Newsweek: Bio-Katrina

[Guest guest]

E

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:11:05 -0700

Newsweek: Bio-Katrina

 

 

 

COMMENT: Worrying that Newsweek reports that

bird flu briefings have been classified beyond

Top Secret (SCI)? What the heck?

 

Isikoff and Hosenball report that intelligence

agencies are analyzing the possibility of a bird

flu attack AND note that 1918 flu has been

recreated (in Atlanta at the Center for Disease

Control.)

 

But they forgot to put those two facts together!

Thanks to the resurrection of 1918 flu, now the

" Spanish " influenza will have to be defended

against too ... another example of (so-called)

self-defeating biodefense. - EH ]

 

 

MSNBC

 

Bio-Katrina

 

U.S. intelligence agencies are being drawn into

the debate over government preparations for a

deadly flu pandemic. But are top secret briefings

good public policy?

 

WEB EXCLUSIVE

 

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

Updated: 4:20 p.m. ET Oct. 12, 2005

 

Oct. 12, 2005 - As if they didn't have their

hands full with Iraq and terrorism, U.S.

intelligence agencies are being drawn into the

debate over whether the United States is

imminently threatened by a deadly outbreak of

bird influenza and whether the Bush

administration has adequately prepared for such

an epidemic.

Over the last two weeks, the administration has

held bird flu briefings classified " Top

Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information " for

members of both houses of Congress, according to

intelligence and congressional officials. A

counterterrorism official indicated that the

intelligence community is also studying whether

it would be possible for terrorists to somehow

exploit the avian flu virus and use it against

the United States, though there is no evidence

that terrorists have in any way tried to do so.

(wunjo highlights)

The intelligence community also recently

distributed inside the government an illustrated

booklet, " Avian Influenza and the Threat of

Pandemic Influenza, " marked " Unclassified/For

Official Use Only " that highlights the dangers of

a global outbreak. The booklet, a copy of which

was obtained by NEWSWEEK, cites unidentified

" experts " who believe that H5N1, a bird flu

strain now circulating in Asia, could spread

around the world as a pandemic and cause mass

fatalities. (Scientists define a pandemic as a

disease for which there is no certain treatment

and to which humans have no natural immunity.)

According to the intelligence document, the World

Health Organization is warning that if a pandemic

outbreak occurs, " as much as one-fifth of the

world's population could become ill, at least 30

million people worldwide could require

hospitalization, and at least 2 million people

could die. " According to the booklet, however,

other experts " warn that far more could die, with

some estimates as high as 180 million " in the

event that a new pandemic virus is as potent as

the " Spanish flu " virus which caused massive

casualties in 1918.

Most scientists say the likelihood of casualties

on this scale is small. But alarming figures like

these in recent weeks caught the attention of

President George W. Bush and other White House

aides. The White House is anxious to ensure that

the administration won't be blindsided by what

has been portrayed as a potential " bio-Katrina, "

according to one administration consultant who

asked not to be identified because of the

sensitivity of the subject.

Three Capitol Hill officials familiar with the

contents of the top-secret briefings, which were

open to congressional leaders of both parties as

well as senior staffers with appropriate security

clearances, said there was little if any

information imparted during the sessions that had

not already appeared in the press. Two officials

indicated that the secrets in the briefing

related to intelligence raising questions about

the thoroughness with which foreign governments

were monitoring and disclosing information about

the spread of bird flu in their countries.

 

The briefings were staged principally by the

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),

but a senior representative of the intelligence

community was also present, according to

administration officials. A spokeswoman for HHS

declined to explain why the department considered

the briefings classified. She would only say that

the substance of the briefings related to

" general issues of avian flu and pandemic

preparedness plans. "

An intelligence official told NEWSWEEK: " The

briefings did contain classified information. The

reason the information is classified is because

some of it was acquired through clandestine

means. The DNI [the office of Director of

National Intelligence John Negroponte] works hand

in hand with HHS on a range of issues. "

A leading public-health expert questioned the

wisdom of discussing epidemiological policy in

secret. Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the

National Center for Disaster Preparedness at

Columbia University's school of public health,

said, " This is old-fashioned cold war secrecy

being applied to a public-health issue--a very

bad idea. " Redlener has criticized President Bush

and other administration officials for hinting

recently that in the event of a pandemic bird flu

outbreak, the federal government might rely

heavily on the military to establish quarantine

zones and restrict public movement to limit the

possible spread of disease.

(wunjo highlights)

Redlener and other experts say that the United

States is seriously unprepared to cope with an

avian flu outbreak, although there is no clear

indication if or when such a pandemic might

strike the United States. According to the

intelligence-community paper, the World Health

Organization has reported that since 1997, 132

people have been reported to have contracted the

H5N1 strain, and " so far about half of the people

infected " have died.

According to the intelligence booklet,

complications caused by the H5N1 virus resemble

those of the deadly flu outbreak of 1918, and

this particular virus strain is of " particular

concern " because it has passed from birds to

humans, and, in rare cases, may have also been

transmitted from person to person. According to

the document, human cases of H5N1 have been

confirmed in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand

and Vietnam, and the virus has been detected in

birds in Japan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia,

Russia and South Korea. News reports last week

also indicated new bird flu cases were under

investigation in Turkey and Romania. Also last

week, scientists revealed that the killer 1918

flu appeared to come from an avian virus that

mutated slightly to allow for human-to-human

transmission.

 

Despite H5N1's reported mortality rate of 50

percent or more, Dr. Redlener says that by the

time such a virus did arrive in the United

States, its strength might be significantly

degraded. But he notes that in the case of the

1918 Spanish flu, the eventual mortality rate of

the virus turned out to be around 2 percent, yet

millions still died. Experts note, however, that

there is no certainty that North America will be

swept by H5N1 in the next few months, or at any

point in the foreseeable future.

What is vexing the Bush administration and other

public-health professionals is the fact that the

United States is not particularly well prepared

in the event a bird flu pandemic does strike in

the near future. Presently, only one or two drugs

are regarded as effective treatments for this

type of influenza, and it is not certain that

even the known drugs would be effective against a

particularly virulent strain. Even if the drugs

do prove effective, the United States is behind

other countries in ordering the drug which

experts say has the most potential to be

effective against bird flu--a Roche Laboratories

product called Tamiflu.

Meanwhile, President Bush met last Friday with

executives from vaccine manufacturing companies

to urge them to expand U.S. capacity to make

vaccines to protect against a possible flu

pandemic. Manufacturers have complained that

making flu vaccines carries burdensome financial

and legal risks, and note that new vaccines have

to be made fresh every winter to keep up with

anticipated mutations in the virus.

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt is currently on a trip

to several countries in Asia to get a firsthand

look at measures some countries are taking to

contain the spread of known bird flu cases. The

best defense against a deadly flu pandemic would

be stopping it where it starts.

 

© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9675585/site/newsweek/