Krista said,
Personally I don't think the bird flu will pose much risk to anyone
in the US

I hate that many ferrets died in trying to come up with a vaccine for
this, however, this one DOES scare me.  I watched an Opra show a few
weeks back that had one of the leading scientists on this exact thing...
the bird flu.  According to his research, it is highly likely that the
bird flu WILL be the NEXT world wide pandemic, and the target deaths will
be "healthy persons ranging in age from 20-40 years old".  He made the
cooralation to "The Great Flu of 1918", which also started in the 3rd
world countries and QUICKLY became the world's pandemic.  This was ALSO
a strain similar to today's bird flu.  The reason being, is this strain
of the flu attacks the healthy and not one's the have "compromised immune
systems", such as the elderly or kids.  Evidently, if you are one that
is /fortunate/ enough to be already sickly, your body already produces
too many of the disease fighting cells needed to ward off getting the
bird flu.  Basically, the body's OWN self is what destroys and kills,
NOT the bird flu itself.  SCARY!

Also, in this interview, and I wish I could remember his name, but he
suggests having enough food and bottled water in your house for your
family and pets to remain homebound for up to 3 weeks!  Also SCARY!
No, I am not in a panic mode about this, but I AM going to take the
warnings seriously.  I think we all should.

~Kim
[Posted in FML issue 5277]