Article November 14, 2005 Issue

BIRD FLU, ANY FLU—STOP THE FEAR

By Rosalie E. Dunbar

AN EDITORIAL CARTOON published a few weeks ago showed yet another hurricane—this one, named "Avian Flu"—heading toward the White House in Washington, DC. The fearful image of impending devastation is just one of the ways people's fears of bird flu are being stirred up.

Another is the continuing coverage of the 1918 global flu pandemic and the conviction that this is what lies ahead for us. Reports on that pandemic present a monolithic picture of helplessness and death; they do not report on something more than one researcher noted at the time: If you defeat the fear, you defeat the disease.

For instance, to help doctors respond to the 1918 pandemic, 50 sailors volunteered to be exposed to all forms of the sickness. They were injected with the disease, exposed to patients suffering from it, even given jars of germs to breathe. But none of them got sick!

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