"I don't know what we could do about it except say, 'We're
screwed.'"
"You can get rid of the 'if' because it's going to occur," said
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases.
Steven Hoffman, an audience member at the Council forum, rose to
say that the experts' stark warnings had convinced him "to get in
my car and move to Montana or something." "It won't help,"
[Laurie] Garrett told him.
----------------------
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/050616/16avian.htm
Avian flu: 'We're screwed' if it hits soon
Health experts and officials shook up a breakfast meeting in
Washington this morning with more alarm over what they see is an
inevitable avian influenza pandemic and public-health emergency.
Also today, World Health Organization officials confirmed the
first case of avian flu in a farmworker in the island nation of
Indonesia. Known as avian flu because it infects primarily
chickens and waterfowl, the officials fear that the virus will
mutate and become a human disease. Because this strain has never
circulated through the human population, people would have no
innate immunity if they were infected. Officials compare the virus
to the 1918 pandemic that hit one third of the population and
killed between 1 and 5 percent of those infected. This strain,
known as H5N1, could be at least that deadly and perhaps more so,
especially for young and healthy people who would very likely die
from an immune system reaction to the disease, as happened in
1918. Today, if the pandemic hit, the number of dead could be as
high as 360 million worldwide.
"You can get rid of the 'if' because it's going to occur," said
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases.
It may not occur this year, or next, he said, "but [the threat] is
not going to go away." The disease has currently crossed over to
humans in Asia, but only among people who have very close contact
with chickens or who take care of the sick. It has killed at least
54 people in Asia but is not now communicable in the way that the
more common and less lethal human influenza viruses are.
The virus "is due to spin out of this bird population" that it
currently infects, said Michael Osterholm, the director of the
Center for Infectious Disease Research at the University of
Minnesota. When it does, the fast pace of global transportation
and trade is sure to carry it around the world in a matter of days
if not hours, the officials said. And while most states have plans
in place to deal with public-health emergencies, many of those
plans have yet to be tested in real or simulated situations. If
the pandemic were to hit today, said Osterholm, "I don't know what
we could do about it except say, 'We're screwed.'"
------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=818669da-e961-42a9-9590-83a282ed5215
Pandemic could create serious and sustained food shortages, expert
warns.
June 16, 2005
(CP) - 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.
The lingering outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu strain that has
decimated poultry stocks in wide swathes of Southeast Asia has
influenza experts the world over losing sleep over the possibility
the highly virulent virus will mutate or evolve to the point where
it can spread to and among humans, starting a pandemic. AC 4-ever
User ID: 393 6/16/2005 11:20 pm EDT Re: Pandemic could create
serious and sustained food shortages, expert warns.
------------------------------------------------------------------
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/107/108562.htm
Warnings Grow Dire on Bird Flu Threat
U.S. Officials and Experts Complain of Catastrophic Danger
June 16, 2005 -- U.S. health officials and infectious disease
experts have been sounding the alarm for more than a year on the
deadly potential of a widespread pandemic of the bird flu
troubling Southeast Asia.
But their warnings have become unmistakably ominous as they
struggle to convince the public and policy makers of the need to
prepare for the mass casualties, chaos, and devastation that will
likely result if the disease spreads across the world.
As of June 14, 103 people have been infected with bird flu in
Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, according to the World Health
Organization. Officials yesterday also disclosed the first
reported case in Indonesia.
Normally, 104 cases of any disease would hardly grab the attention
of public health experts. But bird flu is different. More than
half of the cases have been fatal, suggesting an unprecedented
level of harm for a modern flu. Humans have no natural immunity to
the virus causing the disease, known as H5N1, and no vaccine is
available.
In congressional hearings and on television, officials have
repeatedly advised the public of the potential for millions of
casualties if bird flu gains the ability to easily spread from
birds to people or between humans themselves.
Bird Flu Warnings Get Stronger
But the warnings have now become decidedly darker as officials
warn of a catastrophic economic shutdown and a global political
crisis if bird flu strikes an unprepared world.
"This is much larger than a public health threat. The vast
majority of the world just doesn't get how vulnerable we are,"
says Michael Osterholm, MD, associate director of the National
Center for Food Protection and Defense in the Department of
Homeland Security and a former bioterrorism advisor to the Bush
administration.
Federally run tests of an experimental bird flu vaccine are under
way and due to yield preliminary results later this summer. Even
if it's effective, no one expects manufacturers to be able to
quickly make enough to protect the U.S. population.
