http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi45.html


The Deadliest Flu Virus in the World: Made in USA

by Bill Sardi

Army helicopters fly over a small American town as a voice barks harshly: "No one is allowed to leave this town!"

~ A line from the 1995 movie entitled Outbreak

In the latest version of "art precedes reality," Hollywood predicted a viral outbreak that would require quarantine of an entire town in America in the 1995 movie Outbreak starring Dustin Hoffman. In that movie the virus came from a monkey being smuggled in from Zaire. The movie was more about the possibility of a virus like Ebola than the dreaded H5N1 influenza virus that now has the world in the grip of hysteria. But Outbreak dealt with the mutation of the virus, which makes it more appropriate for today’s latest viral health threat – a mutated influenza virus, probably from bird flu.

The world is being warned a flu virus might mutate at any moment and render the planet helpless against its spread. Americans don’t need to wait for a flu virus to mutate. Infectious disease specialists, working in a semi-secure laboratory at a Midwestern university have already done it ahead of nature. These American researchers obtained the viral particles from the H5N1 Spanish flu virus that killed millions worldwide and altered one of its ten genes, making it far more dangerous and virulent than any influenza virus in nature. The idea was to figure out how to make a vaccine against it. But the very idea such a virus even exists gives most people the shivers.

If you want to know the location of this mutated virus (any potential biological terrorist can figure this out by using mapping services and searching for these experiments), we’ve intentionally downsized and obscured the map of its location. Here it is:



The super mutated influenza virus that no Americans have immunity towards is located at this Midwestern university laboratory.

Semi-security

New Scientist magazine notes that the lab where the super flu virus is located has a lower biosecurity level – BLS – than a few other labs that have the highest possible levels of containment. The highest level is BSL-4. The lab in question is BSL-3Ag, or 3-plus. The main difference between BSL-4 and BSL-3Ag is that precautions to ensure laboratory workers do not get infected are less stringent: While BSL-4 involves wearing fully enclosed body suits, those working at BSL-3Ag labs typically have half-suits. New Scientist magazine notes that "the recent SARS virus outbreak in Asia was from BSL-3 labs."

What if one of the lab workers inadvertently takes the virus home with him or her? The human population of the world would be wiped out. An infectious disease specialist at the lab where the super virus is located, says: "If H5N1 spreads on a massive scale, it's going to wreak havoc." It will overwhelm almost any country's health-care system. . . . It will be biblical plague." I’m holding my breath. I’m staggered by the possibility. There is obviously greater danger this super virus would escape from a laboratory than mutate and spread around the globe.

Heightening the panic

It appears as if someone is attempting to heighten the panic surrounding the predicted influenza epidemic. Researchers at Hokkaido University in Japan began to wonder how birds in nearby farms acquired the bird flu. They checked on the genetic makeup of the virus and it is "strikingly similar to that of a bird flu virus found in South America, too far for migrating birds to carry into Japan." This led investigators to surmise somebody brought a vaccine into Japan and injected it into some birds, infecting the animals around them. [Japan Times Sept. 3, 2005] The mysterious appearance of avian flu in birds around the world could be explained by contaminated avian vaccines!

There is still no explanation for the mutated human influenza virus found in a pig in South Korea. Somebody intentionally placed this human virus inside this animal. (For more about this, see previous report entitled Influenza Intrigue at LR archives.) If it infected a human, it would make it appear the virus "jumped" from animals to humans.

Wandering far from its field of expertise, Charlene Porter of the Washington File, a publication of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, writes that a species of flu virus once thought to be unique to horses has now infected dogs and could jump from animals to humans. [Sept. 30, 2005] Horrors, we may be culling populations of pet dogs in America as they are birds in Asia. Better hide Fido. There are approximately 50 million pet dogs in the US. This is sheer propaganda and the news media has re-printed it widely without question. The orchestrated terror is coming from all quarters of government.

Julie Gerberding, Centers for Disease Control chief, says her agency is getting ready for a possible pandemic next year. [Associated Press, Feb. 22, 2005] Public health authorities and politicians are so committed to the inevitability of a flu pandemic, it’s as if there is no way they won’t let this event happen.

