Daily Dose - Apocalypse Fowl

[Guest guest]

" WC Douglass " <realhealth

 

 

Daily Dose - One flu over the clueless West

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 08:46:49 -0400

 

 

Daily Dose

****************************************************

April 11, 2005

 

 

 

Apocalypse Fowl

 

A year ago (Daily Dose, 2/20/2004), I first wrote to you about the

coming " bird flu " epidemic. Rather than a lengthy recap of my salient

points, here's an excerpt of exactly what I said back then:

 

" ...disease waits for no man, and while we piddle around in a

perpetual state of denial and non-readiness, afflictions like SARS,

monkey pox, Ebola, mad cow disease, and most recently, the East Asian

" bird flu " continue to make headlines around the world. Didn't we

learn anything from the 1918 flu pandemic that killed more than 20

million people worldwide... "

 

And:

 

" ...A recent report authored by U.S. and British scientists has all

but concluded that the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918 was

caused by a virus that jumped to humans FROM BIRDS... "

 

Critics of the piece might've called me and others who shared my point

of view " apocalyptic " and " irresponsible " for suggesting that this new

aviary flu (dubbed by scientists H5N1) could wipe us out by the

million. And right now, I would give anything for them to have been

right - this is one of those times I hate being able to say " I told

you so. " But sadly, it appears that my " alarmist " outlook may have

been dead right (no macabre wordplay intended), if you believe the

latest language from the World Health Organization...

 

According to an AP article from a few days ago, WHO officials gathered

in Vietnam implored governments worldwide to act quickly and

decisively to stop the threat of the bird-flu that has already killed

45 people in Asia over the last year, despite that region's swift

eradication of hundreds of million of chickens and other at-risk fowl.

One WHO official claimed the world is in the " gravest possible danger "

of a pandemic - especially if the virus does what most influenza

viruses do: Mutate into ever-more resilient forms.

 

Reports from the field say it's already happening. According to German

news service Spiegel, the coordinator of the WHO's global influenza

program this highly deadly flu strain mutated into a form

transmittable not just to livestock like chickens, but to other fowl

like ducks. And unlike the chicken flu, which has obvious symptoms and

causes nearly 100% mortality, the form of H5N1 that ducks carry

produces no noticeable symptoms in about 40% of those infected.

 

Why is this so worrisome? Keep reading...

 

****************************************************

 

Ducks in a (deadly) row

 

Though like chickens, they're also raised for the slaughter on farms

in Asia, there are millions of wild, free-ranging ducks. And what do

ducks do?

 

They migrate. Huge distances, in many cases.

 

This means that in the span of a season, infected wild ducks could

spread a virtually undetectable form of H5N1 over thousands of square

miles. If the virus mutates again into a form that attacks humans

(more readily than it already does, I mean), Asia will be in the

throes of a deadly epidemic. And since two-thirds of the world's

people live there - millions of them in impossibly close quarters to

one another - they could soon have a body count on their hands that

would make the recent Tsunami seem downright merciful.

 

And as if all this isn't bad enough, we (the world, I mean) have

another thing working against us: Statistics. Again according to the

WHO, we're long overdue for a global bout with a killer flu strain.

Their data indicate that an influenza pandemic occurs every 27.5

years. The last one hit in 1968, killing between 1 and 4 million,

relatively mild by historical standards...

 

It doesn't take a math whiz to see that we're almost a decade past

due. Let's hope - let's pray - that history doesn't repeat itself and

deal us an influenza outbreak of the 1918 scale.

 

I swear, I've never wanted to be wrong about anything so much in my life.

 

Never ducking the truth - or playing chicken with fate,

 

William Campbell Douglass II, MD