Is it smart to prepare for bird flu? Here’s what the experts say

Monday, February 27, 2006 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: health news, Natural News, nutrition

https://www.naturalnews.com/019172_flu_pandemic_health.html

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"A pandemic, or worldwide outbreak of a new influenza virus, could ... overwhelm our health and medical capabilities, potentially resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of hospitalizations and hundreds of billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs."

- White House document, National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (NSPI)

"It's the most dangerous influenza virus that I've ever seen."

- Richard G. Webster, flu researcher at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

"Even now, there is little to no excess capacity to absorb more patients, but when pandemic flu arrives there will be a tidal wave of patients arriving in clinics and ERs nationwide. If it happens tomorrow, the system will collapse."

- Dr. James A. Wilde of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia

"Given the high level of global traffic, the pandemic virus may spread rapidly, leaving little or no time to prepare."

- World Health Organization

"The threat of a pandemic is the most important public health issue we face today. The signs are worrisome."

-Bruce Gellin, director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' national vaccine program

"It is fair to assume the shock during a flu epidemic could be even larger and last longer than SARS."

-Milan Brahmbhatt, World Bank chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region

"[Bird flu] will ultimately threaten all critical infrastructures by removing essential personnel from the workplace for weeks or months."

-White House document, National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (NSPI)

"Once human-to-human transmission has been established, we will have only a few weeks to lock down the spread before it spins out of control."

-Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General

"These viruses are always around … always bubbling under the surface. You get to the point where the entire population is susceptible because nearly everyone around for the last pandemic has grown up and died."

- Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

"There is no way we are going to contain the avian strains of influenza that we're concerned about by sealing borders and by making decrees. Stand off methods that you have right now are totally ineffective."

- World Health Organization spokesperson Dr. Bradford Kay, referring to the fact that airports are currently unprepared for a human-to-human strain of the bird flu virus, despite the fact that they would be the primary facilitator for its spread

"No one today can say how many people might die if the virus does mutate."

-Dr. David L. Heymann, executive director of communicable diseases for the World Health Organization

"Although health care has improved in the last decades, epidemiological models from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA project that today a pandemic is likely to result in 2 to 7.4 million deaths globally. In high-income countries alone, accounting for 15 percent of the worlds population, models project a demand for 134 to 233 million outpatient visits and 1.5 to 5.2 million hospital admissions."

-World Health Organization

" ... these new strains have the potential to sweep the globe, causing millions of illnesses, in what is called a pandemic."

-U.S. President George W. Bush

"In Heishan county, Liaoning province, the epidemic is still serious. Efforts to wipe out the disease have been very difficult and the prevention work is arduous."

-Agriculture Minister Du Qingling, talking to the China News Service two weeks after poultry started dying from the bird flu there

"Day by day, alarm-bells seem to be ringing louder as new outbreaks are reported."

-Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General

"If we miss the chance to exterminate the virus in the early stages, then the difficulty in wiping it out will increase by several times, as will the spread of the epidemic. We must fully recognize that, at present, there is a possibility that the epidemic will spread and expand. This is not an exaggeration just to scare people."

-Chinese Agriculture Minister Du Qinglin

"If you start to see cases that have no relation to exposure to chickens, if you see infections in hospitals among people caring for patients; that will be a clear-cut indication that there's sustained human-to-human transmission."

-Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

"We're scrambling just like everybody else. You don't want to be slow because when the genie's out, the genie's out."

-David Griffith, spokesman for the National Association of State Boards of Education, referring to U.S. schools preparing for the bird flu

"The President [of Manila] is taking this threat as seriously as the threat of terrorism, so we are mobilizing [the] private sector's support for a very effective information campaign to be able to deal with this problem."

-Secretary Cerge Remonde of the Manila Government Mass Media Group

"The virus is here to stay until, through genetic mutations, it really causes havoc or it's defeated by nature and disappears. But we are not going to be able to make it disappear from domestic birds."

-Alejandro Thiermann, president of the International Animal Health Code at the World Organization for Animal Health

"Moving forward with research conducted by the world's top scientists and openly disseminating their research results remains our best defense against H5N1 avian influenza virus and other dangerous pathogens that may emerge."

-Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

"Countries currently free of the disease should consider a ban on imports of all wild birds for the pet trade and of domestic poultry from affected regions. Preventing public access to infected sites is also clearly a sensible precaution,"

-BirdLife International

The need to prepare
Some people suggest that calm preparation is the order of the day. What is not openly talked about, however, is the rather obvious call for Martial Law (and other alarming response strategies) found in the language coming from the White House NSPI document. The same document readily admits the government probably won't be able to save you, so you'd better start preparing yourself.

"Where appropriate, use governmental authorities to limit non-essential movement of people, goods and services into and out of areas where an outbreak occurs."

-White House document, National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (NSPI)

"While your government will do much to prepare for a pandemic, individual action and individual responsibility are necessary for the success of any measures. Not only should you take action to protect yourself and your families, you should also take action to prevent the spread of influenza if you or anyone in your family becomes ill."

