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 [snowdeal.org - conflux] The Economist: The spreading bird-flu menace reaches Europe: "European countries are introducing emergency measures to contain the spread of a deadly strain of bird flu—which has already led to the deaths of millions of birds and 60 people in Asia—after confirmation that it has arrived inside the EU's borders. The disease is a serious threat to the world’s sizeable poultry industry but its spread round the globe also increases the chances of it mutating into a form that causes a human pandemic

[Geek Crack Dot Com] Flu Virus: The Recipe for Destruction: A Science staff writer, Jocelyn Kaiser, said, "Both the authors and Science's editors acknowledge concerns that terrorists could, in theory, use the information to reconstruct the 1918 flu virus." And yet the journal required that the full genome sequence be made available on the GenBank database as a condition for publishing the paper.

[dangerousmeta!] NY Times:: EU Team: BirdFlu No Threat to People. Let’s hope it stays that way. Later: Reuters, No sign birdflumutating toward humans, say UK scientists.

[Bird Flu Updates] UK officials estimate 50,000 dead from bird flu pandemic: There are 12,000 flu-related deaths in the UK each year. In the event that the virus mutates into a form easily transmissable between humans (while simultaneously retaining its potency), Sir Liam Donaldson estimates up to four times that number coudl die.

[Entirely Pets] H5N1 Bird Flu Can Easily be Transmitted Among Humans, Warned by WHO: The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the H5N1 bird flu strain is mutating into a new subtype which could be transmitted among humans, the Thai News Agency reported Saturday.

 [The Peking Duck] China quiet as a bird on bird flu policy: Reporters need to start putting some tough questions to people like Du Qinglin (杜青林), the Chinese minister for agriculture [who doesn't want a bit of bird flu to ruin the poultry market], to Gao Qiang (高强), the Chinese minister for health and to Xia Yong (夏勇), the minister in charge of keeping all the information on bird flu a state secret.

 [Guardian.co.uk] Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bird flu: plea for vaccine ...: British health officials claimed the UK would be ready to deal with a bird flu pandemic. David Salisbury, head of immunisation for the Department of Health said: "We are getting 800,000 more doses of Tamiflu every month, so we will have the level we believe appropriate if we have a pandemic in this country." He said experts were planning for the eventuality of bird flu mutating to spread between humans.

 [Nature.com] news @ nature.com - Researchers call for more bird flu drugs ...: It was recently confirmed that the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus that has killed 60 in South-East Asia, and which experts fear will mutate and cause a pandemic, was responsible for the deaths of more than 1,000 birds in Turkey. An avian flu virus that has killed wild birds and poultry in nearby Romania is almost certainly the same strain, although this will not be confirmed until 15 October.

 [Freakonomics.com] Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of ...: Frankly, I think we need to hit a "tipping point" of public awareness about the risk of avian flu. I'm no fan of public fear-mongering, but public officials need to make this significant priority, and I think some public outcry is going to be what's required to get the funding for vaccine research, production, and distribution to adequately address the risk.

Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Bird+flu, Bird Flu Monitor