The Next Big One? Disaster that is......the Avian Bird Flu...

I know this topic was on Dateline last night (I didn't see it though), but we really have to pay attention to this potential disaster, it's serious stuff folks.

Even as work accelerates along the Gulf, the dangers from terrorism remain, and a new threat continues to approach: avian bird flu. Given that everyone who follows the subject sees the threat of an epidemic as a real possibility, the Adminsitration simply has to have a plan and it has to work. Today's Wall Street Journal's report on vaccine production is thus not comforting. (Subscription required..don't worry, it's free.) Key infromation: The Department of Homeland Security gave Sanofi-Aventis Group a $100 million contract to produce a supply of the vaccine to thwart the killer flu. Other, smaller contracts have been let as well, but the gap between promised supply and obvious need is huge:

The purchases are part of the agency's plans to buy enough vaccine for 20 million people and antivirals for another 20 million. The supplies will be placed in the nation's Strategic National Stockpile to prepare for an influenza pandemic. The government has purchased another antiviral treatment, Roche Holdings AG's Tamiflu, with additional purchases expected.
Jeffrey Levi, senior policy adviser at the Trust for America's Health, an advocacy group, said 20 million people represented only half the number recommended for coverage by a prominent vaccine advisory committee, and added that HHS hasn't asked for additional funding for further purchases for the next fiscal year.
"It's a step in the right direction, but a fraction of the investments the country is going to need to make to be fully prepared for a pandemic," he said. "The problem is that the administration has to ask for more money."
Look. This is a right now issue, with Indonesia reporting its fifth case just hours ago. The UN's chief health official is ramping up his warnings, and although the president emphasized the threat at his UN speech, the American public is not aware of the magnitude of the threat, and a plan to produce vaccine for 20 million people in a nation of 300 million when the disease may have as much as a 50% kill rate just isn't "preparedness."
A whole lot of money is about to gush out of the Congress, and while the recovery effort on the Gulf deserves its priority status, the Congress should appropriate whatever it needs to in order to get the supplies of the necessary drugs up and running. A couple of well-publicized hearings on this matter would also be useful.
The buck will again stop on the president's desk, though, and he knows it. I hope he has communicated to all involved that he wants a plan on his desk on the hour by hour response once ABF reaches the US.
Skeptical? Read this. There are plenty of threats in the world (including this terrorist plot that almost got started in Los Angeles, and very few of them can be thwarted just by spending more money. ABF is, however, one of those threats which can be boxed in with planning and budget as it is a question of having and distributing the vaccines and treatments that work