Keep your fingers crossed
We had better hope that a flu pandemic doesn’t strike anytime soon because the head of the CDC says it will be four to five years before we are adequately prepared to deal with one. I think even that is being overly optimistic. Maybe there will be progress in developing vaccines, but the antivirals we have now are largely ineffective, so either we’d better get some new antivirals, or hope we don’t get hit.

Good for Roche
More than sixty governments have placed orders for Tamiflu, enough to cover billions of people worldwide. That’s good for the drug company Roche and its investors. Will that be good for the people taking the drug? A lot of what I read says that is uncertain at best. And there may even be unwanted side effects.

Sickos
Fifteen young men in Romania are sick, but the diagnosis is not bird flu.

Stay home
This opinion piece says that if a flu pandemic strikes, you can stay home from work to prevent its spread, that is, if don’t stand to lose your job. Of course, I’d rather lose my job than lose my life.

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

COMING SOON

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

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