One Flu Over the Chicken's Nest:
The Media's Bird-Brained Reaction to the "Avian Flu"

By Michael Fumento

Copyright 1998 Michael Fumento

There's good news about the so-called Hong Kong "avian flu." It won't turn you into a bird. Actually, there's lots of good news. Alas, once again the urge to sensationalize health news has made the media feverish.

"Race to Prevent World Epidemic of Lethal 'Bird Flu,'" and "Hong Kong 'Bird Flu' Could be the Next Big Outbreak," blare the headlines. Former Washington Post reporter and author of a book on viruses, Robin Marantz Henig, penned an essay called "Danger in the Air: Why Hong Kong's 'Bird Flu' Signals a Serious Threat," chock full of scary "what-ifs."

Meanwhile, "What is frightening about this flu strain is that it is unlike any that has infected people before," NBC News tells us. We repeatedly hear of this new "deadly flu," or "killer flu," or to cite one headline: "Mutant Killer Virus."

Now, for a reality vaccination.

All influenzas are "mutant killer viruses." Flu always mutates at least slightly each year. That's why you need a flu shot each year, because the antibodies that you got from the last one (or the bout of flu you caught last year) will no longer afford you full protection from the new strain.

A flu that didn't kill would never be noticed. It would just be one of zillions of viruses we carry around that do us little or no harm. Each year on average, about 20,000 Americans die of flu.

Finally flu, of course, is always a virus.

"I fly; you get flu."

Further, since the vast majority of these animals are from China, which now includes Hong Kong, even calling this the "Hong Kong avian (or bird) flu" is meaningless.

So what should we be concerned about with this or any other new flu strain?

Essentially, there are three factors about a new strain that bear consideration. First, how dramatically different is it from previous strains? Second, how contagious does it appear to be? Third, how severe does it appear to be?

The first factor is the only one of real concern [with the virus at hand]. As noted, each year flu alters itself at least slightly. If it is just slight, the exposure we got from previous strains either through shots or the disease itself will probably afford some of protection. We won't get as sick as we otherwise might. If we're lucky, we won't get sick at all even though we've been exposed.

These slight changes in the virus are called "drifts."

But every so often (three times this century), the virus has mutated so drastically that it's called a "shift." When this happens, you have no antibody protection at all. For your immune system, it's a whole new ball game. Chances are you will get sicker than you would otherwise. The sick and elderly will have a greater chance of death.

The last such shift that became an epidemic was the Hong Kong flu of 1968-1969, in which 34,000 Americans died instead of the usual 20,000 or so.

This new flu has been verified to be a bonafide shift. But that's been the only major cause for worry.

Consider factor two. There is no evidence that this strain is highly contagious. Indeed, many of the researchers studying it believe they have yet to see it be transmitted from person-to-person at all, though in one case a health care worker with extensive contact with a victim later developed antibodies to the virus.

Nobody known to have contracted it has passed it to a family member. [Further], remember, Hong Kong is one of the most crowded places on earth. "The efficiency of transmission from human-to human should not be high or there should be hundreds of thousands of such cases in the territory by now," noted Hong Kong's health director. Since few Americans come into contact with living Chinese fowl, this is quite good news for us.

Finally, there is the issue of deadliness. Repeatedly we see invoked the deadliest flu epidemic in history, the so-called "Spanish Influenza" that killed over 20 million people world-wide and half a million Americans in 1918-1919. Horrible stuff, not to mention a slur on Spain since the first recorded cases were in the United States.

But the yellow journalists appear to be out of luck this time. So far, the new flu's deadliness appears to be about average, with six deaths to date out of 18 confirmed cases, 3 suspected cases, and probably a large number of cases too mild to even come to the attention of medical authorities.

Flu virus (mock up)

Finally, there was no flu vaccine back then. True, this strain could catch us off guard next flu season (in even the worst case it's too late to do much damage this flu season). But then it would be a matter of quickly making batches and allocating the first ones to the elderly and sick.

The mere fact that this is a "shifted" virus strain justifies our having sent our top researchers to Hong Kong to study it and even make emergency contingency plans. That's exactly what we've done. But exaggerating the risks of a deadly flu pandemic and failing to point out that medical science has advanced tremendously since 1968 – much less since 1918 can do little more than cause an hysteria pandemic.

Read Michael Fumento's additional work on the flu and other diseases and on the media. Michael Fumento is author of numerous books, including The Fat of the Land: The Obesity Epidemic and How Overweight Americans Can Help Themselves (Viking, 1997).