Here is another segment of script from the movie, Outbreak………

Maj. Casey Schuler: I hate this bug.
Lt. Col. Sam Daniels: Come on, Casey. You've got to love its simplicity.
It's one billionth our size, and it's beating us.
Maj. Casey Schuler: So, what do you want to do, take it to dinner?
Lt. Col. Sam Daniels: No.
Maj. Casey Schuler: What then?
Lt. Col. Sam Daniels: Kill it. –

The problem is, the virus is being harbored by the people. To kill the virus, like culling infected birds, you have to wipe them out. That is what the movie considered. The military people in the movie planned to use a fuel-air bomb to wipe out the infected city. The movie certainly sets the scenario. A frightened American public looks to federal instead of local officials to save the world. Is there a better way to usher in marshal law while gaining consent of the people?

Only ineffective therapies offered

Notice how public health authorities only offer vaccines which are in short supply, don’t often work because they don’t address the specific strain of virus in circulation, and which viruses now resist. One flu vaccine, the flu mist, actually uses live flu viruses that can shed from vaccinees to their family, friends and co-workers. Or they offer anti-flu medications which flu viruses already exhibit resistance towards and which are also in short supply. (Special note: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will likely profit handsomely from the announcement the government is purchasing $3 billion of Tamiflu, the drug developed by Gilead Sciences when Rumsfeld was president of the company. He is reported to hold major portions of stock in Gilead.)

Public given no options beyond vaccines and medicines

There is no attempt to boost innate immunity, which can be accomplished with high doses of vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium and zinc. Selenium even blocks the mutations that cause the most mortal form of the flu. [J American College Nutrition 20: 384–88S, 2001; FASEB Journal 15: 1846–48, 2001; Journal Nutrition 133: 1463–67S, 2003] Sambucus simpsonii, the botanical name for elderberry capsules and syrup, is well documented in the medical literature to be an effective remedy against the flu. [J International Med Research 32:132–40, 2004; Israeli Medical Assoc Journal 4:919–22, 2002; European Cytokine Network 12:290–6, 2001; J Alternative Complement Medicine 1:361–9, 1995] In a pinch, there isn’t a virus that has been able to withstand allicin, the active ingredient produced when a fresh clove of garlic is crushed. [Planta Medica 58:417–23, 1992]

Finale

The Council on Foreign Relations, in its recent journal report says, if a global flu pandemic ensues: "In short order, the global economy would shut down. Vaccines would have no impact on the course of the virus in the first months and would likely play an extremely limited role worldwide during the following 12 to 18 months of the pandemic. With today's limited production capacity, that means that less than 500 million people – about 14 percent of the world's population – would be vaccinated within a year of the pandemic." [Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005]

Are they scripting a movie, or is this reality?

October 6, 2005

Bill Sardi [send him mail] is a consumer advocate and health journalist, writing from San Dimas, California. He offers a free downloadable book, The Collapse of Conventional Medicine, at his website.

Copyright © 2005 Bill Sardi Word of Knowledge Agency, San Dimas, California. Not intended for commercial use or posting on other websites. Permission to reprint should be obtained

Please, snuffy. We don't need any more hysteria.

These labs KNOW FULL WELL what they have. They are taking super precautions.

The only thing you have to fear is...Bush himself.

October 6, 2005
Experts Unlock Clues to Spread of 1918 Flu Virus
By GINA KOLATA

The 1918 influenza virus, the cause of one of history's most deadly epidemics, has been reconstructed and found to be a bird flu that jumped directly to humans, two teams of federal and university scientists announced yesterday.

It was the culmination of work that began a decade ago and involved fishing tiny fragments of the 1918 virus from snippets of lung tissue from two soldiers and an Alaskan woman who died in the 1918 pandemic. The soldiers' tissue had been saved in an Army pathology warehouse, and the woman had been buried in permanently frozen ground.

"This is huge, huge, huge," said John Oxford, a professor of virology at St. Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital who was not part of the research team. "It's a huge breakthrough to be able to put a searchlight on a virus that killed 50 million people. I can't think of anything bigger that's happened in virology for many years."

The scientists painstakingly traced the genetic sequence, synthesized the virus using tools of molecular biology, and infected mice and human lung cells with it in a secure laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The research is being published in the journals Nature and Science.

The findings, the scientists say, reveal a small number of genetic changes that may explain why this virus was so lethal. It is significantly different from flu viruses that caused the more recent pandemics of 1957 and 1968. Those viruses were not bird flu viruses but instead were human flu viruses that picked up a few genetic elements of bird flu.

