I am not concerned about bird flu at this point.  I think most of it is media frenzy. Yes there have been 100 deaths worldwide from it, but how many people die from the flu in the US. The graph below gives a percentage of those who die from the flu/pneumonia in the 2005 season. (It is difficult to pull the two diagnosis apart epidemilogically.) About 8.5%.  If you just say that 1 million people had the flu last year, which is a very low number considering there are nearly 300 million living in the US, then 85,000 people died from flu or pneumonia in that year. So you see bird flu is really just a small time virus at this point. Could it mutate and get worse, of course, even then, how come there have not been the epidemics of the past in the last 50-75 years?  Could it be that healthcare is better, people get vaccinated, they take care of their underlying medical problems, they are treated with antibiotics if they develop a bacterial infection on top of the flu, etc. 

We should be spending a lot more money on effective vaccination strategies and basic preventive medicine then wasting massive efforts of preventing bird flu.  I could be wrong...time will tell...I feel like Kentucky Fried.

I am not concerned about bird flu at this point.  I think most of it is media frenzy. Yes there have been 100 deaths worldwide from it, but how many people die from the flu in the US. The graph below gives a percentage of those who die from the flu/pneumonia in the 2005 season. (It is difficult to pull the two diagnosis apart epidemilogically.) About 8.5%.  If you just say that 1 million people had the flu last year, which is a very low number considering there are nearly 300 million living in the US, then 85,000 people died from flu or pneumonia in that year. So you see bird flu is really just a small time virus at this point. Could it mutate and get worse, of course, even then, how come there have not been the epidemics of the past in the last 50-75 years?  Could it be that healthcare is better, people get vaccinated, they take care of their underlying medical problems, they are treated with antibiotics if they develop a bacterial infection on top of the flu, etc. 

We should be spending a lot more money on effective vaccination strategies and basic preventive medicine then wasting massive efforts of preventing bird flu.  I could be wrong...time will tell...I feel like Kentucky Fried.