Free Republic

At this point, only God can prevent massive food shortages from hitting the United States in the near future. We knew things were bad when even Joe Biden’s handlers instructed him to warn the world last month that we would all be experiencing food shortages soon. Now, it seems to be a foregone conclusion. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but we’re in the middle of a perfect storm of events that will lead to even higher prices and extreme food scarcity. The stage was set by Pandemic Panic Theater. The Ukraine-Russia war made things much worse...

In the first systematic, statistical analysis of its kind, infectious-disease-modeling experts at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center confirm that the avian influenza A (H5N1) virus in 2006 spread between a small number of people within a family in Indonesia. The findings, by biostatistician Ira M. Longini Jr., Ph.D., and colleagues, will be published inthe journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Co-authors on the paper were biostatisticians M. Elizabeth (Betz) Halloran, M.D., D.Sc., and Yang Yang, Ph.D.; and epidemiologist Jonathan Sugimoto, M.H.S., a pre-doctoral research associate. All are within the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division and Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute. The...

TORONTO (CP) - Enthusiasm over the news that U.S. researchers have proven a vaccine is effective against the H5N1 avian flu strain was tempered Monday with word that it took massive doses - roughly 12 times the normal amount - to produce a protective response in humans. Given that manufacturers can only make enough vaccine for a fraction of the world's population in normal times with regular dosing schedules, experts said the findings underscore the urgent need to find ways to produce the same response with smaller doses of vaccine. "I think these results suggest the world is even less...

Influenza pandemic 'could be avoided' By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 04/08/2005) A global influenza outbreak with the potential to kill millions could be stopped in its tracks with concerted action and enough antiviral drugs for three million people. Britain would be "overwhelmed" if a deadly strain was allowed to reach its shores, said an author of one of two international studies published today in the journals Nature and Science. The World Health Organisation has given warning that the current outbreak of bird flu in the Far East could seed a human pandemic.However, for the first time it appears to...