Bird Flu for the Birds

Perhaps I’d feel differently if Bird Flu was the only Big Bad the Big Media has thrown at us in the past 6 years. But it’s not.

Flood. Iraq. Terrorist Attack. Neighbors. Asteriods. First Graders. Blogs. (Maybe I’ll finish finding links later, maybe not.)

Call me cynical, but bird flu feels FUDdy. Especially when something like this comes through.

Jen read Flu. She says we’re due.

That may be. At minimum, the wrong people (everyone) are being told to prepare for something full of ‘ifs’, ‘whens’, and ‘maybes’.

“The H5N1 avian flu virus that has infected flocks on at least three continents and killed 91 people could be the virus that experts fear will mutate.”

(emphasis mine)

91 people have died on record from bird-to-human transmission. No human-to-human cases have been found.

The CDC conservatively estimates 20,000 people die each year from regular flu (the kind we have shots for).

More than 33,000 people have died due to military intervention in Iraq. The official death toll of the Sept. 11 disaster is 2,986.

I still remember the constant threat of MAD thrown at us growing up. I recognize that there were moments in the cold war where it came very close to occurring.

But. It. Didn’t. I think we’ve lost perspective.

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