Bird Flu Infecting Common Sense (CBSnews)

[Ernesto]

As a result, doctors like Len Horovitz are overwhelmed.
"You can't imagine how many phone calls and requests I've had for prescriptions and advice," Dr. Horovitz says.
Bird flu, it seems, has infected our common sense. And for some business people, it's not such a bad thing. There's money to be made.
In a throwback to the SARS epidemic which killed about 700 people, but never developed into the worldwide killer as feared, facemasks are resurfacing as the investment of choice.
One Web site is even hawking a mask that claims to kill the bird flu virus. Doug Beplate, the mask's inventor, says, "We have seen a dramatic increase in sales and interest in the mask worldwide."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/21/eveningnews/consumer/main964352.shtml

[jasmeel]

1. Don't forget the money to be made by Rumsfeld!!

See this
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5129963

[PATRICK]

2. The epidemic is MSM hysteria pumping-

something they do all the time for many reasons.

[cynatnite]

3. Run on antiviral drug worries physicians

Healthy patients seek medicine
The trend worries many physicians and public health experts because widespread home stockpiling could undermine international efforts to fight a flu pandemic. Some doctors are refusing their patients' requests except in special circumstances.

"I do know that I personally can't give everybody who wants Tamiflu a prescription for it. It just doesn't seem right to me," said Harry Oken, 51, an internist in Columbia. "If there really was an avian flu epidemic, people who don't need it have it, and people who really need it can't get it."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9779471/

[Richard D]

4. Most people don't realize . . .

. . . that this variant of bird flu was first identified in 1997.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. The WHO started talking about this

truly in 1995... I still remember that year's brief as an EMS worker... and it went something like this

We know something is happening in SE Asia, be on the look out for strange and lethal flues and report them immediately.

That was the extent of it...

Been told that they have gotten increasingly specific by my former partner who is still working in the field

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Yes, but maybe you don't know the following information....

There are 144 theoretical variants for all the forms of avian flu, but H5N1 is one of those variants, just as the 1918 Spanish Pandemic flu known as H1N1, was the first known.

For the variants, EACH can have unlimited numbers of recombinants and reassortants, each with distinct antigenic characteristics that pose their own challenge to a bird's immune systems, and some pose a challenge to mammals, including man.

H5N1 is currently the biggest threat because it is newly emerging as a human pathogen, against which human immune systems do not yet have any immunities. Additionally, there are numerous recombinants, some of which already possess some of the genetic info needed to infect humans.

Read the following links for more information...

<http://www.recombinomics.com/News/07160502/H5N1_Human_China.html>

<http://www.recombinomics.com/News/07170501/H5N1_More_Variants_China.html>

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[Karmakaze]

8. How ironic...

a screen name like that, and you believe the stuff posted by a site owned by a company that hopes to make money off this kind of hysteria?

[wryter2000]

6. As we did with SARS

Someone pointed out at the time that what we were really suffering from was SLOP -- Serious Lack Of Perspective.