Scientists have identified at least one reason bird flu isn't spreading easily from person to person. The virus concentrates itself too deep in the lungs to be spewed out by coughing and sneezing.  The findings have concrete implications for vaccine development.  The vaccines, in turn, may offer a way for us to rid the world of the twin scourges known as Intelligent Design and Creationism....

Avian flu is very contagious among birds.  It is not so contagious among humans...yet.  It is well known that almost every documented case of bird flu has been in people who had intimate and extended contact with infected birds.   Some rare cases have been reported where human to human transmission are suspected.  However, most of these were also in people who were in contact with birds as well.   The relatively high mortality rate of those infected is a cause for concern.  If human to human transmission of the infection became widespread, we would have a pandemic to rival or surpass the flu pandemic of 1918.  Millions would die. Now for the good news.

I took my son and 2 friends, all 8th graders,  to see "V for Vendetta" last night.  Our cinema was full - it is playing at 2 screens simultaneously.  I played the "good parent" afterwards and listened to the kids discuss the movie as I drove them to their homes.  I wanted to see if they "got it".  

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has released a statement that points out the gaping holes in Bush's plan to combat the Avian Flu epidemic:

The president has finally submitted an avian flu pandemic preparedness strategy -- several years too late. Everyone agrees that we are unprepared to deal with a pandemic; the president's delay has cost Americans critical time in preparing for a pandemic. We can do better than this approach.

House Democrats laid out criteria in an October 7 letter to the president for a comprehensive approach to avian flu. The president's plan falls short in several key areas: inadequate funding to states, unfunded mandates, and no protection for people injured by the vaccines while manufacturers are given protection.

Spending $100 million on state and local public health services, after cutting $130 million from their budgets, will leave our state and local heath agencies without the resources they need to protect communities in the event of a pandemic...

The steady drumbeat of criticism continues, exactly what's needed to keep the pressure high on the White House.

Now if only Democrats can sustain that for the next year, occassionally punctuating the drumbeat with loud percussive events like the closed Senate session...

President Bush is currently giving his "strategy" speech on the response to the threat of an avian flu pandemic. As MSNBC reports, the plan will cost $7 billion.  As part of this plan, the government will stockpile Tamiflu, Bush has announced.  And Defense Secretary Rumsfeld will profit handsomely:

NEW YORK (Fortune) - The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.

Gilead is the sole maker of Tamiflu, and initially fought demands to allow generic productions of the drug.  Rumsfeld served as Gilead's chairman from 1997. He still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million.

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