Your Government

Now, I'm not freaking out about bird flu. I'm pretty convinced there will be a widespread form of this flu once it evolves to be communicable human to human, and the odds are fair that I might catch it. But as to the fatality rate of the disease, evolution generally favors higher communicability and lower mortality so that the disease can spread its genetic code as widely as possible. Ebola, for instance, is a very poor disease as it kills so quickly and in such a way that the dying are obviously infected, whereas the common cold virus is hugely successful because, although causing discomfort, it still leaves the individual mobile and able to spread the disease widely.

So, as this flu form is still yet to evolve, until we really know what we're gonna be dealing with, it's pretty fruitless to go throwing around 125million dead and such. But as there is a certain percentage chance that this flu will come out deadly when it crosses over to human to human transmission, it only makes sense to undertake preparations, set up facilities for study and vaccination production and such. So when I read this, I almost shouted out loud.

Are You Shittin' Me?

After wandering amid cages of birds and rabbits at an open-air market in Hanoi, after watching the gutting of a freshly slaughtered chicken, and after visiting a Haiphong family sickened by bird flu, the United States' top health official(U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt) came to a grim conclusion: Preventing the start of a global flu outbreak is just about impossible. ........

Earlier this month, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested patent rules might be suspended in an outbreak to allow other companies to make generic forms of Tamiflu, produced by Swiss-based Roche Holding AG. In recent days, a company in India announced plans to do that.

However, Leavitt said the United States supports intellectual property laws that bar such action.

Are you telling me, Mr. Secretary, are you saying that in the face of a pandemic that you claim is impossible to stop, that you are willing to risk American lives to protect the profits of Roche, a freaking Swiss company? I just want to get you on the record.

UPDATE: Two days later Roche agreed to allow other licensed producers. I'll bet there was some pressure put on them from the outside. I couldn't have been the only one to notice this.