Bird Flu Expert - 'We're screwed.'

There were 6 new cases of bird flu reported in Vietnam, and one bird flu doctor has contracted it - a total of 7 new cases. That's grim news because it might indicate human to human transmission. Warnings by experts are sounding more and more grim. I don't know why our government is doing next to nothing about this. Here's the article I've been reading today:

Pandemic could cause food shortages, expert warns
Canadian Press

An influenza pandemic would dramatically disrupt the processing and distribution of food supplies across the world, emptying grocery store shelves and creating crippling shortages for months, an expert warned Thursday.

Dr. Michael Osterholm suggested policy makers must start intensive planning to figure out how to ensure food supplies for their populations during a time when international travel may be grounded or severely cut back, when workers are too sick to process or deliver food and when people will be too fearful of disease to gather in restaurants.

Food and other essential goods like drugs and surgical masks will be available at best in limited supplies, Osterholm cautioned in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, which devoted a number of articles to the threat of pandemic influenza.

He saved his most flatly worded warning, however, for a news conference organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, which publishes the respected journal. In an interview from Washington following the briefing, he repeated his blunt message of how dire things would be if a pandemic starts in the short term.

"We're pretty much screwed right now if it happens tonight," said Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Osterholm said the "just-in-time" delivery model by which modern corporations operate means food distribution networks don't have warehouses brimming with months worth of inventory.

Most grocery store chains have only several days worth of their most popular commodities in warehouses, he explained, with perhaps 30 days worth of stock for less popular items.

He pointed to the short-term shortages that occur when winter storms threaten communities, then suggested people envisage the possibility of those shortages dragging on for somewhere between 18 months and three years as the expected successive waves of pandemic flu buffet the world.

"I think we'll have a very limited food supply," he said in the interview.

"As soon as you shut down both the global travel and trade . . . and (add to it) the very real potential to shut down over-land travel within a country, there are very few areas that will be hit as quickly as will be food, given the perishable nature of it."

Osterholm has been one of the most vocal proponents of the urgent need to prepare for a flu pandemic that could sicken at least a third of the world's population and kill many millions. However, he is not alone in fearing the world may be facing a pandemic, widely viewed as the single most disruptive and deadly infectious disease event known to humankind.

www.ctv.ca...

Why is everyone ignoring this problem? To even find out any data on it, I have to search the web. Vietnam is becoming very slow at confirming new cases. China looks like it's going the cover-up route again. And the US sits on it's hands.

If this thing goes bad, we can make it a LOT easier on ourselves if we prepare. So why does everyone ignore the problem and pretend it doesn't exist?

First of all i have to say the thought of an expert coming out and bluntly saying "we're screwed" cracked me up.

on to a more serious note...

i have no idea why this isnt a big issue. I would think i would have heard about this on fox/msnbc/cnn news or the local newspapers or something but who knows. I do know that certian things on the internet tend to blow things out of proportion ....so maybe it isnt really as bad as they are making it out to be. On the other hand, the western world tends to procrastinate on stuff like this and then panic like hell to figure out what to do with everybody. Being an American myself....you would think that after 911 we wouldnt feel as safe...but sometimes it still feels like we have this security blanket over us and the rest of the world cant touch us. However, i am 19 so that could be my teenage immortality complex coming through lol.

whatever is truely going on i hope we find out as soon as possible. because if it is as bad as they are predicting we NEED to take steps or at least mentally prepare people for the possible senarios.

Kind Regards,
Digital Grl

Here is what you do. Scan the web for a television show called "survivor man"...get all the episodes, or the episodes for the country you live in. watch the show. Learn.


Go out into the middle of no where. survive.

Why is everyone ignoring this problem? To even find out any data on it, I have to search the web.

Here is list of excellent sites that usually have the lastest information on the avian influenza threat. (also see the CDC and WHO sites)

www.internationalsos.com...

www.cidrap.umn.edu...

www.promedmail.org...:1000

www.clickitnews.com...

This info will help you keep up to date.

Here is another good site:

www.recombinomics.com...



[edit on 21-6-2005 by gman55]

Personally, I think that this is the real reason that the President is meeting with Vietnam in the White House for the first time since the war. I think that his advisors are concerned about it and they want to have some closed door talks to figure out what (if anything) can be done.

Didn't Washington have some Vietnamese visitors today?

Was there any hand shaking going on?

That was exactly my point. It seems a bit odd in timing.
www.cnn.com...

the reason the US Govt is doing nothing about it?

Could it be because the US Military admits it conducted billions of dollars worth of reasearch into biological warfare?
Could it be possible that they viewed Bird Flu as a potential threat and decided to cure it *and maybe make a few weapons with it*

If you want my opinion; there is a Freezer deep inside an underground labratory somewhere in the desert ...and in this freezer is a cure to the bird flu; among many other secret cures...just in case

What we do is get some scientists to discover a vaccination, and vaccinatge everyone and wipe out that disease!

