Posted on 12/17/2004 8:53:35 PM PST by ex-Texan
Specter of flu pandemic fails to jog government
Suppose we knew that terrorists were about to launch a biological weapon that would kill somewhere between 10 million and 100 million people, maybe more.
Suppose, further, that we knew of ways to limit the damage and prevent many of those deaths because we had detailed medical knowledge of the type of biological threat we were facing — even if we couldn't create a precisely targeted antidote or vaccine ahead of time.
Now imagine that the U.S. government was making only modest preparations — that we were in key ways leaving the matter to a greedy pharmaceutical industry that has botched its handling of a similar but much milder hazard. It's true.
* * *
Sometime in the fairly near future, a deadly flu pandemic will sweep the globe. It almost certainly will be a variant on the avian influenza (often called the "bird flu") that has already claimed several dozen lives in Asia and to which few humans have immunity.
Yet despite some recent stirrings of official concern, and some modest action, the world is insufficiently prepared. And the nation that should be leading the way — the United States — isn't doing enough.
* * *
The avian flu pandemic is a brewing global emergency. It demands the kind of response that a verifiable, imminent terrorist threat would produce.
* * *
"Nature is the most potent bioterrorist of all," said Peiris.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
If such a pandemic occured the islamic countries would suffer most of all becuse of their lack of modern medical delivery systems.
Western countries would suffer too, but at a lesser rate. In the end the terrorists would have decimated Islamic countries while only doing serious damage to the western countries.
What do you call "serious damage?" An epidemic which killed even one million in the USA would utterly ruin our economy and the world would be thrown into a greater depression.
Wow, with that type of logic anything's possible: pandemics, global warming, Islam is a religion of peace...
Think of it this way, a small car and a big truck are in a collision that can't be stopped or avoided. Someone will die. Would you rather be in the small car or the big truck?
Sounds to me like, "Don't worry that you will be shot in the bare chest with a .38 special, the other guy will be hit with a .44 magnum."
Small consolation.
Don't forget the Mad Cow episode. Why, some predicted the beef industry would be dead and buried by now.
Maybe so, but if such a pandemic ever happened the ones who survived would be those who had access to emergency medical care. If that meant that my children had a chance to survive, while people all around them are dying, I'd call it a major consolation.
Makes you wonder what imagined disaster is next.
Problem/solution, problem/solution, problem/solution.
It's a good business plan.
The worst influenza epidemic on record, the so-called 'Spanish Flu' of 1919, killed 35-40 million world-wide, plus or minus. World population was roughly 1.3 billion at the time, so I'm told.
Disease isn't selective as regards productivity, and in any case the more productive people are generally rather smarter than the average bear...and hence will tend to have taken whatever precautions are available (btw, NONE available in 1919) in larger proportion than the rest of the population.
Worldwide depression due to an influenza epidemic? Yah, right.
Somewhat less likely than an outbreak of intelligence in the Regress.
What rubbish.
Sure. And when it's over, you can teach your kids to survive by growing food from seeds, and weaving etc. Cause there will be no world economy for many years after.
Compare the complexity of the world economy in 1918 to 2994. What percentage of Americans lived on the farms? What role did aviation play in 1918 compared to 2004? Etc etc.
A pandemic in 2004 would lead to a breakdown in our "just in time" distribution system. Trucks and trains and containers would not move. Store shelves would empty and gas stations would go dry. The social contract which existed in 1918 exists no more. Cities would immediately go berserk in the absense of food and fuel deliveries.
Comparing the effects of a pandemic in the ship age of 1918 to a pandemic in the jet age shows that you have not thought the vast differences through.
No offense, Trav, but I've not only thought them through, I've formally modelled such occurrences on 3 separate occasions. Once for the Dept of Epidemiology at Yale-New Haven hospital, once as an adjunct piece of work to the design of TERTRACK in the early '80s, the third time for a project sponsored by NIH. In EACH case, the assorted clients (''powers that be'', if you prefer) considered the models to be far too rosy. Based upon actual occurrence, they weren't; in fact these models turned out to be a trifle gloomy.
The short answer is, of course: Who knows? All one can do is apply the best available information about persistence and spread of disease vectors to the model of whichever disease is under consideration.
Empirically, and damn ALL models, viral diseases known to date DO NOT reach pandemic stage due to modern transportation. First, there is no such instance of occurrence; in plain English, even including 'The Lady', the usual ironic nickname for the Spanish Flu, the expansion of the disease was due FAR more to the relatively 'slow boat' return of assorted military forces after WW I to their homelands than due to the speed with which they travelled. Second, postulating only (dangerous, I know) that any government G is even marginally sensible, some form of travel restriction will be imposed by said government in the case of a viral outbreak, but the sequel will NOT be as you indicate. If transportation is X times faster than in 1919, information transfer is 10,000 times X faster. Hence, any technologically competent gov't WILL take -- even radical -- steps almost instantly upon confirmation of such an outbreak.
Ships and trucks, particularly those carrying foodstuffs and capital maintenance equipment, WILL move. Cautiously, certainly, even perhaps under military escort -- but they WILL move.
And, you've omitted another factor. Virogens mutate. At different rates, surely, but they infallibly do. Typically, LESS virulent strains mutate toward more virulence (there are of course numerous exceptions), and MORE virulent strains mutate toward less virulence (same proportion of exceptions).
And -- here's the good news -- the duration of a strain of a particular virus maintaining its relative virulence toward Homo Sap declines (generally lognormally, many times more quickly, but I wouldn't want to bet on any specific strain regarding that) with each succeeding generation of the virus.
Horrific as the concept of mass death and economic shutdown might be, it appears -- on VERY strong evidence to date -- that this shot isn't on the board.
Now, if you get some nutball genetically engineering some strain and finding some efficient means of introducing it to a population at large, all bets are off; there's no way to analyse potential results in this case.
Cheer up -- and DO have a very Merry Christmas!
With all this talk of 'KILLER' flu, I'm beginning to rethink my plan of not giving her the shot this year.
We have had EColi scares, Mad cow scares, flu scares, anthrax scares. Who is going to trust the government when they say that they have a vaccine for the next scare? Or who really is going to trust the government when it brings up the next scare? The government has trained me to ignore its scares.
I accept all that. But I wonder how you model the panic factor in a TV driven society?
I have taken a flu shot only once in the past ten years and and cannot recall if I was sick afterwards. But I had two very difficult bouts with pnemonia along the way. I am concerned about coughing attacks, pneumonia and influeza. So I do not ride trains or busses in the winter and stay away from large groups of people. Being reasonably cautious is about all anyone can do in these days; so I try and stay safe.
Can we trust the government? Who else are we gonna listen to when it comes to public health concerns? But I do not trust the Chinese or Vietnamese governments to contain nasty flu viruses inside their own jurisdictions. The Chinese may actually believe that millions of deaths in China (or Asia) would benefit their own country. Sun Tsu anybody?
But I am skeptical about China and N. Korea. There was something fishy going on behind how SARS originated. Blaming rats and civet cats is like blaming phantoms. Now that the world has been exposed to Beijing's wild animal excuses, we have more stories blaming chickens, ducks, birds, and "lions, tiger and bears." (Oh, my!)
As Dorothy said in the movie, "We're not in Kansas anymore." It is all too complex for me.
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