The recent flu flap may be Chicken Little for some, a golden goose for others
by ALICIA PRIEST
Crowded conditions raise the danger of avian flu—for the chickens.
It will bolster U.S. President George W. Bush’s fading popularity, leave much of East Asia’s tourist economy in tatters, make billions of dollars for drug companies, politicians, media owners, and certain academics, and needlessly condemn countless innocent and healthy animals to death.
It is flu porn—the titillating and tantalizing terror now winging its way through the land. At least in government offices and in the media. No one knows just how genuinely flapped the average Canadian is.
As you read this, I could be eating crow. But I doubt it. The deadly scourge predicted to kill millions around the globe—but especially in the U.S. and Canada because, tribally speaking, that’s what counts—is as real as Henny Penny.
In an era of unprecedented good health and hygiene, the drum roll sounds for the next Horseman of the Apocalypse. Remember Marburg, Ebola, Lasa fever, West Nile, swine flu, and SARS? None of these diseases killed the massive numbers of people experts predicted. This year West Nile, for instance, killed a total of 12 Canadians out of more than 32 million, none of them west of Saskatchewan. The greatest impact of SARS, which killed 44 Canadians, was fear, panic, and a damaged economy.
The exception, of course, is the 1918 flu. Many scientists believe it acquired its extreme lethality in the terrible conditions of First World War trenches.
Now we have bird flu. The influenza virus has existed in wild birds forever. But healthy birds, just like healthy humans, rarely die from it. We’ve known about the H5N1 sub-strain since 1997, when it appeared in Asian chicken farms. The strain is particularly deadly to domesticated birds, especially chickens raised in crowded and feces-laden coops. It is no coincidence that those who have died from H5N1 were Southeast Asian bird handlers exposed to massive doses of chicken virus. At the beginning of November, the death count was 62. That’s 62 out of a population of two billion or more. Even the number 62 is meaningless unless compared to the total number of people infected, not just the sickest of the sick. No one knows how many are infected and experience mild or moderate symptoms. Yet public-health officials state that bird flu has a mortality rate in humans of 50 per cent and could kill millions. Of course it could. Also possible is a meteor strike on Moose Jaw, a terrorist attack on Iceland, and a plague of locusts in the Fraser Valley.
So why all the fuss? Money makes the world go ’round, and just like real pornography, flu porn is turning out to be a golden goose. In this case, four groups stand to benefit, either politically or monetarily. The first is the media. Fear, like sex, sells.
The second is politicians. Not only does pontificating on bird flu divert attention from more serious issues, it makes leaders look like they have the public’s best interests at heart.
The third party to gain big-time is the pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines and anti-viral drugs. Bush wants $7.1 billion to prepare the United States for avian flu. That includes $4 billion for vaccines and $1 billion to stockpile anti-viral drugs. In the space of a few short months, the anti-viral drug Tamiflu has gone from lacklustre to blockbuster. It is now the most sought-after drug in the world.
Here’s where politics and business mix. The prospect of bird flu is good news for U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. According to a recent report in Fortune magazine, Rumsfeld is an investor in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu. While the drug is manufactured and marketed by Swiss company Roche, Gilead receives a 10 per cent royalty from Roche. Rumsfeld, who served as Gilead’s chairman from 1997 until 2001, still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million.
Academics, research---ers, and public-health experts are the last group who benefit from flu porn. That’s be-cause they’re always looking for funding, and what research could be more worthy than investigating some aspect of an imminent pandemic?
My advice for fighting the human flu—no connection to H5N1—is to eat right, exercise regularly, get enough sleep, and reduce stress. During flu season, take extra care by washing your hands often, staying home when sick, and not spending many hours indoors with lots of people. Oh yeah, and take news reports with a grain of salt.
Meanwhile, in another corner of the universe, one billion people lack access to safe water and 2.6 billion lack access to sanitation. Every year, this results in four billion cases of diarrhea, which cause almost two million deaths, mostly among children under five.
Life would be a lot easier to take if leaders tackled real health problems. Just don’t expect that to happen anytime soon—you could end up with egg on your face.
Alicia Priest is a Victoria-based writer and former registered nurse who plans to install chickens in her backyard someday.
