Politics and Bird Flu
If we needed any reminder that things like bird flu and politics are connected, this article could serve as that reminder. Apparently we would be better prepared for a pandemic today if different public policy decisions had been made decades ago. And our current preparedness for a pandemic, which is inevitable, will depend largely on public policy decisions made today. So you see, much of it is about politics.

One interesting note: they are saying that as many as 90 million people in this country could become infected if a pandemic hit, and two million could die. Well, if we’re talking about the bird flu here, H5N1, it has a kill rate of nearly 50%, doesn’t it? That means as many as 45 million could die in this country alone, doesn’t it? That’s a lot of voters. We had better get our act together on infectious disease. Al Qaeda may be threatening us, but influenza is actually killing tens of thousands of US citizens each year. We need to put our money where the problem is, not where it might be.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, politics, influenza,