A company named Sinovac Biotech is actually working on a vaccine for 'bird flu' as well as SARS and Hepatitis. They specialize in epidemic/pandemic viruses and have been on this since it all started. Hopefully they'll have the necessary vaccines in-place in time.

Originally posted by jtma508
A company named Sinovac Biotech is actually working on a vaccine for 'bird flu' as well as SARS and Hepatitis. They specialize in epidemic/pandemic viruses and have been on this since it all started. Hopefully they'll have the necessary vaccines in-place in time.

I thought they already had vaccine for Hepatitis. If they don't then why did I have to get a Hepatitis shot? I think the bird flu is just the illness of the the year. Last year we delt with SARS the year before was mad cow.

food chain viruses are coming.we will have to deal with this in our life time.you can duck and cover all ya want .the bird flu mad cow and other food chain problems are coming fast.global warming has laid out her time table.weather food sickness all part of the global family.we can ignore it for awhile but it will not ignore us.when air and water becomes are enemy humunity will come down off its drunkin high horse......

Originally posted by jtma508
A company named Sinovac Biotech is actually working on a vaccine for 'bird flu' as well as SARS and Hepatitis. They specialize in epidemic/pandemic viruses and have been on this since it all started. Hopefully they'll have the necessary vaccines in-place in time.

Unfortunately, the flu vaccine they are working on was from samples taken and cultured from the 2003-2004 outbreak. Althought it will help somewhat, the variant of H5N1 now circulating is different than the older one and will in all probability undergo futher antigenic drift.

Amidst the reports that permeate the airwaves of diseases-outbreaks worldwide, and mindful of the current Islamic nemesis, it's amoral approach to it's agendae and our constant need for vigilence.... I offer the following write up of a past historical gift from Islam to the West.


"On the basis of a 14th-century account by the Genoese Gabriele de' Mussi, the Black Death is widely believed to have reached Europe from the Crimea as the result of a biological warfare attack. This is not only of great historical interest but also relevant to current efforts to evaluate the threat of military or terrorist use of biological weapons. Based on published translations of the de' Mussi manuscript, other 14th-century accounts of the Black Death, and secondary scholarly literature, I conclude that the claim that biological warfare was used at Caffa is plausible and provides the best explanation of the entry of plague into the city. This theory is consistent with the technology of the times and with contemporary notions of disease causation; however, the entry of plague into Europe from the Crimea likely occurred independent of this event."

The above recounts the midieval siege wherein the Muslim attackers, incapable of conquest by arms, hurled plague-ridden bodies over the defenders wall. .

Knowing their fondness for ancient victories, do you think it might occur to them for a repeat performance? Nice to know at least they can no longer use boxcutters.

Hope i'm not a victim I've been feeling sick

I hope this is not true at all and its just more terror for us to worry over.
Its so hard to separate the truth from the untruth

Originally posted by speight89
What we do is get some scientists to discover a vaccination, and vaccinatge everyone and wipe out that disease!

It will never happen. There is no profit in a cure, only in managing symptoms and extending the lifespan. Regardless of quality of life. I have a friend who used to work in biomed and left when they basically got a memo to the effect that they were focusing on the wrong thing in looking for a cure.

Originally posted by Marid Audran

Originally posted by speight89
What we do is get some scientists to discover a vaccination, and vaccinatge everyone and wipe out that disease!

It will never happen. There is no profit in a cure, only in managing symptoms and extending the lifespan. Regardless of quality of life. I have a friend who used to work in biomed and left when they basically got a memo to the effect that they were focusing on the wrong thing in looking for a cure.

That is exactly right! You wont see a cure because there is simply no money in curing things... Complanies can't make money if they can't treat the problem with their drugs.... Aids anyone?

Stop getting into a panic about avian flu, corporations already poison you with food.
In 2004 there were 16,000 deaths for Salmonella in the US...from FOOD

In one case of over 160 deaths attributed to products from a single company, Oscar-Meyer I believe, they only had to pay $60,000 in fines. You think that hurt their bottom line? Nope not at all, meanwhile how much damage economically to the families and businesses associated with those 160 people did the company cause.

Also remember you can get Pneumonia and die from any current variant of flu.
The vaccines are useless, a fraud, snake oil.

This really worries me but what can i do? I really wont be able to survive in the wild like Bane of your Existence suggests. Mostly because there is barely any nature left and watching shows doesnt really help.

Originally posted by gman55
Unfortunately, the flu vaccine they are working on was from samples taken and cultured from the 2003-2004 outbreak. Althought it will help somewhat, the variant of H5N1 now circulating is different than the older one and will in all probability undergo futher antigenic drift.

Not true anymore, GMan. They recently received H5N1 samples.