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Tom,
Does that surprise you that Harry would edit someone else's work, and present it as an unedited cut and paste article? "Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message ... On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 23:20:25 -0400, Harry Krause wrote: October 8, 2005 Bush Plan Shows U.S. Is Not Ready for Deadly Flu By GARDINER HARRIS NY Times WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 - A plan developed by the Bush administration to deal with any possible outbreak of pandemic flu shows that the United States is woefully unprepared for what could become the worst disaster in the nation's history. A draft of the final plan, which has been years in the making and is expected to be released later this month, says a large outbreak that began in Asia would be likely, because of modern travel patterns, to reach the United States within "a few months or even weeks." If such an outbreak occurred, hospitals would become overwhelmed, riots would engulf vaccination clinics, and even power and food would be in short supply, according to the plan, which was obtained by The New York Times. The 381-page plan calls for quarantine and travel restrictions but concedes that such measures "are unlikely to delay introduction of pandemic disease into the U.S. by more than a month or two." - - - Yes, we're really moving forward with this dirtbag in the White House. Maybe he'll fly over some city in the US where everyone has died in order to show his concern. Harry, you really shouldn't snip and paste to protect your viewpoint. Unless of course you are into some kind of Orwellian "newspeak" in which only those parts that directly your view of the President are important. I'm very disappointed in you - I thought you were for truth and honesty - in particular being a journalist and having worked for a newspaper at one time. Here's the whole article. October 7, 2005 After Delay, U.S. Faces Line for Flu Drug By GARDINER HARRIS As concern about a flu pandemic sweeps official Washington, Congress and the Bush administration are considering spending billions to buy the influenza drug Tamiflu. But after months of delay, the United States will now have to wait in line to get the pills. Had the administration placed a large order just a few months ago, Roche, Tamiflu's maker, could have delivered much of the supply by next year, according to sources close to the negotiations in both government and industry. As the months passed, however, other countries placed orders that largely exhausted Roche's production capacity this year and next. Democrats on Capitol Hill are complaining that the delay has put Americans in jeopardy. "The administration has just drug its feet through this whole process," said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, who has pressed for legislation to buy more courses of Tamiflu. A course includes enough pills for a full treatment. Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, said in an interview that Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, told senators in a closed-door briefing last week that the administration would soon place an order to raise the government's Tamiflu stockpile to 81 million courses - up from 12 million to 13 million courses expected by the end of 2006. Mr. Obama has long been urging the government to buy more Tamiflu. "Secretary Leavitt admitted that they are currently in negotiations with Roche to try to rapidly build up those stockpiles," Mr. Obama said. "But we're behind countries like Great Britain, France and Japan, and it's probably going to cost us a lot more money than it would have to catch up." In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Leavitt said that the government would buy more Tamiflu although he did not specify how much. "But it's not a surrogate for preparation," he said. "It's like saying that if we could get everyone in America to wear seat belts, we would solve auto accidents. It's part of a comprehensive solution." Christina Pearson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Leavitt, said she could not confirm whether the Bush administration had a new goal of buying the 81 million courses. Mr. Leavitt said the Bush administration planned to prepare for a possible influenza pandemic by strengthening both international and domestic disease surveillance programs, buying drugs like Tamiflu and investing in research to develop alternative methods of making flu vaccines. Preparing the vaccines usually takes nine months and involves the eggs of thousands of chickens. Because chickens themselves could be wiped out in a pandemic, the present system of manufacturing vaccines is highly vulnerable. Introduced in 1999, Tamiflu for years had disappointing sales and received little attention. But just as Bayer's antibiotic Cipro became wildly popular in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks, Tamiflu has become the drug of choice for those worried about pandemic flu because it is one of the only medicines proven to reduce the duration and severity of the potentially deadly disease if taken within 48 hours of infection. Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, is among those who have been insisting for months that the government buy more Tamiflu. But he said the Bush administration largely ignored his and others' warnings. "And now that they're finally worked up about it, the store is closed," Dr. Redlener said, referring to Roche's supply problems. "The U.S. is now in line behind much of the rest of the world." Terence Hurley, a Roche spokesman, said that 40 countries had ordered Tamiflu to fill medical stockpiles in case of a pandemic. Many countries in Europe - including France, Britain, Finland, Norway and Switzerland - have ordered enough to treat 20 percent to 40 percent of their populations. The American stockpile would treat less than 2 percent of the population. Mr. Hurley said that Roche would be able to deliver all the courses that the United States government has currently ordered, including at least two million courses ordered