The research also confirms the legitimacy of worries about the bird flu viruses, called H5N1, that are emerging in Asia. Since 1997, bird flocks in 11 countries have been decimated by flu outbreaks. So far nearly all the people infected - more than 100, including more than 60 who died - contracted the sickness directly from birds. However, there has been little transmission between people.

The 1918 virus, in contrast, was highly infectious, and in recent weeks the fear that a transformation of one of the current bird flus could make it infectious in humans has prompted politicians of both major parties to scramble to demonstrate that they are taking the threat of an avian flu outbreak seriously.

Bush administration officials have been talking about pandemic flu preparedness for years, and they say they will soon release a pandemic flu plan, in the works for more than a year. Senate Democrats say that the administration is not doing enough, and they are writing their own bills that call for more spending and coordination.

President Bush this week asked the leaders of the world's top vaccine manufacturers - Chiron, Sanofi-Aventis, Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck - to come to the White House on Friday to discuss preparations for pandemic flu, said people with knowledge of the meeting who insisted on anonymity because the White House has not yet announced the meeting.

The research on the 1918 virus is directly applicable to current concerns, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a joint statement. "The new studies could have an immediate impact by helping scientists focus on detecting changes in the evolving H5N1 virus that might make widespread transmission among humans more likely," they said.

The bird flu viruses now prevalent share some of the crucial genetic changes that occurred in the 1918 flu, scientists said, but not all. The scientists suspect that with the 1918 flu, changes in just 25 to 30 out of about 4,400 amino acids in the viral proteins turned the virus into a killer. The new work also reveals that 1918 virus acts much differently from ordinary human flu viruses. It infects cells deep in the lungs of mice and infects lung cells, like the cells lining air sacs, that would normally be impervious to flu. And while other human flu viruses do not kill mice, this one, like today's bird flus, does.

Other scientists said the new work was immensely important, leading the way to identifying dangerous viruses before it is too late and to find ways to disable them.

The 1918 flu, which killed as many as 50 million people worldwide, showed how terrible that disease can be. It had been "like a dark angel hovering over us," said Dr. Oxford, the virology professor at St. Bartholomew's. The virus spread and killed with terrifying speed, preferentially striking the young and the healthy. Alfred W. Crosby, author of "American's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918," said that it "killed more humans than any other disease in a similar duration in the history of the world."

The research, and its publication, raised concerns about whether scientists should actually resurrect this killer that vanished from the earth nearly a century ago.

"It is something we take seriously," said Dr. Fauci, whose institute helped pay for the work. The work was extensively reviewed, he added, and the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity was asked to decide whether the results should be made public. The board "voted unanimously that the benefits outweighed the risk that it would be used in a nefarious manner," Dr. Fauci said.

Others are not convinced.

Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers, said he had serious concerns about the reconstruction of the virus. "There is a risk verging on inevitability, of accidental release of the virus; there is also a risk of deliberate release of the virus." And the 1918 flu virus, Dr. Ebright added, "is perhaps the most effective bioweapons agent ever known."

But Dr. D. A. Henderson, a resident scholar at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Biosecurity and a leading expert on bioterrorism, said he agreed with the decision to reconstruct the virus and publish its genetic sequence. "This work is of the greatest importance, and it is very important that it be published," he said.

The story of the resurrection of the 1918 flu began in 1995. Until then, scientists had thought the task hopeless. Viruses had not been discovered in 1918, so no one had isolated and saved the one that caused the flu.

But Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of the molecular pathology department at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, had an idea for finding that ancient virus. He recalled that his institute had a warehouse of autopsy tissue, established by President Lincoln.

Dr. Taubenberger investigated and found tissue from two soldiers who died of the 1918 flu, one in Massachusetts, one on Long Island. The tissue was snips of lung soaked in formalin and encased in little blocks of wax. In that tissue was the virus, broken and degraded, but there, untouched for nearly 80 years.

Then Dr. Taubenberger received a third sample, from a woman who had died in Brevig, Alaska, when the flu swept through her village, killing 72 adults and leaving just five. The dead were buried in a mass grave in the permafrost. A retired pathologist, Johan Hultin, hearing of Dr. Taubenberger's quest, had traveled from his home in San Francisco at his own expense. He dug up the grave with the villagers' permission, extracted the woman's still frozen lung tissue and sent it to Dr. Taubenberger.

