PTSD

Wow. Who approved this?

I was all set to rant about the possibility of martial law in the case of public health emergencies.

This is so much more disturbing.

When in doubt, it's always best to recreate a previous pandemic flu strain. And hey, why not do it with a strain that killed millions (current estimates: 20-100 million worldwide) of people in 1918-19?

PROS:

1. Having the live virus on hand makes it easier to study.

2. Study of influenza A H1N1 (yes, that's right, this is where they started the numbering. Does that tell us something?) could help with H5N1 (the one President Bush wants to call out the military for).

3. We'll be very, very careful with it.

4. We may have some immunity left over from the first time this made its way around the world. Twice.

CONS:

1. The live virus can, you know, kill people. If past experience is any indication, lots of people. How badly do we need to study it?

2. If we're worried about working with H5N1, why isn't the 1918 virus also a little worrying? After all, our advances in bacteriology won't actually help us to prevent the deaths of young people that characterized the 1918 flu.

3. Less than a year ago, someone accidentally shipped a pandemic strain around the world as part of a test kit. With no special precautions beyond those taken for regular old influenza. That's how good our security is.

4. Immunity doesn't usually work that way. Anyone alive in the first pandemic would be at least 93 years old. So I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that herd immunity isn't going to do it. Exactly how immune do they think we are? Does anyone know, or is this the sort of thing that's said so that no one panics?

I was planning to re-sign the lease on our apartment. But guess where this fabulous experimentation is taking place? Go on, guess.

Rockville, Maryland. Just up the road.

hip. hip. hooray.

Yes, there is a more measured response to this news. But I've spent the summer researching the effects of the 1918-19 pandemic, and I prefer to engage in the blog equivalent of jumping up and down while screaming obscenities. I'm not convinced that this particular action meets the Learned Hand test. Or any test of "is this a good idea?"

ETA: The NYT does a better job with the discussion. And the article is by Gina Kolata, who at least knows the background well.

posted by Elizabeth @ 6:13 PM