Yesterday, I started seeing the first articles saying that the bird flu may not turn into the global pandemic that was once thought. According to this CNN article, the US CDC is now stating that the change from the bird flu virus to a human-bird flu virus may not be that easy.
"We were not able to see efficient transmission from an infected animal to a healthy animal, " according to Dr. Jacqueline Katz, one of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers working on the ferret experiments.Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not minimizing the 134 worldwide deaths confirmed by the World Health Organization -- most of them in Indonesia and Vietnam.
But, is the tide turning on how worried the press is about this? Remember Y2K? This was supposed to have a worldwide effect that literally crippled the planet Earth. Did it happen? I don't think so. It can certainly be debated why. Maybe the world was prepared for it? Or, maybe it was just hype to scare everybody.
Is that what's happening now with this bird flu thing? Worldwide, there are literally millions and millions of dollars being spent for planning for a pandemic flu that may never happen. I'm definitely all for prevention whenever and wherever possible, but did a worldwide media fire storm put us down this path before the real facts were known?