Bird Flu Hype

With the recent human cases of bird flu diagnosed in Turkey and Indonesia, the media is playing the bird flu pandemic theme with all the bells and whistles again. Along the same lines, 33 countries and multilateral institutions pledged $1.9 billion to fight the disease at the January 18 Conference on Bird Flu in China. And with the recent announcement from the WHO that bird flu viruses are able to survive in bird droppings for more than a month in cold weather, most people feel the dangers of a bird flu pandemic are more real than ever.

But let's stop and think for a minute. How many people were killed by the bird flu virus so far? In nine years, the virus has infected only 144 people, killing 75 - all of them in Asia.

To put things into perspective, think about this: cancer kills more than one American every minute. I know, you may think this is not a fair comparison - after all, there is not much we can do about cancer... Or is it? The reality is that at least 70% of all cancers CAN be prevented by simple lifestyle changes. If you want to find out the details, please read my article on How to Prevent Cancer.

Then how come we hardly hear about cancer prevention on daily news programs, whereas bird flu is a regular topic?

Good question. I don't know all the answers, but I can think of at least two:

1. Most people don't like to change their lifestyle. When I tell patients they should change the way they eat, they should do more exercise, etc., the typical reaction is: "You are taking away from me all the good things of life... I almost feel life is not worth living anymore..."
2. Cancer prevention by changing ones lifestyle is hardly sensational. It takes a lifetime of commitment, and the results are not sudden and sensational. On the contrary, the bird flu has the potential of becoming a pandemic, is not under our direct control and thus is perfect for the media.

It is not my purpose to downplay the real dangers of a bird flu pandemic. My point, though, is that we often ignore real, present dangers to our health and spend too much time and energy trying to avert potential, future dangers we may never face...

I believe we would all be much better off is we'd make the effort to put everything in perspective.

The Avian Flu Doc

Life In A Flu Pandemic

Imagine the bird flu pandemic happened. What would everyday life be like?

Well, for one thing, a pervading sense of fear would descend on most people. Most of us would be afraid to go to public places. Shopping, eating out, church going, using public transportation, going to school or work would suddenly change from routine activities to high risk, best to be avoided undertakings. To say nothing about going to the doctor...

At night we would dream of living in isolated bubbles and during the day we would wear masks and keep as long a distance from others as possible. We'd suddenly become experts in recognizing the signs of respiratory infections.

Imagine the impact on family life. During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, panic was so strong that, according to historian John Barry, author of The Great Influenza, "close blood relatives were so frightened that they would not feed a family where people were starving to death".

This May 29, 1919 photograph shows rows of tents that had been set up on a lawn
at Emery Hill in Lawrence, Massachusetts where victims of the 1918 influenza
pandemic were treated.

One can wonder how would people react today in a flu pandemic... Would we be more capable of humanistic gestures today?

I have my doubts... Humans have not changed in the last century too much. The instinct of self-preservation is too strong in the majority of us... Unless you have experienced the true love Jesus talked about:

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

The Avian Flu Doc

Bird Flu Spreads to Humans Easier Than Thought

Until recently bird flu was thought to be transmissible to humans only sporadically. A new study, published in the January 9th issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, indicates that this may not be true.

The study was done in Vietnam in 2004. Over 45,000 participants were asked screening questions about exposure to poultry and flulike illnesses during the preceding months. Researchers identified a dose-response relationship between poultry exposure and flulike illness. Experts estimated 652 to 750 cases of flulike illness were attributed to direct contact with sick or dead poultry.These findings indicate that avian influenza is more easily transmitted from poultry to humans, although close contact seems required.

The flipside of this story is that the human variant of bird flu is less deadly than previously thought. Until now experts thought the mortality of bird flu was close to 50% among humans affected. This figure is based on the cases of confirmed, mostly hospitalized bird flu victims. What this new study implies is that there may be many more cases of human variant of bird flu in the communities where birds are affected that have milder forms of the disease.

But there is another twist to this story. If the human variant of bird flu is more common among humans than previously thought, that means the chances the virus may mutate and become easier to transmit from person to person are higher, too. Which, in turn, means the danger of a flu pandemic is more real than we feared...

The Avian Flu Doc

A Radical Solution for the Bird Flu Pandemic

With the recent news of another bird flu outbreak in China, the first for 2006, public fears of a bird flu pandemic are as high as ever - unless you have lost your sensibility after so many outbreaks... only last year there were no less than 30 bird flu outbreaks in China.

Fear is a major player in the bird flu phenomenon. If the bird flu virus mutates and becomes easily transmissible among humans, there is no safe prevention or cure available yet. Or is there?

In November of last year, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) issued a press release entitled Concerned About Bird Flu? Doctors Offer "Vegetarian Starter Kit" . Published as a response to the growing concern over a potential worldwide outbreak of the avian flu, the kit was designed to help concerned carnivores to make the transition to a meat-free diet. Such a diet, PCRM claims, "could also help reduce the risk of a bird-flu pandemic".

I think this is a very interesting perspective, one that is less talked about. Admittedly, it may sound radical for many. But the reality is avian influenza is, in part, a by-product of our meat eating habits and poor farming conditions. If you've ever visited a poultry farm, you know what I'm talking about. No matter what the owners may tell you, those birds need space, real food and clean air to grow healthy. Instead, they are confined in tiny cages, fed artificial food and forced to live together in large numbers, so close to each other that they literally go crazy. These farms are perfect breeding labs for the flu viruses.

Giving up meat has other health advantages, too: less cancer, ischemic heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.

Then why aren't we doing it?

Well, I'll let you answer this question.

The Avian Flu Doc

Top Health News for 2005: Bird Flu Pandemic or Fear Pandemic?

It is somewhat ironic to note that the top health news for 2005 was the bird flu pandemic. Not the unveiling of the new, personalized food pyramid, not the Terri Schiavo saga, not the banning of Vioxx or Bextra, neither the advances in cloning and the related ethical dilemas... Not even the Medicare Part D program. Instead, a health hazard that has not yet claimed a single American life has made it to the top of health news for the entire 2005.

First, I want to make clear I have no intention to minimize the real danger of a flu pandemic. I do believe that the threat is real, and I don't think the mortality estimates are exaggerated.

What caught my interest, though, is the impact a disease yet to be has already had on our society. There was hardly any news program in the last 3 or 4 months that has not featured the bird flu pandemic. A Google search for "bird flu" returns no less than 23,800,000 entries... Exotic places like Caraorman in the Danube Delta have made it to the world scene when domestic birds there were found to be infected with the feared H5N1 influenza virus...

There is no bird pandemic yet, and I hope we won't have one. But there certainly is a fear of bird flu pandemic raging all over the world. And what fuels it is our realization that we may be confronting a disease capable of spreading easily from person to person and continent to continent, with a high mortality rate, especially among the young. A disease we have no vaccine and no safe treatment against. A disease apparently able to defy all the advances of modern medicine and technology.

The the bird flu pandemic fear is similar in some ways to the fear patients with terminal illnesses experience: you can't do much about it. And you can't ignore it, either: it keeps coming back to you, one way or another.

It makes us more aware of our frailty.

The Avian Flu Doc