ITEMS OF INTEREST June 26, 2006 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

with contributions from Marc Siegel, Frank E. Lockwood, Rob Merola

ARE BIRD FLU ADVISORIES EXAGGERATED?

"IN 2003 concerns about the SARS coronavirus prompted the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to work with the World Health Organization to encourage reporting and isolation of cases and contacts while at the same tie cordoning off parts of Asia and Toronto. Health officials spoke publicly of a new era of cooperation. But the media-saturated advisories and pronouncements resulted in the loss of billions of tourist dollars to the Asian and Canadian economies. Ultimately, SARS infected about 8,400 people worldwide. There was never any objective evidence that regional quarantine helped squelch the virus, and follow-up studies found SARS to be not nearly as infectious as had been originally thought. Yet public health officials continued to speak of that global action as an unqualified success.

"The same pattern of CDC/WHO involvement has been followed in the US-fueled worldwide overreaction to H5NI avian influenza....

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