The Bird Flu is Comming! The Bird Flu is Comming!

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

I have problems with that number. The 1918 flu epidemic killed between 20 and 40 million people....

I tracked down Dr. Longini. Here is the response he sent:

Originally Posted by Dr. Longini

yes, you are right about 1918. this was a bit out of context.
the case fatality rate for 1957 h2n2 and 1968 h3n2 was on the order of
1-2/10,000 when averaged over all age groups. for 1918 it was on the
order of 1-5/100, two orders of magnitude higher. however, that very
high rate was before antibiotics that are now use to treat secondary
bacterial pneumonia. probably the major killer of for flu cases. this
would be of no use against primary viral pneumonia. in our recent work,
we tend to stay away from predictions of case fatality rates for
pandemic flu. a big unknown. cheers, ira longini



--
Ira M. Longini, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor
Program in Biostatistics and Biomathematics
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
and
Department of Biostatistics
U. Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine


1100 Fairview Ave. N., LE-400
P.O. Box 19024
Seattle, WA 98109-1024


Phone: 206-667-2721
Cell: 404-275-5156
Fax: 206-667-4812

So basically he's admitting he was wrong when he said "in recorded or even unrecorded history"

Nice catch GD.

[Hades]

I'm convinced that majority of the sensationalized news over the bird flu (and other stories of that nature) are all just planted by major companies to drive their particular businesses sales and stocks up. Gas? Pharmaceuticals? Housing shortages? It's all is driven by fear and speculation. All the money fear can generate. Is my skepticism showing much?

[LSPoorEeyorick]

I heard that there are two ways the flu could go. It could combine with a normal virus, which would make it contagious from human to human (and, watered down by viruso normalo, not as deadly.) Or it could mutate to become contagious, in which case there's a big problem.

The already-ill and those at the bookends of their lives would be in the most trouble. But I really hope it combines instead of mutates.

[Ghoulish Delight]

There's a third path...it does't do crap.

[Prudence]

Birds that don't crap - now there's a scientific advancement I'd like to see!

[BarTopDancer]

Bird flu mutates

The H5N1 bird flu virus mutated somewhat among Indonesians in the largest known human cluster, but did not evolve into a more transmissible form, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

And the panic resumes.

[Stan4dSteph]

The first case of human-to-human transmission was confirmed.

[Not Afraid]

Maybe we won't be going to SE Asia.

[Stan4dSteph]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

Maybe we won't be going to SE Asia.

Coming to NY?