"Bird Flu" what is the purpose of all this media?

[serryjw]

All indications are OUR leadership again let us down by NOT reacting fast enough to order enough Tamiflu..and most are not even sure it will work anyway. Why is the media FINALLY doing their job IF there is nothing I can do to prevent this?? Is this country not worried about enough stuff?
Is it once again being used to re-focus away from issues be care about and can do something about? I accept the fact this may be the BIG one...so what can I do?.....WORRY??

[Child_Of_Isis]

1. It's just another fear tactic.

We get it every year. I hear this crap every flu season and expect those around me to die in droves. Hell, no one even gets sick. If they do, I pump them full of pau d' arco.

[evlbstrd]

To soften us up for the next disastrous non-response.

Make it sound like it's inevitable. But the relocation plans they had, rather, did not have, for the Gulf hurricanes tells you a lot about their competence. If they wanted to put us all in camps right now, I don't think they could pull it off. People are already disposessed and angry. And how many of our soldiers could be depended on to fire on their own?

[evlbstrd]

2. dupe. delete.

[Gyre]

3. I believe Tamiflu is supposed to work most of the time.

But it's expensive and all of the other countries that really care about their citizens have already bought up pretty much the entire supply. This process has been going on for over a year. This gov't purchased enough for a few million citizens.

Also, it might not happen at all. And then there's a cost-benefit equation to apply when something expensive, and needing to be purchased well in advance, may not get used at all. Think about this in the context of Katrina.

Bottom-line: It may or may not materialize. If it does this country is fucked. If it doesn't we've saved alot of money but taken a damn big chance.


Gyre

[pretzel4gore]

4. mediawhoreflu....

that's the real disease killing people right now...

[kster]

5. Scare tactic

many people get the flu at this time of year,Its like free scare tactic advertising, you get the flu and jokingly or seriously you tell two freinds "bird flu" and they tell two friends and so on and so on, before you know it, it sounds believable.

[cynatnite]

6. The scientists don't know shit from what I've read...

It can go either way and they're not even sure which direction that is.

To me, it's like an asteroid hitting, or lightening, or getting hit by a truck...you don't know. You can either live in fear and let it control you or you can go about business as usual, but keep a skeptical eye on it still. I'll take the latter :)

[depakid]

10. Then you haven't read very much

The WHO has been putting out CSR's on this for a couple of years now, tracking the progress of the disease in both animals and humans.

The fact that one can't predict the exact date a highly communicable variant will break out, doesn't mean that there isn't worldwide scientific consensus that the probability is- one will. Maybe this year, maybe next. The odds grow greater every day the virus spreads.

Every other Western country has put together detailed pandemic contigency plans- except, of course- the corrupt and inept US- which would rather funnel more money to vaccine makers for a an H5N1 shot that likely ain't gonna work againt the variant that eventually breaks out.

[cynatnite]

11. Here is what I do know:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9547047/site/newsweek/

Some are infected by human to human transmission; but by very, very close contact—not like regular flu. It’s still a hard virus for a human being to catch. I don’t think anyone is really sure of how these cases have occurred. There were cases in Jakarta where the only common exposure was at a zoo. But it’s hard to come in close contact with animals at a zoo.

We don’t know exactly what nature of genetic change is necessary to make this type of human-to-human transmission possible. This particular type has never been in our species—to our knowledge anyway. So there are two implications. That absolutely no one reading this article is immune. And, two, that we don’t know how it tracks in human beings. It is not a normal flu. For this flu to get into a form that would rapidly spread from one human to another or from a human to a towel or a cup or a doorknob or a subway pole to another human, we don’t know what would have to change. We also cannot answer another question that comes up. Will it still be killing 55 percent of all people if it changes? We don’t know if it has to forsake most of the virulence if it changes. We hope so, but we don’t know if that is the case…It could happen through a recombination event or a mutational drift event.

There is a vaccine announced by the National Institutes of Health that targets a particular strain of H5N1 in a particular strain in chickens... But it seems only to provide protective immunity for humans at the highest possible dose. It would mean two rounds of vaccinations. You’d have a real high drop-out rate… The other problem is that the vaccine must be thought of as a prototype because the human-to-human transmitter will have changed itself .

It’s not really a treatment. It doesn’t cure you, but it slows the ability of the virus to overwhelm your body and make lots of copies of itself and that buys you time to develop appropriate immunity and kill it off. Even then, you need to take it in the first 36 hours. You need to know how to tell the difference between a cold and the flu. You have to be able to pay for the prescription, while you are deathly ill, and dose yourself in less than 36 hours.

********

You are right, but there is very little they really know and they won't know much until after a pandemic is underway. They aren't even sure what direction this is going to take.

I see no reason to get worried. Sure, it could happen...but it may not. They've said for years that the world is on the verge of something like this, but it could happen now or years from now.

The lack of information spreads more fear than anything else and I won't subscribe to it at all. To me, this is like an asteroid hit, lighting striking or getting hit by a car. No one knows when or if. It's like what the bush regime has been saying about terra: It's not a matter of if, but when.

A lot of things are a matter of when, but I won't live my life by that fear.

[Digit]

7. Orders from the WH to get the focus off of their own implosion (eom)

[madrchsod]

8. TERROR-TERROR-TERROR !!!!!!!!!!!

BE AFRAID-BE AFRAID----------WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE--------!!!!!!!!!!
VOTE REPUBLICAN!

[DanCa]

9. They did something like this on boston legal last season

A person was using terror alerts as an excuse to commit violent crimes or something. I think one of things that Candice B said was that have we known personal known anyone who has had bird flu or mad cow disease or insert terror act here. The media is trying to scare us to death thats why i only get snipets of news from mike malloy randi or daily show.