom," he said.

[Bjornsdotter]

18. It's right on the WHO website

It states there that the avian flu has never spread from person to person. If the media would just do their jobs and research a bit, then we wouldn't have these wild stories.

Cheers!

[gkhouston]

27. actually, there have been a few clusters where

limited human-to-human transmission has been suspected but they haven't been able to confirm it (or rule it out entirely). Here's a link to a website with a timeline that purports to summarize info from the WHO website.

http://www.promedmail.org/pls/promed/f?p=2400:1001:10957335571155344300::NO::F2400_P1001_BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:10001,30860


At this stage of the game is it definitely true that any human-to-human transmission has been quite limited, so the virus must not be easily airborne yet. Cross your fingers.

[Bjornsdotter]

28. Thanks

...for the added info and the link.

Cheers!

[Tracer]

20. A local doctor said ...

... when trying to allay a patient's fears about avaian flu said "unless you're planning to vacation at a Vietnamese chicken farm, there's very little to worry about."

[Mojorabbit]

29. My husband is a doctor

and he says this vet is full of shit

[wordpix]

21. Criminal Bush wants $7 billion to fight avian flu--I wonder where

all that money will end up. It wouldn't end up in Big Pharma's pockets, would it?

Also, there is no human to human spreading of the disease so how will vaccines be developed?

[nodehopper]

23. Rummy's got stock in Tamiflu. Does that answer your question?

[wordpix2]

33. yes, I knew that. Another robber baron

[Lowell]

25. Bush to declare "War on Chickens"

thats all these criminals know how to do. War on this, war on that. Meanwhile they engage us in a real war based on nothing but lies. Screw the flu, lets focus on the real problems . . . like the parasites in the White House and criminals in Congress.

[Megahurtz]

30. Probably his corporate beef buddies

need more $$$$$$$$$$$ after the mad cow scare.

[wordpix2]

35. Headline: "Chickenhawks Full of Parasites"

[ernstbass]

26. As a chicken hawk, Bush is at risk for this virus

[wordpix2]

34. LMAO, thanks for that one. LOL

[HockeyMom]

36. I live where both Lyme disease and West Nile

started. I didn't get either, and I am no Spring Chicken (pardon the pun) either.

Just more FEAR tactics from good ole *.

[IndianaGreen]

38. This is Bush's version of Gerald Ford's swine flu

which was a total bust like Ford's WIN buttons for Whip Inflation Now.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

39. Ummm, I think that headline should read...

Expert... (singular) I just read that of 3,200 virologists (not DVM's) in the US, something like 3,150 or so are "very concerned" about this strain of bird flu.

Gotta go with the virologists on this one.

[callady]

40. Oh well guess it's time to revive SARS

and maybe another Zarqawi deputy is shootin' up the joint.

Does this mean we don't get those genetically engineered chickens?

[WhiteTara]

41. The money trail leads to Dummy

and all his stocks of Gilead Sciences. Yep, he needs more money for his expensive lawyer fees that are looming in his life.