Friday, September 16, 2005

"Totally Inadequate!"

That's how Senate Republican leader Bill Frist, a physician, describes this country's preparation for an outbreak of what even the President acknowledges could be this century's first pandemic.

Epidemiologists and disaster planners project that once the deadly virus that causes Avian Flu mutates and acquires the capacity to be transferred from human to human, it would move from its home in China to New York City in less than two weeks.

Because the flu doesn't begin with conventional symptoms, but imbeds itself deeply in the victims' lungs, it can kill within three days.

The Bush Administration, says even Republicans, has been slow in acquiring the one medicine that is known to help in treating the disease. While Great Britain has acquired enough of the medication to care for one-quarter of its population and officials in London are shopping for additional morgue space, the US has only about 2-million doses on hand.

The results of an outbreak of Avian Flu in this country would leave a trail of death that would make September 11 and Hurricane Katrina combined look like slight brushes with tragedy.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. The virus could mutate any day and our country is unprepared!

In my opinion, before a penny of federal money is spent on rebuilding the infrastructure of New Orleans, the President should make sure that there is plenty of medication ready to meet this disease. Barring that, he should order up plenty of body bags and caskets.

For more information, see here. (This post is a mere distillation of that article.) Also read Hugh Hewitt's informative piece here.

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