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Originally posted by ogvh5150 Sources are important otherwise you're just ranting. Anyone can sound smart on this board by copying and pasting eloquent words. But it's better if you can share information rather than just parrot what you think you know. Something as serious as avian flu is not something you can boast about knowing and not share anything worthwhile than just what you pick up in your local magazine.

Scientific American is a "local magazine?"

I have to read publications (Scientific American, Nature, other scientific journals) to get my information. That's how what I "think I know" turns into acutal knowledge.

Sorry if I don't have time to do the actual research myself and have to read my "local magazine" to get information.

And I think the actual readiness of drugs that could potentially fight a virus is pretty worthwhile.

The bill (S. 1873) -- a big congressional wet kiss to the drug industry -- is dressed up in a noble-sounding title: "Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act."
In essence, however, it would force Americans to receive inoculations against a disease that has yet to kill one of them, while removing their constitutional right to seek redress in our courts in case of injury or death from the shots because of company negligence. The proposal, now moving its way through the Senate, would also ban citizens from using the Freedom of Information Act and other popular informational laws to discover whether the new vaccine (when it is finally produced) was effective and safe, and even whether anyone had suffered adverse reactions to it.
MOUNTAIN VIEWS: FORCED INOCULATIONS BEGINNING OF BUSH'S BAD BIRD FLU PLAN

SEC. 319F-3. LIABILITY PROTECTIONS FOR PANDEMIC AND EPIDEMIC PRODUCTS AND SECURITY COUNTERMEASURES.
`(a) Authority- As provided in subsection (b), and subject to subsection (b)(1)(C), a manufacturer, distibutor, or administrator of a security countermeasure, or a qualified pandemic and epidemic product, described in subsection (b)(1)(A) or a health care provider shall be immune from suit or liability caused by or arising out of the design, development, clinical testing and investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or use of a security countermeasure, or a qualified pandemic and epidemic product, described in subsection (b)(1)(A).
S.1873
Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005 (Introduced in Senate) (Search for S 1873 or by the Acts' name)

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FYI: There hasn't been a single case of the bird flu being transmitted from human to human.

A Vietnamese doctor with experience in treating avian flu says Tamiflu, the drug being stockpiled for treatment of avian flue is useless against the virus.

Dr. Nguyen Tuong Van of the Centre for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi has treated 41 victims of H5N1, following World Health Organization guidelines and administering Tamiflu to her patients. She told the Sunday Times of London the medicine had no effect.

"We place no importance on using this drug on our patients," she said. "Tamiflu is really only meant for treating ordinary type A flu. It was not designed to combat H5N1."

The newspaper said the finding casts doubt on the British government's pandemic flu policy. The nation's top medical official, Sir Liam Donaldson, has ordered 15 million doses of Tamiflu be stockpiled.

Van said the only way to keep avian flu patients alive is to "support" all their vital organs -- including the liver and kidneys -- with modern technology like ventilators and dialysis machines, the Sunday Times reported.

The WHO has acknowledge Tamiflu had not been "widely successful in human patients," but said it believes it would have been more effective in many Asian countries if it had been used earlier in the illness.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved
Report: Tamiflu is 'useless' for avian flu

Combine this with a staged pandemic and enforced legislation and you have people innoculated with poison that have no legal remedy as to Tamiflu's ineffectiveness.

Way to go.

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