Monday, July 10, 2006 | Bird Flu Update Photo >> http://www.planetwaves.net/home/media_frenzy.html FRIDAY morning I had my first big experience visiting the European Commission headquarters. The government of Europe, the European Union (which is now, in total a [really weird] kind of country), is divided into three branches: the Commission, the Council and the Parliament. The Commission, the Executive Branch, seems to be the working end of the stick, but I'm sure everyone has an opinion and mine can't be trusted because I have too many planets in my 10th house to give an objective view of the government. Oh, there is also a judicial branch, based in Luxemburg, a very little country near Belgium. Maria Cavit, a Planet Waves writer in The Netherlands who works for an NGO (non-governmental organization) there, relayed word to me that there would be a press briefing at the Commission Friday morning, on avian influenza. So, I sent the necessary emails and made a call, got on the press list and decided first thing Friday to attend. The Berlaymont Building is the enormous complex that houses the Commission. It's a bit more impressive than Canary Wharf in London but not quite as impressive as the World Trade Center was. At reception, I was asked for my press credentials and passport, was verified as on the list, and given a temporary EC press credential. Then through security, similar to an airport, tons of cops everywhere, and through a series of elegant lobbies with wood and glass décor; past a television staging area; and [with a brief stop for coffee, apple, banana and candy bar -- the chocolate being required, if you're a real journalist -- all by the way for just 3 euros] down to the press briefing room. This is really a fairly large auditorium with seating for about 200, like a lecture center at a big university. But the seats are all equipped with a translation headset, a microphone (high quality, heavyweight, retractable cord), a foldable desk, Ethernet connection, electrical plug and probably a few other technical bits I missed. I tried flipping around the channels and could not find Howard Stern. Around the edge of the room on the first and second floors are tinted glass booths, like luxury boxes, only for various translators, security, and people working the audio/visual stuff. It's extremely fancy and I assure you it's not cheap to run the joint for an hour. Our little session needed three translators, two French and one English. All in all, the place felt like Star Fleet Headquarters, except that it was at the moment slightly underutilized, with only about 25 journalists from places like Reuters, New Scientist and capital newspapers from across Europe, showing up for the briefing, and a bunch of Commission employees, people like scientists, there to hear what several of the world's bigwigs on bird flu were going to tell the press. The speakers were some real notables -- including Dr. Paul Gully from the World Health Organization (WHO), flown in from God knows where, and Dr. Zuszsana Jakob of the European Centers for Disease Control (ECDC), and others. Here is the upshot, assembled from their talks, as well as from other sources over the past year or so. None of this is news, but it adds up to something. Or rather, very little; I cannot guarantee you anyone else will agree. 1. There is no cure for bird flu, or any flu. It cannot effectively be treated. You can care for the sick, but you can't actually treat the virus. There is no vaccine for this flu -- only for seasonal flu. This is because nobody knows what strain of bird flu or any other flu will become THE big one, and therefore, you cannot make vaccines to immunize against it. When a pandemic strikes, it will take so long to make vaccines that it will be too late. 2. As of about a week ago, there have been about 228 known human cases of H5N1 (the official "avian influenza"), verified by test, so far -- most of them in Asia. Human cases have been reported in 10 countries and animal cases in 50 countries. 3. Victims of substantially more than half of all human cases cases, 130 people, have died. This is most of what has scientists freaked out. That's a lot of people, by percentage. 4. H5N1 does not spread between people, only from birds to people. The fear is that somebody with the regular flu will catch bird flu and their body will make the new contagious strain, and then millions of other people will get it, and the world economy will come crashing down. A lot of the fears surround the economy. 5. The way this is supposedly being prevented is killing birds ("cullling"), and immunizing birds. There are, however a lot of birds in the world, and many of them are wild. Also, some countries are doing a lot of seasonal flu vaccination in hopes of preventing the creation of a crossover strain. 6. There are also numerous strains of influenza and many are brewing around and passing back and forth between the bird and human populations (and sometimes horses and pigs). This is happening constantly and any one of those strains could become THE strain that creates the next pandemic. There is a lot of monitoring and reporting going on in the world now -- definitely a good thing. 7. It's widely believed that the next pandemic is unavoidable. Eventually, no matter what people do, no matter how many birds are killed, it will happen -- and based on established cycles, we are somewhat late for a big pandemic. However, these are trends and predictions, not scientific facts. 8. Most preparations involve how to handle so many sick people when an estimated three-quarters of the hospital or other civil service work force will not come in, out of fear, or sickness. The press (such as it was, not very many cared enough to attend despite substantial work by Commission press handlers to get reporters out of their offices) was briefed on procedures in the event that it happened. The European government will create a central headquarters -- possibly the room were were in -- as the central meeting point for daily briefings, and so on. 9. Lots has been learned about public psychology from SARS and other recent epidemics. In my perspective, it adds up to: We're not in that much better shape than we were in 1918, when the Spanish Flu wiped out about 40 million people in a very short time. Anyway, I raised my hand toward the end and asked a question, which went like this: Dr. Julian Winston and others have reported on a retrospective study that said homeopathic physicians had a 99% cure rate with the Spanish Flu, while conventional doctors lost about one in three patients. Have you considered looking at this data? Good question, right? But -- I might as well have said, "Good afternoon gentlemen. Tuesday is the Capricorn Full Moon. Have you considered the beneficial effects of dancing around a fire?" I knew perfectly well that homeopathy is taboo among scientists. And you say, but they're scientists; why should a taboo be meaningful? Ah, because it is. There was silence for 10 or 20 seconds. I reactivated my mic and said, "Sorry for asking the tin foil hat question of the day," which got a chuckle from the audience. Then, Dr. Paul Gully from WHO stepped to the podium and responded. Basically, he said that it was definitely appropriate to look at alternative methods for treating avian influenza, but you have to have good data (suggesting in a very polite way that you can't trust what people from 1918 did, we don't have real data, so forget it). That was that. So, that was my big adventure. Here is some other reading material, starting with my basic article from Parallel Worlds on the topic: Homeopathy and Flu http://planetwavesweekly.com/parallel/articles/homeopaty.html History of Avian Influenza http://www.planetwavesweekly.com/parallel/articles/little_bird.html Wiki on European Commission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission Wiki on EU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union