Real Bird Flu News
Well, this is really big news: we have two human deaths in Turkey from bird flu. (This story has accompanying video.) The boy who died Sunday was finally confirmed to have had bird flu, after it was mistakenly reported that he died of pneumonia. His sister, who died Thursday, is said to have also had bird flu. Authorities are not certain that they died from the H5N1 strain. If so, these would be the first human cases outside Southeast Asia and China. Several other people at the same hospital are said to have similar symptoms.

You know, we in this country are so used to having our news instantaneously, 24/7, that it is sometimes difficult to understand that the news doesn’t always work that way. A big mistake was made in West Virginia by reporting the “news” too quickly.

With the Turkish boy it was initially reported that he was being tested for bird flu. Then it was reported that he died of pneumonia. Now they say it was bird flu, but they don’t know if it was H5N1. I don’t have a problem with all that. With these deaths in Turkey it becomes evident that sometimes it just takes time for the news to become news.

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