Potential danger????? I wish there was an iota of the hysteria about the possible mutation to human-to-human infection applied to what this can do to the poultry industry. We are talking about a multi BILLION dollar blow to the economy of numerous states.
Sorry for my shouting - I don't even have any financial interest in the poultry industry, I just happen to live in an area where much of the economy relies upon it, and there are many other areas that do as well. A major outbreak of AI can and will destroy many businesses and communities.
As somebody else noted up thread the West Coast (and a few states inland) just delt with a poultry blight, I'm sure it sucked for the farmers but over all it didn't really bust things up too bad; being generally disconnected from poultry I didn't even find out about it until I went to the 4H section of the county fair and saw the sign explaining why there were no chickens (I'd guess chicken prices went up but since I don't actually like chicken (they call it foul for a reason) I never noticed). And until it actually invades American poultry farms it is still just a potential danger, nothing about the spread of diseases is inevitable too many random factors play too big a role in disease spread. Certainly there's a bigger danger to the poultry industry than there is to humans, but it's all still potential and revolving around various ifs.