The Mechanism for a Pandemic
Tourism to the Far East doesn’t seem to be affected by bird flu. In fact in some areas tourism is up. Vietnam alone, which has had the most bird flu deaths, received more than three million human visitors this year. So what do you think that means? If and when this flu morphs into a virulent strain, you’re going to have millions of people going in, being exposed, getting ill, then getting back on their jet planes and spreading the sickness to the four corners of the earth, all within a matter or hours or days or weeks at the most. And probably all this before you even realize there is a problem. Of course this is what happened with AIDS, but it took years for that to reach the scale and scope that it has. If you have an illness that is more easily spread, one like H5N1, it will be much faster and the impact will be much greater. What to do? Hope the mutation doesn’t take place, and work to limit its impact if it does. But you’ve also got to attack it at its source – that is, the bird farms of Asia – otherwise, threats from a pandemic will continue to arise every few years, and someday we really will be hit with The Big One. The mechanism for such a pandemic is sitting there waiting.

Images
Here is a slideshow of bird flu related photos. The first twelve photos seem particularly pertinent. Other bird photos are scattered throughout the remainder. There is an option in the upper right corner of the screen where you can display multiple (8) photos at a time to help you get to the ones you want to see faster.

Background Info
Here is an article on bird flu, with links, from Wikipedia.

Brief Health Note
Just because you eat organic food doesn’t mean you’re avoiding all pesticides.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, organic



Still available

The Tao of George W. Bush A perfect Christmas Gift

Also check out my other books: The Tao of Politics, The Tao of Red States and Blue States, The Tao of Love