ABC Causes Panic

I love it when people play off of a hysteria-causing phenomena to sell their wares. Or, in this case, to get people to watch their TV shows...

For about a year now, there's been talk of the "bird flu," or avian influenza, that has been running rampant among birds. There is a particularly deadly strain spreading amongst birds as we speak, one of the kind of strains that has caused pandemics in the past. Fairly scary shit, but let's get some things straight.

Influenza is a virus. It is found in birds and other mammals. (And yes, there is probably some influenza virus inside you right now.) The thing with viruses, though, is that they tend to be specific to a particular species (for example, mammals can get influenza, but not fish or lizards). The influenza that is killing millions of birds is relatively harmless to humans. In order for it to become harmful, the virus would have to mutate into something that would infect humans. Right now, it's just harmful to birds. It may never be harmful to humans.

Still, this didn't stop ABC from making Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America, an Outbreak-esque thriller about the "worst case" scenario of bird flu becoming harmful to humans. I'm not sure, but this was probably sponsored by some drug company who makes an influenza vaccine. No need to worry, though; you got your flu shot...

Here's the thing about that: Vaccines are derived from existing strains of a virus. In order for there to be a viable vaccine, it must come from an existing virus. Let's go another direction and look at smallpox, a virus that was extremely fatal to humans. Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine in the 1700's. (It's somewhat ironic that the vaccine for smallpox is cowpox, a virus that is fatal to some humans.) Due to this vaccine and, well, death, smallpox ceased to exist in the wild by 1980. That particular form of smallpox no longer exists. But, let's say another strain of smallpox came to exist. (It's suspected that smallpox may have mutated from a strain of monkeypox. Yes, monkeypox.) You're safe because you got the smallpox inoculation, right? If by "safe," you mean "dead," you'd be correct. Ya see, all of our existing doses of smallpox vaccine are for a disease that doesn't exist anymore. If it turns up in another form, that vaccine would do about as much to that smallpox as Robitussin does to cancer: a whole lotta nothin'.

Same deal with bird flu. That flu shot you got at Wal-Mart last summer was derived from whatever flu strain was going around at the time. If this strain of bird flu mutates into something that affects humans, they got nothin' for ya. Well, that is, until a couple of thousand people die and they can cobble together a vaccine from their corpses. Otherwise, you're perfectly safe.

But, all of this hysteria revolves around that fact that bird flu has to mutate into something that will affect humans, something that might never happen. Chances are you'll catch mad-cow or chronic wasting disease (two more diseases that have never been linked to human death, yet cause panic) before you get bird flu. I know I'm not holding my breath. Or maybe I should...?