# 352
Well, most of them aren't, anyway.
That's the conclusion reached by Senator Arlen Spector today on the Senate Floor after hearing testimony from various experts on Avian Flu. This report from Reuters:
U.S. not scared enough of bird flu
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Bird flu poses as big a threat to the world as ever, and people need to worry about it more, U.S. senators and health leaders agreed on Wednesday.
The H5N1 avian flu virus could cause a human pandemic at any time, killing perhaps millions, yet preparations are slow, they told a Senate hearing.
Federal health officials said they were working to raise preparedness, although progress has been slowed by budget limitations and the generally poor state of public health in the United States.
"I am concerned that there is not as much public awareness or concern today as there was a year ago," Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter told the hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on health.
"You don't want to unduly alarm people. (But) I think people are unconcerned."
This article goes on to quote such experts as Julie Gerberding, Director of the CDC and Anthony Fauci, head of U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, both of whom testified before the senate today.
"People who fail to prepare for a flu pandemic are going to be tragically mistaken," Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the hearing.
"It is inevitable," she added. "I don't know when and I don't know which virus will be the culprit."
The bird flu virus, they explained, was mutating and evolving, and was a strong candidate to be the next pandemic.
H5N1 is currently the most likely, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"It's moving biologically," Gerberding said. "It's mutating and evolving."
The article goes into budgetary woes hampering our nation's preparations for a pandemic, and these experts urge more awareness on the part of the American people.
Bird Flu concerns are increasingly growing, both here in the United States, and around the world. Once considered a `fringe' concern, of interest to obscure scientists and the occasional flubie, it now has the attention of governments, corporations, and international agencies.
Hopefully soon, that message will filter down to everyone.