this year. Asked how soon the company could produce 68 million more courses if the United States placed such an order, Mr. Hurley refused to say. "We're just going to have to see what their demands are," Mr. Hurley said. The suggested 81 million courses would cover more than a quarter of the population. The government and industry officials, however, said that Roche had committed to delivering seven million courses to the United States next year and would not be able to deliver substantially more until 2007. Since 1997, avian flu strains have killed millions of birds in nearly a dozen countries. But so far, nearly all of the people infected - more than 100 so far, including some 60 who died - got the sickness directly from birds. Until the virus passes easily among humans, it is unlikely to cause a pandemic that could kill millions. An outbreak, therefore, may still be years away or may never occur. But news this week that the 1918 flu virus, which killed at least 50 million worldwide, was also a form of avian flu raised concerns further. On Thursday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, and Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, introduced a bill that would bolster defenses against the flu. And here's today's article from the New York Times October 9, 2005 Danger of Flu Pandemic Is Clear, if Not Present By DENISE GRADY Fear of the bird flu sweeping across Asia has played a major role in the government's flurry of preparations for a worldwide epidemic. That concern prompted President Bush to meet with vaccine makers on Friday to try to persuade them to increase production, and it led Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt to depart yesterday for a 10-day trip to at least four Asian nations to discuss planning for a pandemic flu. But scientists say that although the threat from the current avian virus is real, it is probably not immediate. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a bird flu pandemic was unlikely this year. "How unlikely, I can't quantitate it," Dr. Fauci said. But, he added, "You must prepare for the worst-case scenario. To do anything less would be irresponsible." Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of the molecular pathology department at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, said, "I would not say it's imminent or inevitable." Dr. Taubenberger said he believes that there will eventually be a pandemic, but that whether it will be bird flu or another type, no one can say. The Bush administration is in the final stages of preparing a plan to deal with pandemic flu. A draft shows that the country is woefully unprepared, and it warns that a severe pandemic will kill millions, overwhelm hospitals and disrupt much of the nation. What worries scientists about the current strain of bird flu, known as H5N1, is that it has shown some ominous traits. Though it does not often infect humans, it can, and when it does, it seems to be uncommonly lethal. It has killed 60 people of the 116 known to have been infected. Alarm heightened on Thursday when a scientific team led by Dr. Taubenberger reported that the 1918 flu virus, which killed 50 million people worldwide, was also a bird flu that jumped directly to humans. There is a crucial difference, however; the 1918 flu was highly contagious, while today's bird flu has so far shown little ability to spread from person to person. But a mutation making the virus more transmissible could set the stage for a pandemic. Another concern is that H5N1 has become widespread, killing millions of birds in 11 countries and dispersing further as migratory birds carry it even greater distances. This month, it was reported in Romania. Meanwhile, the flu is spreading widely among birds in Asia. And it has unusual staying power, persisting in different parts of the world since it emerged in 1997. "Most bird flus emerge briefly and are relatively localized," said Dr. Andrew T. Pavia, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah and chairman of the pandemic influenza task force of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. The most worrisome thing about H5N1, Dr. Pavia said, is that it has not gone away. Some scientists suspect that if H5N1 has not caused a pandemic by now, then it will not, because it must be incapable of making the needed changes. But others say there is no way to tell what the virus will do as time goes on. And they point out that no one knows how long it took for the 1918 virus to develop the properties that led to a pandemic. Meanwhile, H5N1 seems to be finding its way into more and more species. Once known to infect chickens, ducks and the occasional person, the virus is now found in a wide range of birds and has infected cats. "It killed tigers at the Bangkok zoo, which is quite remarkable because flu is not traditionally a big problem for cats," Dr. Pavia said. It has also infected pigs, which in the past have been a vehicle to carry viruses from birds to humans. "We should be worried but not panicked," Dr. Pavia said. The timing of the bird flu's emergence also makes scientists nervous, because many believe that based on history, the world is overdue for a pandemic. Pandemics occur when a flu virus changes so markedly from previous strains that people have no immunity and vast numbers fall ill. "In the 20th century there were three pandemics, which means an average of one every 30 years," Dr. Fauci said. "The last one was in 1968, so it's 37 years. Just on the basis of evolution, of how things go, we're overdue." Dr. Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program Office, said: "You get this sense of compounding risks. First, it's in some birds. Then more. Then more area, then more mammals and then to humans, albeit inefficiently." In just a few instances, Dr. Gellin noted, the virus does appear to have spread from person to person. "The only thing it hasn't done is to become an efficient transmitter among humans," he said. "It's done all the other things that are steps toward becoming a pandemic virus." But not everyone is equally worried about the bird flu. The fear "is very much overdone, in my opinion," said Dr. Edwin Kilbourne, an emeritus professor of immunology at New York Medical College, who has treated flu patients since the 1957 pandemic and has studied the 1918 flu. The bird flu, he said, is distantly related to earlier flus, and humans have already been exposed to them, providing some resistance. Scientists also say that the death rate may not be as high as it appears, because some milder cases may not have been reported. Dr. Kilbourne and other experts also noted that when viruses become more transmissible, they almost always become less lethal. Viruses that let their hosts stay alive and pass the disease on to others, he explained, have a better chance of spreading than do strains that kill off their hosts quickly. Moreover, he said, while much has been made of comparisons between the current avian flu and the 1918 strain, the factors that helped increase the flu's virulence in 1918 - the crowding together of millions of World War I troops in ships, barracks, trenches and hospitals - generally do not exist today for humans. But an essential difference is that people carrying the flu today can board international flights and carry the disease around the world in a matter of hours. Dr. Kilbourne emphasized that medical care had improved greatly since 1918. Although some flu victims then turned blue overnight and drowned from blood, with fluid leaking into their lungs, many more died of what are now believed to be bacterial infections, which can be treated with antibiotics. Although the death toll from that flu was high, the actual death rate was less than 5 percent. In addition, more people now live in cities, where they have probably caught more flus, giving them immunity to later ones. "In 1918, you had a lot of farm boys getting their first contact with city folks who'd had these things," Dr. Kilbourne said. What researchers wish they could do now is look at a flu virus like H5N1 and predict whether it is heading down the genetic road to becoming a pandemic strain. "I hope in the future we will be able to do that, work out which mutations are critical," Dr. Taubenberger said. "We know the 1918 strain had everything it needed." Andrew Pollack and Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting for this article. ---------------------------- It would appear that we should have been doing more about this ten years ago - which would make that who's administration? Interesting how the viewpoint changes when you have the whole picture doesn't it? |
#2
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Harry's typical MO. If the facts don't fit your argument then change the
facts. "Starbuck's Words of Wisdom" wrote in message ... Tom, Does that surprise you that Harry would edit someone else's work, and present it as an unedited cut and paste article? "Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message ... On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 23:20:25 -0400, Harry Krause wrote: October 8, 2005 Bush Plan Shows U.S. Is Not Ready for Deadly Flu By GARDINER HARRIS NY Times WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 - A plan developed by the Bush administration to deal with any possible outbreak of pandemic flu shows that the United States is woefully unprepared for what could become the worst disaster in the nation's history. A draft of the final plan, which has been years in the making and is expected to be released later this month, says a large outbreak that began in Asia would be likely, because of modern travel patterns, to reach the United States within "a few months or even weeks." If such an outbreak occurred, hospitals would become overwhelmed, riots would engulf vaccination clinics, and even power and food would be in short supply, according to the plan, which was obtained by The New York Times. The 381-page plan calls for quarantine and travel restrictions but concedes that such measures "are unlikely to delay introduction of pandemic disease into the U.S. by more than a month or two." - - - Yes, we're really moving forward with this dirtbag in the White House. Maybe he'll fly over some city in the US where everyone has died in order to show his concern. Harry, you really shouldn't snip and paste to protect your viewpoint. Unless of course you are into some kind of Orwellian "newspeak" in which only those parts that directly your view of the President are important. I'm very disappointed in you - I thought you were for truth and honesty - in particular being a journalist and having worked for a newspaper at one time. Here's the whole article. October 7, 2005 After Delay, U.S. Faces Line for Flu Drug By GARDINER HARRIS As concern about a flu pandemic sweeps official Washington, Congress and the Bush administration are considering spending billions to buy the influenza drug Tamiflu. But after months of delay, the United States will now have to wait in line to get the pills. Had the administration placed a large order just a few months ago, Roche, Tamiflu's maker, could have delivered much of the supply by next year, according to sources close to the negotiations in both government and industry. As the months passed, however, other countries placed orders that largely exhausted Roche's production capacity this year and next. Democrats on Capitol Hill are complaining that the delay has put Americans in jeopardy. "The administration has just drug its feet through this whole process," said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, who has pressed for legislation to buy more courses of Tamiflu. A course includes enough pills for a full treatment. Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, said in an interview that Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, told senators in a closed-door briefing last week that the administration would soon place an order to raise the government's Tamiflu stockpile to 81 million courses - up from 12 million to 13 million courses expected by the end of 2006. Mr. Obama has long been urging the government to buy more Tamiflu. "Secretary Leavitt admitted that they are currently in negotiations with Roche to try to rapidly build up those stockpiles," Mr. Obama said. "But we're behind countries like Great Britain, France and Japan, and it's probably going to cost us a lot more money than it would have to catch up." In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Leavitt said that the government would buy more Tamiflu although he did not specify how much. "But it's not a surrogate for preparation," he said. "It's like saying that if we could get everyone in America to wear seat belts, we would solve auto accidents. It's part of a comprehensive solution." Christina Pearson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Leavitt, said she could not confirm whether the Bush administration had a new goal of buying the 81 million courses. Mr. Leavitt said the Bush administration planned to prepare for a possible influenza pandemic by strengthening both international and domestic disease surveillance programs, buying drugs like Tamiflu and investing in research to develop alternative methods of making flu vaccines. Preparing the vaccines usually takes nine months and involves the eggs of thousands of chickens. Because chickens themselves could be wiped out in a pandemic, the present system of manufacturing vaccines is highly vulnerable. Introduced in 1999, Tamiflu for years had disappointing sales and received little attention. But just as Bayer's antibiotic Cipro became wildly popular in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks, Tamiflu has become the drug of choice for those worried about pandemic flu because it is one of the only medicines proven to reduce the duration and severity of the potentially deadly disease if taken within 48 hours of infection. Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, is among those who have been insisting for months that the government buy more Tamiflu. But he said the Bush administration largely ignored his and others' warnings. "And now that they're finally worked up about it, the store is closed," Dr. Redlener said, referring to Roche's supply problems. "The U.S. is now in line behind much of the rest of the world." Terence Hurley, a Roche spokesman, said that 40 countries had ordered Tamiflu to fill medical stockpiles in case of a pandemic. Many countries in Europe - including France, Britain, Finland, Norway and Switzerland - have ordered enough to treat 20 percent to 40 percent of their populations. The American stockpile would treat less than 2 percent of the population. Mr. Hurley said that Roche would be able to deliver all the courses that the United States government has currently ordered, including at least two million courses ordered this year. Asked how soon the company could produce 68 million more courses if the United States placed such an order, Mr. Hurley refused to say. "We're just going to have to see what their demands are," Mr. Hurley said. The suggested 81 million courses would cover more than a quarter of the population. The government and industry officials, however, said that Roche had committed to delivering seven million courses to the United States next year and would not be able to deliver substantially more until 2007. Since 1997, avian flu strains have killed millions of birds in nearly a dozen countries. But so far, nearly all of the people infected - more than 100 so far, including some 60 who died - got the sickness directly from birds. Until the virus passes easily among humans, it is unlikely to cause a pandemic that could kill millions. An outbreak, therefore, may still be years away or may never occur. But news this week that the 1918 flu virus, which killed at least 50 million worldwide, was also a form of avian flu raised concerns further. On Thursday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, and Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, introduced a bill that would bolster defenses against the flu. And here's today's article from the New York Times October 9, 2005 Danger of Flu Pandemic Is Clear, if Not Present By DENISE GRADY Fear of the bird flu sweeping across Asia has played a major role in the government's flurry of preparations for a worldwide epidemic. That concern prompted President Bush to meet with vaccine makers on Friday to try to persuade them to increase production, and it led Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt to depart yesterday for a 10-day trip to at least four Asian nations to discuss planning for a pandemic flu. But scientists say that although the threat from the current avian virus is real, it is probably not immediate. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a bird flu pandemic was unlikely this year. "How unlikely, I can't quantitate it," Dr. Fauci said. But, he added, "You must prepare for the worst-case scenario. To do anything less would be irresponsible." Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of the molecular pathology department at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, said, "I would not say it's imminent or inevitable." Dr. Taubenberger said he believes that there will eventually be a pandemic, but that whether it will be bird flu or another type, no one can say. The Bush administration is in the final stages of preparing a plan to deal with pandemic flu. A draft shows that the country is woefully unprepared, and it warns that a severe pandemic will kill millions, overwhelm hospitals and disrupt much of the nation. What worries scientists about the current strain of bird flu, known as H5N1, is that it has shown some ominous traits. Though it does not often infect humans, it can, and when it does, it seems to be uncommonly lethal. It has killed 60 people of the 116 known to have been infected. Alarm heightened on Thursday when a scientific team led by Dr. Taubenberger reported that the 1918 flu virus, which killed 50 million people worldwide, was also a bird flu that jumped directly to humans. There is a crucial difference, however; the 1918 flu was highly contagious, while today's bird flu has so far shown little ability to spread from person to person. But a mutation