Dr. Taubenberger and his colleagues spent nearly a decade carefully extracting and piecing together the viral genes, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Along the way, they published findings that they and others used to try to understand the 1918 flu, but until now they had published only the sequences of five of the eight genes that make up the virus. The last three, which make up half of the virus's length, are published today in their paper in Nature.

In August, Terrence M. Tumpey of the Centers for Disease Control and his colleagues used the viral genome to reconstruct the 1918 virus, and they wondered what would happen if they infected mice and if they infected tissue from human lungs. And, they asked, would the virus remain as lethal if they switched some of its genes with genes from today's influenza viruses?

The scientists took great precautions, Dr. Gerberding said, using special labs that were designed to protect the researchers and prevent the spread of the viruses. "We have erred on the side of caution at every step of the process," she added.

And now, the scientists say, the work is starting to unmask that virus's secrets.

In gene-swapping experiments, the scientists found that small substitutions weakened the reconstructed virus so that it could no longer replicate in the lungs of mice, kill animals, or attach itself to human lung cells in the lab.

The ultimate goal, Dr. Taubenberger says, is to make a checklist of changes to look for in the bird viruses. "Now you have all these viruses going around and we don't know, is it going to adapt to humans? Is it going to cause a pandemic? We don't understand the rules," he said. "There is a lot of science to go."

Gardiner Harris contributed reporting from Washington for this article.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/06/health/0...agewanted=print

I would like to see the press question the CDC on this part of the article. I have no clue if this has any basis in fact but I would like to see it discussed as either poppycock or yes you can try this.

[quote=jeffmoskin,Oct 8 2005, 11:52 PM]
Please, snuffy. We don't need any more hysteria.

These labs KNOW FULL WELL what they have. They are taking super precautions.

Jeff - We will not agree here. But I take my cue from WHO and the CDC. They are more competent than either you or I to assess the need for taking precautions. One thing is clear from today's New York Times front page article, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shares the award with Michael Brown in failing to order sufficient quantities of Tamiflu two months ago, thereby causing the President to have to implore all six pharmaceutical companies last Friday to figure out a way to mass produce it. And, oh by the way, the labs that were experimenting with the 1918 virus are only Level Three biohazard protected, thereby increasing the risk of a potential accidental release. The Snuff


http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...19-023837-1241r

WHO official warns to prepare for bird flu
By Steve Mitchell
UPI Senior Medical Correspondent
Published September 19, 2005


WASHINGTON -- A World Health Organization official is urging nations around the world to prepare for a pandemic of bird flu, and he also warned of the threat posed by new emerging diseases.

"While we still have a window of opportunity, we must do everything we can to avert an influenza pandemic, as we simultaneously prepare for a worse-case scenario," Shigeru Omi, the WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific, said at a meeting in Noumea, New Caledonia, on Monday that was attended by 100 health officials -- including some health ministers.


"Avian influenza and the earlier outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) are not the only emerging diseases we can expect to confront in this new century," Omi said.

A strain of bird flu known as H5N1 has been circulating in several Asian nations since 2003 and has killed 57 people. Disease experts worldwide think the virus could adapt to humans and cause a worldwide outbreak with the potential to kill millions.

Recent developments, including the infection of bird flocks in Kazakhstan and Russia, have indicated the virus is spreading westward from Asia. Over the weekend, Indonesian officials said they had closed the zoo in Jakarta for three weeks after the disease was detected in 19 birds there.

So far, Omi said, the virus has not become efficient at spreading effectively from person to person, but scientists report in the Oct. 1 issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases that other strains of bird flu may pose a concern.

A team, led by researchers from the Instituto Superiore di Sanita in Rome, Italy, reported for the first time that bird-flu strains known as low-pathogenic avian influenza can infect people. It was previously thought only highly-pathogenic strains, such as H5N1, could cross over and infect humans. The findings suggest there is a greater chance of bird flu strains mixing with human flu and generating a novel virus that efficiently infects people and spreads around the world.

"Our findings highlight the risk of the emergence of a potentially pandemic strain, as a result of reassortment of avian and contemporaneously circulating human strains during outbreaks of avian influenza caused by (low-pathogenic avian influenza) viruses," the researchers wrote.

