Political Virus - Avian Flu

Our political leaders keep telling us to fear the avian flu, and in one sense they're right: We should all be scared to death about how much damage our political leaders will do responding to the avian flu.

No one really knows how great the avian flu threat is.

Public-health officials have been warning about it ever since new studies suggested that the infamous 1918 flu outbreak originated in birds.

Warning is what these folks get paid to do. Other experts argue that 1918 was a fluke and that the current avian virus is unlikely to become a mass killer of humans.

[Excerpt from Wall Street Journal editorial]

Commentary: It amazes me how the media can be so obviously manipulated by the government and drug companies to scare the population.

Here’s an interesting opinion on this by Dr. Joseph Mercola:
The popular media continues to reinforce unbased fear. A former biotech director at the FDA states that the avian flu virus can jump from birds to humans and produce a fatal illness in 50% of those infected.
50% fatality rate sounds pretty scary. What the experts fail to explain is how these numbers were derived. Did they examine everyone who contracted the avian flu and use those numbers or did they examine the sickest of the sick who had come down with the avian flu and determine the mortality from there?
Of course it was the latter, and from the 60 people who have died from this in THIRD world countries we are being told that anywhere from 200,000 AT BEST to two million people at worst will die from the avian flu.
This is shoddy science at best and beyond belief that any reputable scientist could get away with such nonsense.
Most of the people who acquired this infection were bird handlers who were in continuous contact with these sick birds. Does anyone in their right mind envision similar circumstances in the US?
And how do they make the giant leap of faith that 60 deaths will translate to 2 million or even 200,00 deaths in the US from a virus that does NOT readily spread from birds to humans, or humans to humans?
Research like this would typically be thrown in the trash if it did not strongly support some ulterior purpose.