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Friday, November 4, 2005 IN MY MOST RECENT post a few hours ago, I reserved a 10% stake in Avian Influenza being something other than pure pharmacop wannabe fascist shock the masses playtime for profit. There's a man in New York State, in state government, whose word I take rather seriously, if not as gospel. Nobody's word should be taken as gospel, but Ward B. Stone comes close. He's been the Wildlife Pathologist for the state for decades, he "knows which way the wind blows" to borrow from Bob Dylan, and I've known him since 1992 mainly through my work on environmental toxins -- one of his specialties. Ward was one of the first people to document that PCBs were loose in the everyday environment, at the base of utility poles in New York. The chemicals had dripped from electrical transformers on top of the poles (most of which have since been removed). From that point on, he became the PCB Avenger, and our paths were bound to cross. I've had very little chance to work with Ward specifically on wildlife issues, but now there's one on the radar. On the way to talking to Ward, I called Ellen Connett, longtime editor of a publication called Waste Not!, now working to raise awareness of the dangers of fluoride in drinking water and toothpaste. I asked her opinion, since she generally has her finger on the pulse of every important environmental issue. Why is this such a concern? She said, "It's the mortality rate of the cases on record. That's what's got everybody by the neck." She added, "There is a big concern here, but how it's going to end up, nobody knows." I reached Ward Stone on my first try. "Certainly, the virus is there and the virus is spreading," he said. "It's moving in wild birds," with cases appearing in Turkey, Greece, other parts of Eastern Europe and a quarantine case involving a parrot in the UK. And many birds are smuggled illegally, thus avoiding quarantine. Avian infuenzas, he said, "Are always out there, and periodically, one mutates. The more you have, the more mutations you have. It's a matter of statistics." But what differs about H5N1, the strain causing so much concern, one is "the pathogenicity for the birds." In other words, it spreads easily, and it's unusually deadly to birds -- and when people get it, it's unusually deadly for them for them, by percentage of cases. About 60 people have died from H5N1, more than half of the total cases. The problem with how contagious it is in the bird population is that the more birds that are sick, the more chance they will come into contact with a person who happens to be carrying a human-borne influenza, which will give it an opportunity to mutate. And because of how deadly the bird version of the virus is, and how fast it's spreading among birds, that's not a pleasant thought. So this in part explains why there is such a response. "Mutation can make it more or less pathogenic," he added, "more adaptable [to humans] or not. What hasn't happened is it hasn't taken off in people. It has not adapted to people. So there is no mutation that has gotten out that has made it adaptable to humans. That is what some virologists say is going to happen. But it may not." Mental note: find the leading virologists advocating this theory. If anybody out there in Internet Land sees any of them quoted, please send me the URL. We need to trace their business interests carefully. Ward explained further: "There are several places where it may not occur. One is it may not come here [to the US] at all. One is it doesn't show up for years. And another is it doesn't mutate to go from person to person. In that case it will certainly kill a lot of birds, but it won't kill people. And mostly it would affect people like hunters," who come in contact with the blood of wild birds when dressing them. One last little problem: Ward said that looking at the genetic structure of the current strain of Avian Influenza, it's similar in many ways to the Spanish Flu virus of 1918-1919 that killed so many people and sickened 28% of the United States population to some degree. However, this was nearly a century ago -- and human DNA may have evolved to the point where it's not easily susceptible to a virus of that kind of structure. Also, Spanish Flu petered out in 1919 after raging havoc for about 12 months. It left as fast as it arrived. Okay, so, what did I learn? In part, I can see the basis for the concern. H5N1 is unusually deadly to birds and to the few people who catch it. It's unusually virulent in birds -- it spreads far and wide. Also, I know from other research that there are cycles of pandemics and some scientists are basically expecting one. My own homeopath said that we're about 10 years late for a major pandemic, a fact that epidemiologists are obviously aware of and that is feeding their fears. But what is actually going to happen -- nobody knows. We do need to keep in mind that Donald Rumsfeld makes money every time someone takes a dose of Tamiflu. And I need to get a real sense of what the astrology says -- something I don't have. This weekend I'll be taking care of my neighbor's cockatiels, and I'll ask them what they think. -- Speaking of business interests, we sell subscriptions. Just think -- for $54.95, you get your own personal investigative reporter working to untangle Bird Flu for you on a Friday night! And your own personal astrologer. Planet Waves covers The Planet and the Planets... | ||||||
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