To keep bird flu contained, Omi said countries that have already detected the disease in their flocks should strengthen their laboratory capacity to monitor for the disease. They also should slaughter infected poultry and immunize healthy birds. Omi also advised incorporating practices that minimize the possibility of transmitting the virus to different species.

Governments should stockpile anti-viral medications and make sure they are located in areas that are most likely to suffer a flu outbreak, Omi said. He also urged intensifying efforts to develop vaccines against bird flu and recommended countries make preparations to deal with the enormous economic impact that could result from a pandemic.

U.S. officials said last week they had contracted with Sanofi Pasteur for $100 million worth of a vaccine still under development that is designed to protect against bird flu. The officials also said they were stockpiling GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza, an anti-viral medication shown to be effective against bird flu.

Critics, however, said the government's plan was inadequate and their goal of having enough vaccine and anti-viral for 20 million people was not nearly enough to ensure the nation was prepared to deal with a pandemic.

Omi said WHO has established an action plan for responding to bird flu in the Asian Pacific that will cost $160 million. The agency plans to hold a meeting sometime this year to generate funding to fund the plan.

To help deal with emerging diseases, the WHO has developed a plan for the Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions to improve surveillance and preparedness for infectious diseases. The agency also has issued new requirements for member states for verification and notification of public-health situations that pose international concern.

Scientist says U.S. flu drug stockpiles inadequate
09 Oct 2005 00:09:39 GMT

Source: Reuters

Background FACTBOX: Cholera epidemic hits Guinea-Bissau


MORE
By Philipp Gollner

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 8 (Reuters) - U.S. stockpiles of drugs that could help in the fight against a feared human influenza pandemic are woefully inadequate, a viral disease specialist warned at a medical conference on Saturday.

"We still have a long way to go" to build up supplies of drugs that would reduce or prevent flu-related deaths and symptoms, Dr. Frederick Hayden said at the annual meeting in San Francisco of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. "I hope the virus will give us that time."

The United States has enough of the antiviral medication oseltamivir, marketed by Roche <ROG.VX> Laboratories as Tamiflu, to treat about 2.3 million people.

But some 90 million people would need the medication in the event of a flu pandemic, said Hayden, adding the nation should have enough for 4.3 million people by year's end.

The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed millions of birds across Asia and infected 116 people, killing more than 60 of them. Scientists are concerned the virus, currently known to pass to humans from birds, could mutate and be passed among humans.

A draft of the Bush administration's final plan for dealing with a likely pandemic flu outbreak shows the United States is unprepared for the potential disaster, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Nearly 2 million people in the United States could die, and a large outbreak that began in Asia would likely reach the United States within "a few months or even weeks," the Times cited the report as saying.

More than 25 countries have stockpiles of anti-flu drugs, Hayden said, and 10 either have enough or have ordered enough to treat 20 percent to 40 percent of their populations.

At current capacity, it would take about 10 years and cost about 14 billion euros ($17 billion) to produce enough oseltamivir to treat 20 percent of the world's population, the flu specialist at the University of Virginia added.

Up to 30 percent of the population could come down with the flu, according to Hayden. "It would certainly cause a lot of hospitalizations and a lot of loss of life," he said.

The Infectious Diseases Society of America recommends that enough antiviral drugs be available to treat half of the population. Hayden said early treatment, preferably within two days of the onset of symptoms, was crucial to preventing complications and death.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday asked vaccine makers to do speed up flu vaccine production.

Several companies are working on an H5N1 vaccine, and the furthest along is France's Sanofi-Aventis <SASY.PA>. U.S.-based Chiron Corp. <CHIR.O> aims to test its H5N1 vaccine later this year and Britain's GlaxoSmithKline Plc <GSK.L> plans large-scale clinical trials in 2006. The ordinary flu vaccine does not protect against avian flu.

And from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/fee...cout528437.html

U.S. Ill Prepared for Massive Flu Outbreak: Report
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter


SATURDAY, Oct. 8 (HealthDay News) -- The United States is unprepared for a global flu pandemic, according to a draft of a federal report, which predicts a worst-case scenario that could lead to the deaths of 1.9 million Americans and the hospitalization of 8.5 million more people with costs exceeding $450 billion.

The report, obtained by The New York Times, says a large flu outbreak that began in Asia would probably hit the United States within "a few months or even weeks" due to the ease of modern travel, the newspaper reported Saturday.

