# 3424
With our Autumn flu season just 3 or 4 months away, the Obama administration has decided to hold a `flu summit’ next week to discuss preparations for meeting the challenge of this pandemic.
Protestations that this summit isn’t in response to a `specific fear of a crisis’ are just a bit hard to take seriously.
Understandably, administration officials are reticent to say or do anything that might negatively affect an already struggling economy, which may explain this careful parsing of words.
This report from CNN
July 1, 2009
White House plans flu summit next week
Posted: 07:25 PM ET
From CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry
WASHINGTON (CNN) – CNN has learned that the Obama administration is planning to convene a "flu summit" next week to make preparations for the fall, as officials in Argentina declare a health emergency because 35 people have died in the Latin American nation from swine flu.
Senior Obama administration officials stressed the summit, which will be convened July 9 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, is being held strictly as a precautionary measure to make sure the U.S. is prepared for any potential swine flu outbreak, and not because of any specific fear of a crisis.
President Obama will be traveling next week to Russia, Italy and Ghana on a foreign trip, so the summit will be chaired by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, according to the officials.
