- Hello, Jeff - I don't see even the most basic common
sense protocols in Bush's plan. H5N1 is still an ANIMAL outbreak. It
would be most logical to monitor migratory birds, water fowl, etc. It
would also be logical to strengthen surveillance of our borders, monitoring
for exotic live bird smuggling.
-
- Importation of poultry and poultry products should be
suspended at this time to prevent importation of bird flu into the US.
Preventing the flu from entering the US is the most beneficial. Migratory
and wild bird/water fowl surveillance is essential now. We need to identify
the problem areas where bird flu might break out.
-
- Throwing billions into the pharmaceutical industry for
a vaccine that may not - and probably WON'T - work is utterly ludicrous.
The vaccine under discussion is fabricated using a 2004 Vietnamese strain
of the virus. By the time the virus hits the US, it will be changed considerably,
especially via recombination.
-
- If the strain goes pandemic, it will have added the human
genes that allow it to achieve sustained human-to-human transmission.
It's very doubtful that the existing vaccine (which is still in clinical
trials) will work. It is also of cause of concern that Bush proposes easing
restricitons on the vaccine. People who were injured by the vaccine, or
families of those killed by the vaccine, will have no legal recourse for
suing manufacturers. It is also quite possible that there will be a mandate
for vaccination.
-
- As I said, Bird Flu is an animal outbreak at this time...but
Bush's plan is not even calling for essential protocols to prevent it from
entering the US via birds or swine.
-
- I also believe there should be a moratorium on imports
of swine and swine products. Indonesia did have verified H5N1 infections
in swine. Although, China did not admit H5N1 in swine, there is evidence
that bird flu was indeed present in swine and killed both swine and humans
as a result of swine infections.
-
- Bush's plan is not lacking the billions of dollars to
be spent...but it is lacking in some very basic procedures needed to prevent
infection from entering the US...and for a timely identification of H5N1
in bird and animal populations. Bush's plan definitely will be a plus
for vaccine makers and the huge pharmaceutical industry.
-
- Patricia Doyle
-
-
- Bush Outlines $7.1 Billion Flu Pandemic Strategy
-
- Program Calls For Enough Vaccine
- To Protect 20 Million Americans
- 11-1-5
-
- WASHINGTON - President Bush
outlined a $7.1 billion strategy Tuesday to prepare for the danger of a
pandemic influenza outbreak, saying he wanted to stockpile enough vaccine
to protect 20 million Americans against the current strain of bird flu
as a first wave of protection.
-
- The president also said the United States must approve
liability protection for the makers of lifesaving vaccines. He said the
number of American vaccine manufacturers has plummeted because the industry
has been hit with a flood of lawsuits.
-
- Bush said no one knows when or where a deadly strain
of flu will strike but "at some point we are likely to face another
pandemic."
-
- The president, in a speech at the National Institutes
of Health, said the United States must be prepared to detect outbreaks
anywhere in the world, stockpile vaccines and anti-viral drugs and be ready
to respond at the federal, state and local levels in the event a pandemic
reaches the United States.
-
- Bush outlined a strategy that would cost $7.1 billion
including:
-
- $1.2 billion for the government to buy enough doses of
the vaccine against the current strain of bird flu to protect 20 million
Americans; the administration wants to have sufficient vaccine for front-line
emergency personnel and at-risk populations, including military personnel.
-
- $1 billion to stockpile more anti-viral drugs that lessen
the severity of the flu symptoms.
-
- $2.8 billion to speed the development of vaccines as
new strains emerge, a process that now takes months. The goal is to have
the manufacturing capability by 2010 to brew enough vaccine for every American
within six months, of a pandemic's start.
-
- $583 million for states and local governments to prepare
emergency plans to respond to an outbreak.
-
- Bush said a pandemic flu would be far more serious than
the seasonal flu that makes hundreds of thousands of people sick ever year
and sends people to their doctors for a flu shot. "I had mine,"
Bush said. Unlike seasonal flu, pandemic flu can kill people who are young
and healthy as well as those who are frail and sick, he said.
-
- In asking Congress for money to buy vaccine, Bush said
the vaccine "would not be a perfect match to the pandemic flu because
the pandemic strain would probably differ somewhat from the avian flu virus
it grew from. But a vaccine against the current avian flu virus would likely
offer some protection against a pandemic strain and possibly save many
lives in the first critical months of an outbreak."
-
- 'Fair Warning'
-
- He also said the United States was increasing stockpiles
of antiviral drugs, such as Tamiflu and Relenza. Such drugs cannot prevent
people from catching the flu, but they can reduce the severity of the illness
when taken within 48 hours of getting sick, he said.
-
- "At this moment there is no pandemic influenza in
the United States or the world, but if history is our guide there's reason
to be concerned," Bush said. "In the last century, our country
and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics, and viruses from
birds contributed to all of them."
-
- He pointed out that the 1918 pandemic killed over a half
million Americans and more than 20 million people across the globe. "One-third
of the U.S. population was infected, and life expectancy in our country
was reduced by 13 years.
-
- "The 1918 pandemic was followed by pandemics in
1957 and 1968, which killed tens of thousands of Americans and millions
across the world," Bush said.
-
- Bird flu has been documented in Asia and has spread to
Europe but has not reached the United States, the president said. "Our
country has been given fair warning of this danger to our homeland and
time to prepare," he said.
-
- Bush said the cornerstone of his strategy was to develop
new technologies to produce new vaccines quickly. "If a pandemic strikes,
our country must have a surge capacity in place that will allow us to bring
a new vaccine online quickly and manufacture enough to immunize every American
against the pandemic strain," Bush said.
-
- The principal goal of Bush's plan, Health and Human Services
Secretary Michael Leavitt said, "is the capacity for every American
to have a vaccine in the case of a pandemic, no matter what the virus is."
-
- "There is no reason to believe that in the next
day or two or week or month that that's going to occur," Leavitt said
on CBS's "The Early Show." But he added that "we do need
to be ready in case it begins to mutate into a human transmissible disease."
-
- Stockpiling Shots
-
- Pandemics strike when the easy-to-mutate influenza virus
shifts to a strain that people have never experienced before, something
that has happened three times in the last century. While it is impossible
to say when the next super-flu will strike, concern is growing that the
bird flu strain known as H5N1 could trigger one if it mutates to start
spreading easily among people. Since 2003, at least 62 people in Southeast
Asia have died from H5N1; most regularly handled poultry.
-
- The nation's strategy starts with attempting to spot
an outbreak abroad early and working to contain it before it reaches the
United States.
-
- Today, most of the world's vaccine against regular winter
flu, including much of that used by Americans each flu season, is manufactured
in factories in Britain and Europe.
-
- The government already has ordered $162.5 million worth
of vaccine to be made and stockpiled against the Asian bird flu, more than
half to be made in a U.S. factory.
-
- But the administration plan, to be released in more detail
on Wednesday, calls for more than stockpiling shots. It will stress a new
method of manufacturing flu vaccines " growing the virus to make them
in easy-to-handle cell cultures instead of today's cumbersome process that
uses millions of chicken eggs " as well as incentives for new U.S.-based
vaccine factories to open.
-
- © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
|