making the virus more transmissible could set the stage for a pandemic. Another concern is that H5N1 has become widespread, killing millions of birds in 11 countries and dispersing further as migratory birds carry it even greater distances. This month, it was reported in Romania. Meanwhile, the flu is spreading widely among birds in Asia. And it has unusual staying power, persisting in different parts of the world since it emerged in 1997. "Most bird flus emerge briefly and are relatively localized," said Dr. Andrew T. Pavia, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah and chairman of the pandemic influenza task force of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. The most worrisome thing about H5N1, Dr. Pavia said, is that it has not gone away. Some scientists suspect that if H5N1 has not caused a pandemic by now, then it will not, because it must be incapable of making the needed changes. But others say there is no way to tell what the virus will do as time goes on. And they point out that no one knows how long it took for the 1918 virus to develop the properties that led to a pandemic. Meanwhile, H5N1 seems to be finding its way into more and more species. Once known to infect chickens, ducks and the occasional person, the virus is now found in a wide range of birds and has infected cats. "It killed tigers at the Bangkok zoo, which is quite remarkable because flu is not traditionally a big problem for cats," Dr. Pavia said. It has also infected pigs, which in the past have been a vehicle to carry viruses from birds to humans. "We should be worried but not panicked," Dr. Pavia said. The timing of the bird flu's emergence also makes scientists nervous, because many believe that based on history, the world is overdue for a pandemic. Pandemics occur when a flu virus changes so markedly from previous strains that people have no immunity and vast numbers fall ill. "In the 20th century there were three pandemics, which means an average of one every 30 years," Dr. Fauci said. "The last one was in 1968, so it's 37 years. Just on the basis of evolution, of how things go, we're overdue." Dr. Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program Office, said: "You get this sense of compounding risks. First, it's in some birds. Then more. Then more area, then more mammals and then to humans, albeit inefficiently." In just a few instances, Dr. Gellin noted, the virus does appear to have spread from person to person. "The only thing it hasn't done is to become an efficient transmitter among humans," he said. "It's done all the other things that are steps toward becoming a pandemic virus." But not everyone is equally worried about the bird flu. The fear "is very much overdone, in my opinion," said Dr. Edwin Kilbourne, an emeritus professor of immunology at New York Medical College, who has treated flu patients since the 1957 pandemic and has studied the 1918 flu. The bird flu, he said, is distantly related to earlier flus, and humans have already been exposed to them, providing some resistance. Scientists also say that the death rate may not be as high as it appears, because some milder cases may not have been reported. Dr. Kilbourne and other experts also noted that when viruses become more transmissible, they almost always become less lethal. Viruses that let their hosts stay alive and pass the disease on to others, he explained, have a better chance of spreading than do strains that kill off their hosts quickly. Moreover, he said, while much has been made of comparisons between the current avian flu and the 1918 strain, the factors that helped increase the flu's virulence in 1918 - the crowding together of millions of World War I troops in ships, barracks, trenches and hospitals - generally do not exist today for humans. But an essential difference is that people carrying the flu today can board international flights and carry the disease around the world in a matter of hours. Dr. Kilbourne emphasized that medical care had improved greatly since 1918. Although some flu victims then turned blue overnight and drowned from blood, with fluid leaking into their lungs, many more died of what are now believed to be bacterial infections, which can be treated with antibiotics. Although the death toll from that flu was high, the actual death rate was less than 5 percent. In addition, more people now live in cities, where they have probably caught more flus, giving them immunity to later ones. "In 1918, you had a lot of farm boys getting their first contact with city folks who'd had these things," Dr. Kilbourne said. What researchers wish they could do now is look at a flu virus like H5N1 and predict whether it is heading down the genetic road to becoming a pandemic strain. "I hope in the future we will be able to do that, work out which mutations are critical," Dr. Taubenberger said. "We know the 1918 strain had everything it needed." Andrew Pollack and Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting for this article. ---------------------------- It would appear that we should have been doing more about this ten years ago - which would make that who's administration? Interesting how the viewpoint changes when you have the whole picture doesn't it? |
#3
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Tom,
I have seen him do this exact same thing a few dozen times. "Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message ... On Sun, 9 Oct 2005 10:41:36 -0400, "Starbuck's Words of Wisdom" wrote: Tom, Does that surprise you that Harry would edit someone else's work, and present it as an unedited cut and paste article? Yes and I said so. |
#4
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Harry,
What is with your anal fixation? "Harry Krause" wrote in message ... Shortwave Sportfishing wrote: On Sun, 9 Oct 2005 15:23:57 -0400, "Starbuck's Words of Wisdom" wrote: Tom, I have seen him do this exact same thing a few dozen times. Whatever. Ahh, I'll bet this is another comment from Starbuck Smithers about me. He just loves to push his nose up my butt. |
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