If a pandemic, which is a global outbreak of a deadly flu strain, were to occur, U.S. hospitals would be overwhelmed, riots would strike vaccination clinics, and even power and food supplies might be disrupted, according to the plan, the Times reported.

The report, which is 381 pages long, recommends quarantines and travel restrictions but admits such steps "are unlikely to delay introduction of pandemic disease into the U.S. by more than a month or two," the newspaper said.

The report also calls for domestic production of flu vaccine of 600 million doses within six months -- more than 10 times the current capacity, the newspaper said.

The plan also suggests certain steps that state and local governments should take now to prepare for a pandemic, which health experts warn is long overdue. Those steps include creating legal documents that would allow for quarantines, the Times said.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt told the newspaper that the plan given to the Times was a draft and not a final document. "We recognize that the H.H.S. plan will be a foundation for a government-wide plan, and that process has already begun," Christina Pearson said.

Pearson added that Leavitt has already met with other cabinet secretaries to begin coordinating a federal response to a pandemic, the newspaper said.

World and U.S. health officials have been warning for months that the bird flu strain sweeping through Asia could trigger the next pandemic.

With concern mounting over the bird flu threat, President George Bush met Friday with executives of major vaccine manufacturers to discuss an expansion of the country's ability to make enough vaccine to counter a possible pandemic.

Liability was one issue addressed, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. He noted that if a vaccine causes side effects in healthy people, vaccine manufacturers could face massive lawsuits, the Associated Press reported.

That's one reason why many drug companies have stopped making vaccines over the past two decades. A second reason is that vaccines aren't all that profitable. That's especially true for flu vaccines, which have to be reformulated every year to cope with new circulating flu strains.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R.-Kan.) on Thursday introduced legislation that would encourage vaccine production in the United States by financially guaranteeing a market for vaccine producers.

Also Friday, representatives of nearly 70 countries expressed their willingness to cooperate to limit the threat of a bird flu pandemic, HHS Secretary Leavitt said.

Leavitt briefed reporters on the State Department conference, which was closed to the press, before he traveled to Southeast Asia, where he will gauge for himself various countries' capacity to monitor the bird flu virus and prevent its spread, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration and Congress are considering spending billions of dollars to buy a stockpile of the antiviral drug Tamiflu, which has shown some success in treating bird flu, the Times reported.

However, because the federal government has spent months delaying a decision, the United States will have to wait in line behind other countries that already ordered Tamiflu. If the Bush administration had placed the order a few months ago, Tamiflu maker Roche could have delivered much of the United States' supply by next year, government and industry sources told the Times.

Complicating the federal government's efforts to avert a possible massive outbreak of bird flu is the fact that vaccine development takes time. And whether Tamiflu will be effective in humans remains unknown, experts said.

The potential threat posed by bird, or avian, flu has been compared to that of the Spanish flu of 1918-19, which killed 50 million people worldwide, including more than 500,000 in the United States.

In fact, U.S. researchers announced earlier this week that the bird flu strain that's emerging in the Far East shares some of the same genetic characteristics as the flu virus that caused the 1918 pandemic.

The current bird flu, called H5N1, is spreading throughout Asia and has reached Russia. So far infection has been mostly confined to millions of birds, but has caused the deaths of an estimated 65 people in Asia. Up till now, transmission of the disease from person to person has been limited, although most experts agree it's only a matter of time before that process becomes easier.

"We are concerned about avian flu," said Stephen S. Morse, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University and director of the school's Center for Public Health Preparedness. "But the next pandemic could come from some other [virus] as yet not on our radar screen -- an unanticipated influenza," he added.

Some trial batches of bird flu vaccine have been made by U.S. researchers, Morse said. "This was done to demonstrate the capability and make sure that all the pieces were in place in case we actually needed such a vaccine for human use."

However, Morse noted that should bird flu become easily transmittable from person to person, a vaccine for that specific strain would have to be developed. "Currently our vaccine capacity is limited. So [developing a vaccine] depends on a number of things, including political will and timing," he said.

Factors needed to produce a vaccine quickly include swift recognition by health experts of a new flu strain and increased manufacturing ability, Morse said. "It can be done if the political will is there," he said. "We are headed in the right direction. I hope we have time to put the pieces in place."

More information

The CDC can tell you more about avian flu.