G.O.O.D

Avian influenza, or bird flu, is a major concern for public health authorities and is an increasing threat to public health. Dr. David Henderson, deputy director for clinical care of the NIH Clinical Center, discusses what bird flu is, how it spreads, and where we can look for possible treatment and prevention. Presented October 18, 2005 as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Medicine for the Public lecture, and now part of the reference library for FluLab’s online planning tools. Lecture program distributed by FluLab, founding sponsor of the International Bird Flu Summit, Washington, DC.

Technorati Tags: Avian Influenza

Get it at: Wikileaks

On the risk of Avian Pandemic Influenza (Avian/Bird Flu) negotiations at the World Health Organisation (WHO)

There’s not enough flu vaccine to go around in the event of a pandemic. If it happens, you can bet that the rich will be vaccinated, and the poor will suffer…. and that multinational drug companies will make a fortune. Remember Tamiflu?

Ever since Indonesia began withholding flu viruses from the WHO to protest the injustices of the system, governments have been trying to renegotiate the terms of international flu virus sharing. Although Indonesia, African countries, and others in Asia and Latin America have put detailed proposals on the table, wealthy countries are staunchly resisting making any major concessions to make the system more fair.
This text, drafted by the Australian chair of the WHO negotiating group, purports to be a balanced take on various countries proposals; but it’s not. It’s more like business as usual. Under the scheme put forward by Australia, developing countries would continue to be ripped off, and continue to submit their viruses to WHO “for global public health”, only to see those viruses claimed by multinational companies and put into products too expensive for them to afford.

Ahh yes, homeless human guinea pigs.

From: Telegraph

Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus.

The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus.

Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought was a conventional flu vaccine but, according to investigators, was actually an anti bird-flu drug.

The director of a Grudziadz homeless centre, Mieczyslaw Waclawski, told a Polish newspaper that last year, 21 people from his centre died, a figure well above the average of about eight.

Via: Nation & World | Tyson destroying flu-tainted hens | Seattle Times Newspaper

Tyson Foods has started killing and burying the carcasses of 15,000 hens from a flock that tested positive for exposure to a strain of the bird flu in Northwest Arkansas, state officials said Tuesday.

Tyson said preliminary tests on the flock in West Fork indicated the presence of antibodies for H7N3, a less virulent strain. Routine blood tests Friday found the possible exposure, said Jon Fitch, director of the state’s Livestock and Poultry Commission. Further tests found the birds did not have active infections.

The strain that ravaged Asian poultry stocks in late 2003 was the H5N1 virus. That version has killed 240 people worldwide and scientists worry it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people.