The H5N1 flu virus scares the crap out of me:

[MaineDolFan]

The H5N1 virus ("bird flu") has spread into Azerbaijan, Nigeria and Indonesia.  As of right now the immediate risk is to those that handle poultry that contains the H5N1 virus.  It readily jumps from bird to human and the mortality rate of those effected is very high and scary.

Mutation of the virus to where it jumps human to human is the next step, and it's a natural one.  Most flu virus start in this manner.  The H5N1 virus is simply taking it's own turn in nature, this is how it works.  People thinking "this will pass" are wrong.

The last major pandemic of 1918 (Spanish Flu) started the same way.  H1N1 was the virus at that time, it also was avian of nature.  It was bird to bird and eventually H1N1 mutated to the point where it jumped human to human.  To quote Wayne and Garth...from there it was "game on." 

One might think that medical science advances between 1918 and now would prohibit the same level of loss of life that occured at that time.  Sounds good in theory, but it's not true.  A virus remains the same mystery as it did then.  1918 saw at least 25 million die world wide and some counts up to 100 million.  Over 500,000 in the U.S. died, mostly in the first six months.

Young men and women were the highest affected. 

The point is that we are so behind the curve on this as a nation and it needs to be hit head on.  I'm concerned with the amount of money being used to research and develop antibodies to H5N1.  Tamiflu is a joke.  H5N1 will sneeze at Tamiflu and keep on coming.

H5N1 will have global implications on everything - including potentially triggering another great depression.  I look at the economic impact on cities affected by SARS and shudder to think of what would happen with a pandemic.  SARS was small scale and cities afflicted by it still haven't recovered financially.

Stop living your life?  No.  Be educated and don't dismiss advice to be prepared.  If you had to stay in your house, without leaving, how long could you survive?

[JVides]

C'mon Maine...don't be so chicken!

OK, sorry, I couldn't resist.  Avian flu scares me as well.

[Brian Fein]

Maine, you need to stop reading medical journals...

[bsmooth]

Therenis also a belief that a number of our casualties during WWI was due to this and it was labeled as something else.

[run_to_win]

Due to modern technology and the ease and speed that we move about, isn't the threat even worse?  A person in early stages of infection, not yet showing/feeling major symptoms, could get on a flight and have layovers in other airports and spread the disease to dozens/hundreds of travelers before anyone realized he was sick.

In 1918 population centers were basically quarantined by comparison.

I doubt our government would take the steps necessary until it was too late.  There would be outrage if they did.

Click here to read about how a similar incident was stopped.  Please pay close attention to the 3rd section titled "Reaction".

[SCFinFan]

As Maine said in another post, there will must be balance between nations. Unforunately, as far as I can see, so must there be with nature. It may very well be that we are headed directly for a pandemic that will put the world in quite a different place when it has subsided. It scares me too, but if it's going to happen, then it's going to happen.

[raptorsfan29]

maine, any chance of that hitting here in the frozen tuntra (spelled wrong obviously)  in maine.

[crazy_scar_man]

The Onion
Nation's Leading Alarmists Excited About Bird Flu
February 2, 2005 | Issue 41•05

WASHINGTON, DC—The avian influenza virus, a mutant flu strain that has claimed the lives of 31 people in Eastern Asia since it was first observed passing from birds to humans in 1997, has the nation's foremost alarmists extremely agitated.

Representatives from the Alarmist Council.
"Right now, the bird flu is just a blip in the newspapers, but if the avian influenza virus undergoes antigenic shift with a human influenza virus, the resulting subtype could be highly contagious and highly lethal in humans," Matthew Wexler, the president of the National Alarmist Council and one of the nation's leading fear mongers, said Monday. "My professional opinion, and more importantly, my personal belief, is that this is a cause for great national alarm."

Wexler's sentiments were unanimously upheld by members of the alarmist community.

"The bird flu could cause a global influenza pandemic similar to the Spanish Flu that killed more than 20 million people in 1918," medical alarmist Dr. Preston Douglas said. "Many experts also believe a major global flu outbreak to be imminent, if not—God forbid—already underway. Why, recent observation and documentation has recorded at least one case of human-to-human transmission of a rare strain of the avian influenza virus. If this one case is proof that the animal virus is mutating into a contagious, lethal human virus, then the entire world is basically doomed. Doomed!"

Douglas is best known for his brilliant alarmist analyses of flesh-eating bacteria, Ebola, and SARS—all of which he successfully developed into topics of major international trepidation.

Bird flu was first identified as a strain of infectious influenza in Italy in the early 1900s. Of the 15 subtypes, only subtypes H5 and H7 are known to be capable of crossing the species barrier from birds to humans. The first human outbreak, which occurred in Hong Kong in 1997, killed four people. Since then, the bird flu has remained a relatively minor virus, killing fewer individuals than common-cold variants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued neither an epidemic warning nor a public-health alert in connection with bird flu.

According to leading alarmists, the CDC's lack of immediate concern is a cause for alarm.

"So, basically, the CDC doesn't have the first inkling of what to do about a potentially explosive form of flu that infects ducks and chickens," said Fox News Science, Health, and Epidemics Commentator Marylinne Kent. "Given the popularity of these two birds as a food source among Asians, and the fact that we have no idea how many undocumented Asians have settled illegally in our nation, the potential for danger is extremely high."

"I urge you all to think of your families," Kent added.

Harold Jefferson, a founding member of the American National Citizen's Institute for Alarm, read from a prepared statement Tuesday.

"We have to face the facts: This isn't just a rapacious killer that could be incubating anywhere within our borders and for which there is no known cure," Jefferson said. "It is also an indicator of the profound indifference of millions of American citizens. Mark my words: People who aren't scared now will look pretty stupid if it turns out that they should have been."

Jefferson added: "The bird flu could someday claim as many lives as Mad Cow Disease."

Ruth Herrin, the New York Post's veteran panic expert, has relied heavily on information provided by alarmists in the scientific community.

"Listen, I'm no disease expert," Herrin said. "But I know that people should be warned about global devastation any time a devastation scenario can be extrapolated from an actual news report. And for the 16th consecutive month, that time is now."

None of the nation's 15,000 certified alarmists have offered a strategy to deal with a possible outbreak.

"Listen, finding cures is not my job," Wexler said. "I just report the facts as best and as briefly as I can. Then I interpret them in what I, as an alarmist, believe to be the most effective fashion. And if what I perceive here is real—namely, a looming epidemic and an atmosphere of apathy and fatalism in the U. S. medical community—then we are facing Armageddon."

[raptorsfan29]

as if i wasn't paranoid enough, now i got this to worry about in my life

[Dolphin-UK]

If it mutates it mutates, and there's jack all I can do about it.  I figure i'm still statstically more likely to get cancer, get run over by a car, or something similar.

Its been found just across the water in Turkey (the irony) but if it were a serious concern they'd be doing more than just culling the birds in the affected area.

In summary, if it mutates, the mortality rate is expected to be 50% ..... meh I like those odds....toss of a coin

[Sunstroke]

If it mutates it mutates, and there's jack all I can do about it. I figure i'm still statstically more likely to get cancer, get run over by a car, or something similar.
...
In summary, if it mutates, the mortality rate is expected to be 50% ..... meh I like those odds....toss of a coin

If the bird flu makes its way to South Florida, it will have to take a number if it wants a piece of me.