Why do I write (again) about the bird flu? Because it is far more serious then most people think.

In November, the Department of Health and Human Services released its pandemic influenza plan. The report offers a thorough and frank assessment of the havoc a full-fledged pandemic would wreak. The nation, the report says, “will be severely taxed, if not overwhelmed.” Disease will break out repeatedly, for as long as a year. Hospitals will run out of beds and vaccines. Doctors and nurses will be overworked to the point of exhaustion. Mass fatalities will overwhelm mortuaries and morgues with bodies. Before it has exhausted itself, the report estimates, the disease could spread to as many as 90 million Americans, hospitalizing 10 million and killing almost 2 million. - Wired Magazine

An outbreak in the United States will shut this country down. Instantly. Walk over to your cupboard and look in. That’s what you’re going to be eating. For a long time.

Here are some links to get you up to speed (at your own risk, found on the Internet) -

Stuff to get now and use (even if there was no Bird Flu): red wine and grape juice, green tea and Vitmin D.

Virus inactivation by grapes and wines. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=170457

Grape Juice - Better Than Wine?

Resveratrol Content of Wines and Grape Juice

Catechins in green tea show antiviral effect on influnza virus

Antiviral effect of catechins in green tea on influenza virus.

Epigallocatechin gallate, a constituent of green tea, suppresses cytokine-induced pancreatic beta-cell damage.

Antiviral properties of prodelphinidin B-2 3???-O-gallate from green tea leaf.

Vitamin D Council November Newsletter (lots of info about Vitamin D and influenza)

And if you ever need to have a ???sick room??? one ought to purify the air, like hosptals and laboratories do, to help keep other people from being infected. To do that you need a forced air purifier (one with a fan), multistage mechanical filters and a UV light source. I haven???t found a cost effective one yet.

FYI: great Bird Flu summary and more info at http://www.arielco.us/page3.html

Another Bird Flu site (comprehensive) - http://pandemic360.com

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt says:

There will be agonizingly difficult choices about the distribution of food and resources.

We are in, in biologic terms, overdue but under-prepared.

In the 16th week, 90 million [in the U.S.] would have had the disease at some point. The actual fatalities would be somewhere in the two to three percent range, we believe. It’s millions of people. This is a very serious world- changing event if it occurs.