Osterholm complains that U.S. officials and companies have not
planned for the widespread logistical disruptions that would
result if bird flu were to spread within the next couple of years.
His warnings range from inadequate planning for hospital
overcrowding to the fact that the U.S. market has only 2.5-week
supply of caskets.
Local and federal agencies have not planned for widespread
disruptions to schools and workplaces as the public is told to
stay home and gymnasiums are converted to emergency medical
facilities, he says. Travel restrictions and a run on vital
supplies, such as masks able to filter flu viruses, would "no
doubt" lead to an economic shutdown, he adds.
What to Do?
Asked at a Thursday forum hosted by the Council of Foreign
Relations what can be done to immediately prepare for a bird flu
outbreak, Osterholm says there's probably little we can do at this
point.
What can the U.S. do to prevent the continued spread of flu from
billions of Asian chickens and ducks? "The bottom line message is:
almost nothing," says Osterholm, who is also a professor at the
University of Minnesota.
World Community Unprepared
Others offer equally stark warnings that the U.S. has not engaged
foreign governments over how nations will react in the event of a
global pandemic and economic standstill. Poor and middle-income
governments have already begun to complain that they are being
left out as industrialized countries make deals to buy stockpiles
of antiflu medications, says Laurie Garrett, the council's senior
fellow for global health and a former journalist.
"We have no agreed-upon mechanisms of any kind," Garrett says.
"This could turn into a big, bloody mess."
Bush administration officials told lawmakers two weeks ago that
they are hard at work completing a national flu response plan
governing issues such as quarantines, hospital capacity, and
distribution of emergency pharmaceuticals.
Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute for Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged in an interview that
officials' public statements about bird flu have become unusually
stark. He attributes the warnings to concerns over bird flu's
apparent harm and to the lack of human immunity.
Officials are also trying to galvanize support for new laws that
would give pharmaceutical companies incentive to produce large
amounts of vaccine against bird flu and other more common types of
flu. "That's the thing that we keep trying to drill at," he says.
Fauci says that "the administration is very much up there" in its
level of activity in flu planning.
Meanwhile, other experts remain largely unconvinced.
Steven Hoffman, an audience member at the Council forum, rose to
say that the experts' stark warnings had convinced him "to get in
my car and move to Montana or something."
"It won't help," Garrett told him.
screwed.'"
"You can get rid of the 'if' because it's going to occur," said
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases.
Steven Hoffman, an audience member at the Council forum, rose to
say that the experts' stark warnings had convinced him "to get in
my car and move to Montana or something." "It won't help,"
[Laurie] Garrett told him.
----------------------
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/050616/16avian.htm
Avian flu: 'We're screwed' if it hits soon
Health experts and officials shook up a breakfast meeting in
Washington this morning with more alarm over what they see is an
inevitable avian influenza pandemic and public-health emergency.
Also today, World Health Organization officials confirmed the
first case of avian flu in a farmworker in the island nation of
Indonesia. Known as avian flu because it infects primarily
chickens and waterfowl, the officials fear that the virus will
mutate and become a human disease. Because this strain has never
circulated through the human population, people would have no
innate immunity if they were infected. Officials compare the virus
to the 1918 pandemic that hit one third of the population and
killed between 1 and 5 percent of those infected. This strain,
known as H5N1, could be at least that deadly and perhaps more so,
especially for young and healthy people who would very likely die
from an immune system reaction to the disease, as happened in
1918. Today, if the pandemic hit, the number of dead could be as
high as 360 million worldwide.
"You can get rid of the 'if' because it's going to occur," said
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases.
It may not occur this year, or next, he said, "but [the threat] is
not going to go away." The disease has currently crossed over to
humans in Asia, but only among people who have very close contact
with chickens or who take care of the sick. It has killed at least
54 people in Asia but is not now communicable in the way that the
more common and less lethal human influenza viruses are.
The virus "is due to spin out of this bird population" that it
currently infects, said Michael Osterholm, the director of the
Center for Infectious Disease Research at the University of
Minnesota. When it does, the fast pace of global transportation
and trade is sure to carry it around the world in a matter of days
if not hours, the officials said. And while most states have plans
in place to deal with public-health emergencies, many of those
plans have yet to be tested in real or simulated situations. If
the pandemic were to hit today, said Osterholm, "I don't know what
we could do about it except say, 'We're screwed.'"
------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=818669da-e961-42a9-9590-83a282ed5215
Pandemic could create serious and sustained food shortages, expert
warns.
June 16, 2005
(CP) - 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.
