A Post About the H5N1 Bird Flu Virus
By Montag | Related entries in General Politics, Health Care, MilitaryThere has been buzz about this potential flu pandemic all over the place lately. Here is one article from ABC News from the other day:
The World Health Organization said today that between 2 million and 7.4 million people could die from a global flu pandemic. WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told reporters in Geneva that countries have been warned to be ready to deal with up to 7.4 million deaths, but conceded there was no way to determine the deadliness of the avian flu “until the pandemic begins.”
The estimate was a stark contrast to the range given Thursday by Dr. David Nabarro, the U.N. coordinator for global readiness against an outbreak. He said that the world response to warnings would determine whether an avian flu virus ends up killing 5 million or as many as 150 million. — Expert Predicts ‘Perfect Setup’ for Avian Flu Pandemic
Here is a “young physician’s attempt to say something pithy” in an interesting blog post about what such an outbreak may be like. From The Examining Room of Dr. Charles: The Ghost of Influenza Season Future (Hat tip: Majikthise.) And while I have my hat off to Lindsay, here is a post from her where she expresses concern about the “strategically dubious” situation of the CDC getting cozy with vaccine manufacturers.
The Centers for Disease Control is hoarding critical data about the genetics of influenza viruses. Normally, this data would be made available to the scientific community as a matter of course. Now, as we face the prospect of a global influenza pandemic, the CDC refuses to share this data. — CDC hoarding flu data
What else is the federal government doing about a potential pandemic? The President thought aloud about it at press conference today:
“If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?” Bush asked at a news conference.
“It’s one thing to shut down airplanes. It’s another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?” Bush added.
“One option is the use of a military that’s able to plan and move. So that’s why I put it on the table. I think it’s an important debate for Congress to have.”
It is worrisome to me that the military option seems to become more and more a domestic solution. But at least he was talking about the National Guard, so it doesn’t step on the toes of local and state authorities taking care of their own, right?
Well, no.
He noted that some governors may object to the federal government commandeering the National Guard, which is under state command in most circumstances.
“But Congress needs to take a look at circumstances that may need to vest the capacity of the president to move beyond that debate. And one such catastrophe or one such challenge could be an avian flu outbreak,” Bush said.
Reuters: Bush proposes using military in bird flu pandemic
Yeah, those power-hungry governors may object to the federal government commandeering the National Guard. But this proposal may very well be the logical solution following from Michael Brown’s assessment that the slow response to Katrina was the failure of “dysfunctional” state and local officials; and the relief we felt when General Honore rolled into town and the desperation lifted. Who in their right mind would throw in with the power-hungry incompetents?
Sarcasm aside, I do agree with the President that what to do about an outbreak is “an important debate” for the nation to have. We should also look at what actually went wrong, and right, in the Katrina response to inform our plans to deal with future catastrophes like flu pandemics.
One last link is Flu Wiki; which seems to have a wealth of information about this. Some of which is very unsettling.
In the meantime, remember to “…cover your coughs and sneezes, wash your hands frequently and stay home if you’re sick.” And, maybe look at some pictures from World Beard and Moustaches championships to take your mind off of it for awhile.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2005 and is filed under General Politics, Health Care, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 4th, 2005 at 3:55 pm
I’m not sure the hurricane response offers any sort of template for an epidemic. A hurricane hits hard, fast, all at once across a broad front, and does massive infrastructure damage. Your objective is to disperse people away from it. None of those things is going to hold true in an epidemic outbreak. If anything, it’s a disaster that’s the inverse of a hurricane.
The sarcasm clouds what you’re trying to say. I don’t know what you think ought to be done. It’s not a matter of choosing federal control vs. state control, because that choice already is set by the constitutional structure of the federal union. If it doesn’t work any more, it can be changed. Do we even need state armies in the post-1865 era? But we’d have to think through the consequences of that.
October 4th, 2005 at 9:29 pm
Hate to plug, but I discussed on my blog whether or not this is actually something to get worried about. There is an oft-repeated assumption that this is a matter of when not if, but there are dissenting voices. Some people might have read the TNR article saying that bird flu will never cause a pandemic that I linked. I got a reasonably detailed rebuttal to some of those arguments in the comments, which was interesting.
April 1st, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Hi :D
August 7th, 2006 at 7:16 am
Good job.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
There were 1.8 billion people in 1918. Worldwide, 50 to 100 million died in the H1N1 Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. A similar pandemic today would kill 200 to 400 million people.
November 21st, 2006 at 7:21 am
The antithesis of globalization is a pandemic of a highly contagious extremely lethal virus. There are two ways this can happen:
1. Most likely an influenza virus mutates into a new strain that infects humans. The last time this happened (the Spanish flu in 1918), it killed more people than all the world wars combined. I suggest reading Dr Osterholm’s article “Preparing for the Next Pandemic.”
2. Genetics engineering yields a novel virus for a bioterrorist pandemic. This hasn’t happened yet, but read the CIA report A Darker Bioweapons Future for a chilling preview.
If only one out of ten people in an advanced society are killed, it could collapse, because of the interdependence and specialization. Furthermore, airplanes make even remote places within a day’s travel time away. Finally, goods and services now have to flow freely, or the global economy would collapse.
In my opinion we’ve built a house of cards, waiting for the stiff wind of a severe pandemic to blow over. By the way, we’ve also built a virus machine, because of the inter-relationship between migratory birds and vast numbers of domestic poultry and swine. Few people realize what a novel virus that people don’t have immunity to, and that is highly contagious, would quickly do…and it is virtually certain that it will happen in the next few score years.
November 23rd, 2006 at 11:59 am
[...] Donklephant - Nov 20, 2006By Montag | Related entries in General Politics, Military, Health Care. There has been buzz about this potential flu pandemic all over the place lately. … Read more… [...]
November 26th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
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