-U.S. President George W. Bush

"The U.S. Government has purchased only 4.3 million doses of Tamiflu...enough for just 1.5 percent of Americans."

-Fortune Magazine, Nov. 14, 2005

"Individual citizens should be prepared for an influenza pandemic, and be educated about individual responsibility to limit the spread of infection if they or their family members become ill."

-White House document, National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (NSPI)

"We now face the threat of bird flu and so we have to stay on our highest alert. We have to do our preparations early, identify the disease early and keep it under control."

-Chief executive Donald Tsang, referring to bird-flu preparation drills at Tuen Mun Hospital and four other major hospitals in Hong Kong

"Responsibilities of the individual and families include: Keeping supplies of materials at home, as recommended by authorities, to support essential needs of the household for several days, if necessary."

-White House document, National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (NSPI)

"There remains no reliable early warning system in place across large parts of the world. This vacuum in surveillance poses the most serious threat to human health,"

-Lancet Medical Journal editorial

"In general we are fairly concerned because we feel the more outbreaks, the more the risk of a pandemic. The frequency of outbreaks is a reflection of the lack of a surveillance system."

-Noureddin Mona, Food and Agricultural Organization's (FAO) China representative

The economic impact of a pandemic
One of the most startling realizations about bird flu is the economic cost of a potential pandemic. Unlike the disease itself, the economic fallout can affect everyone from the smallest Vietnamese farmer to the national economies of the world's largest superpowers.

"Should the flu mutate into a true global pandemic, the economic implications would be profound, potentially reducing energy demand by well over one million barrels per day,"

-Report issued by U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs, who state that a pandemic would cut down world energy demand as fewer people travel

"If --and we all hope we won't have to --we face human-to-human transmission, all of these figures (the current cost of bird flu) would be multiplied by several orders of magnitude."

-Fadia Saadah, sector manager for health, nutrition and population of the World Bank

"If (farmers) are not compensated, (farmers) are not going to tell you whether their birds are sick. If other pandemics have taught us anything, it is that silence is deadly. Let us prepare for it carefully, and let us prepare for it now."

-Kofi Annan, UN secretary general, urging world governments to create better systems to compensate farmers with infected flocks

The failure of modern medicine
If a bird flu pandemic strikes, not only will anti-viral medicines be in short supply, they may not even work.

"Quite honestly, nobody knows at this point whether Tamiflu will be effective at all when we face a pandemic. We may have wasted the money that we bought all this Tamiflu for."

-Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer

"In the face of a pandemic, the available supplies of antiviral drugs would be used up in days."

-Dr. Robert Webster, Infectious Diseases department of St. Jude

"Vaccines and antiviral agents are unlikely to meet demand, even for industrialized countries able to purchase them."

-The Next Influenza Pandemic: Lessons from Hong Kong, 1997 by René Snacken, Alan P. Kendal, Lars R. Haaheim, and John M. Wood, published by the Centers for Disease Control

"Vaccines, antiviral agents and antibiotics to treat secondary infections will be in short supply."

-World Health Organization

"A focus on one antiviral is misplaced. There's no certainty that they'll be effective."

-Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt

"If an influenza pandemic started tomorrow, we would not be able to head it off with vaccines because the production facilities available to produce them are grossly inadequate."

-Dr. Robert G. Webster, a member of the Infectious Diseases department of St. Jude

"The disease in humans has no vaccine and no specific treatment once illness becomes severe."

-The World Health Organization

"In terms of treatment, we need to put money into basic research. At this point, we are just relying on neuraminidase inhibitors. This is dangerous."

-Dr. Anne Moscona, professor of pediatrics, microbiology and immunology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York, who notes that viruses will always be able to escape if attacked with just one class of drugs.

"Waiting until a pandemic strikes to determine access to [vaccines and medicines] inevitably contributes to inequities in supply for countries lacking facilities to produce antiviral agents or vaccines, or lacking resources to competitively purchase supplies at a time of scarcity. The issue of equity cannot be resolved by individual governments or manufacturers."

-The Next Influenza Pandemic: Lessons from Hong Kong, 1997 by René Snacken, Alan P. Kendal, Lars R. Haaheim, and John M. Wood, published by the Centers for Disease Control

"If there is a severe outbreak of bird flu, the GPO will be able to produce enough oseltamivir to treat 100,000 patients, which would mean producing one million tablets within 15 days."

-Government Pharmaceutical Organization Managing Director, Mongkon Jirasatikarn, referring to Thailand's plan to produce a generic version of Tamiflu

"The harm (caused by the sale of fake vaccines) is incalculable."

-China's Chief Veterinarian Jia Youling, who stated that the fake vaccines tend to contain active viruses

"The use of fake and shoddy vaccines will result in a disaster. If the vaccines are not up to standard, then immunization to the virus will not be uniform or effective. This could bring huge losses."

-Chinese Agriculture Minister Du Qinglin