The lingering outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu strain that has
decimated poultry stocks in wide swathes of Southeast Asia has
influenza experts the world over losing sleep over the possibility
the highly virulent virus will mutate or evolve to the point where
it can spread to and among humans, starting a pandemic. AC 4-ever
User ID: 393 6/16/2005 11:20 pm EDT Re: Pandemic could create
serious and sustained food shortages, expert warns.
------------------------------------------------------------------
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/107/108562.htm
Warnings Grow Dire on Bird Flu Threat
U.S. Officials and Experts Complain of Catastrophic Danger
June 16, 2005 -- U.S. health officials and infectious disease
experts have been sounding the alarm for more than a year on the
deadly potential of a widespread pandemic of the bird flu
troubling Southeast Asia.
But their warnings have become unmistakably ominous as they
struggle to convince the public and policy makers of the need to
prepare for the mass casualties, chaos, and devastation that will
likely result if the disease spreads across the world.
As of June 14, 103 people have been infected with bird flu in
Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, according to the World Health
Organization. Officials yesterday also disclosed the first
reported case in Indonesia.
Normally, 104 cases of any disease would hardly grab the attention
of public health experts. But bird flu is different. More than
half of the cases have been fatal, suggesting an unprecedented
level of harm for a modern flu. Humans have no natural immunity to
the virus causing the disease, known as H5N1, and no vaccine is
available.
In congressional hearings and on television, officials have
repeatedly advised the public of the potential for millions of
casualties if bird flu gains the ability to easily spread from
birds to people or between humans themselves.
Bird Flu Warnings Get Stronger
But the warnings have now become decidedly darker as officials
warn of a catastrophic economic shutdown and a global political
crisis if bird flu strikes an unprepared world.
"This is much larger than a public health threat. The vast
majority of the world just doesn't get how vulnerable we are,"
says Michael Osterholm, MD, associate director of the National
Center for Food Protection and Defense in the Department of
Homeland Security and a former bioterrorism advisor to the Bush
administration.
Federally run tests of an experimental bird flu vaccine are under
way and due to yield preliminary results later this summer. Even
if it's effective, no one expects manufacturers to be able to
quickly make enough to protect the U.S. population.
Osterholm complains that U.S. officials and companies have not
planned for the widespread logistical disruptions that would
result if bird flu were to spread within the next couple of years.
His warnings range from inadequate planning for hospital
overcrowding to the fact that the U.S. market has only 2.5-week
supply of caskets.
Local and federal agencies have not planned for widespread
disruptions to schools and workplaces as the public is told to
stay home and gymnasiums are converted to emergency medical
facilities, he says. Travel restrictions and a run on vital
supplies, such as masks able to filter flu viruses, would "no
doubt" lead to an economic shutdown, he adds.
What to Do?
Asked at a Thursday forum hosted by the Council of Foreign
Relations what can be done to immediately prepare for a bird flu
outbreak, Osterholm says there's probably little we can do at this
point.
What can the U.S. do to prevent the continued spread of flu from
billions of Asian chickens and ducks? "The bottom line message is:
almost nothing," says Osterholm, who is also a professor at the
University of Minnesota.
World Community Unprepared
Others offer equally stark warnings that the U.S. has not engaged
foreign governments over how nations will react in the event of a
global pandemic and economic standstill. Poor and middle-income
governments have already begun to complain that they are being
left out as industrialized countries make deals to buy stockpiles
of antiflu medications, says Laurie Garrett, the council's senior
fellow for global health and a former journalist.
"We have no agreed-upon mechanisms of any kind," Garrett says.
"This could turn into a big, bloody mess."
Bush administration officials told lawmakers two weeks ago that
they are hard at work completing a national flu response plan
governing issues such as quarantines, hospital capacity, and
distribution of emergency pharmaceuticals.
Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute for Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged in an interview that
officials' public statements about bird flu have become unusually
stark. He attributes the warnings to concerns over bird flu's
apparent harm and to the lack of human immunity.
Officials are also trying to galvanize support for new laws that
would give pharmaceutical companies incentive to produce large
amounts of vaccine against bird flu and other more common types of
flu. "That's the thing that we keep trying to drill at," he says.
Fauci says that "the administration is very much up there" in its
level of activity in flu planning.
Meanwhile, other experts remain largely unconvinced.
Steven Hoffman, an audience member at the Council forum, rose to
say that the experts' stark warnings had convinced him "to get in
my car and move to Montana or something."
"It won't help," Garrett told him.
...(I call Him God...but you may have some other name)
