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| 5/23 |
| 2005/10/5-6 [Health/Disease/General] UID:39988 Activity:nil |
10/5 A failed-regime approval rating, and now he wants to use the military
to enforce an avian-flu quarantine:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/05/bush.reax
Can you say "Junta"?
\_ dude, this is not about avian flu. This is about rather we should
repeal 100 yr old ban and allow military to enforce civilian law!!
\_ If you were President and the flu hit this country in a big way with
the possibility of millions of citizens dying, what would your
policy be regarding quarantine and how would you enforce it?
\_ We've got this institution called the National Guard that is
supposed to be used for just this purpose. Too bad the current
administration has destroyed it's effectivity by using to fight
wars they got into with insufficent forces and now noone in
their right mind is willing to join.
\_ So instead of government controlled military we'll instead use
government controlled military?
\_ I'm a liberal, so I'm for limited, local government.
\_ I'm a human being, so I'm for getting rid of diseases.
\_ right, like the diseases of homosexuality, atheism, etc.
\_ Given the amount of warning(years) we've had about the avian flu,
I would never have allowed my country to be unprepared. With US
resources, I would've devoted time and energy into vaccine
research, manufacture and distribution.
\_ Yes, I'm sure our caring government will do just that by
leaving this monumental task to our almighty corporations.
\_ The sad fact is that it's entirely possible that no amount
of vaccine research/manufacture/distribution is likely to
be of any value. See, the pandemic will start soon after
the flu *mutates*, and so most likely any vaccine made
for pre-mutant flu strains will simply not work. --PM
\_ why is that necessarily so? If the two strains
share features, and the vaccine induced immune
response targets those features, it would still
work.
\_ or it may not in which case you've wasted tons of
cash and researcher time on a useless vaccine.
\_ compared to the cost of a serious pandemic,
the cost is minimal. research stage vaccines
already exist. one big question is how they
can be quickly produced (see crxl below).
\_ Get a better customs inspection policy in place or have the
heads of those responsible for said policy.
\_ Because customs can prevent people with the flu from crossing
\_ Because customs can prevent people with the fly from crossing
boarders?
\_ Reminds me of the movie "Outbreak".
\_ In a proper junta, the military leader would have significant pull.
I doubt Rummy would threaten to overrule either Bush or Cheney and
he has NO personal loyalty from the troops.
\_ Yep. A slow response to Katrina means Bush dropped the ball. A
planned fast response to a pandemic is a junta. You're quite a
piece of work.
\_ If he planned to execute anyone who contracted avian flu, that
would be a fast response, too, and I'd still condemn it. Try out
these new glasses; they let you see more than just black and
white.
\_ I missed the part where "fast = Hitler". Nice try though.
What do you think should be done if there were an Avian Flu
pandemic?
\_ Step one, do your best to _prevent_ an Avian Flu pandemic.
You never heard that an ounce of prevention beats an
ounce of cure?
\_ Uhm, it currently exists in other countries where they
have already killed millions of birds in an attempt to
contain it which has failed. Ok, now what? What
exactly would you do as President besides stand on TV
and say "My fellow Americans, we should prevent the
Avian Flu Pandemic because an ounce of prevention beats
an ounce of cure!" Maybe that'll work. People love
that down-home stuff.
\_ Human infections have been limited to Thailand,
Cambodia, and Vietnam, not countries well-known
for hygiene protocols involving poultry. Prevention
by means of strict hygiene conditions, enforced
surveillance of poultry for disease conditions,
Mad-Cow-Disease level population destruction of
infected animals, and strict inspections of imported
live and dead birds could very well nip this in the
bud. Before you start announcing plans for martial
law, you owe it to your citizenry to explore non-
military options.
\_ All good. However, it isn't guaranteed to stop
the flu. Like so: poultry farmer in one of three
countries gets mutated version of flu. Farmer
goes to market and infects a few dozen others
who each travel, infecting others, etc. Ok, now
we have a pandemic. What now? You can't force
these other countries to follow your standards.
Frankly, we can barely get our own farmers to
follow our own food standards. Even if we could
control the world as you'd like, a flu can still
spread from animail->human->pandemic despite the
best efforts to contain it at the source.
\_ Ask the President to invest your tax dollars in Crucell (crxl).
They will make large volume vaccine production quick and easy.
(Disclosure: It will also make me richer (crxl holder since 3.67))
(Disclosue: It will also make me richer (crxl holder since 3.67)) |
| 5/23 |
|
| edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/05/bush.reax -> edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/05/bush.reax/ WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A call by President George W Bush for Congress to gi ve him the power to use the military in law enforcement roles in the eve nt of a bird flu pandemic has been criticized as akin to introducing mar tial law. Bush said aggressive action would be needed to prevent a potentially disa strous US outbreak of the disease that is sweeping through Asian poult ry and which experts fear could mutate to pass between humans. Such a deadly event would raise difficult questions, such as how a quaran tine might be enforced, the president said. "I'm concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the United States and the world," he told reporters during a Rose Garden news conf erence on Tuesday. "One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move," he sa id. I think it's an important deba te for Congress to have." The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bans the military from participating in p olice-type activity on US soil. Irwin Redlener, associate dean of Columbia University's Mailman S chool of Public Health and director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness, told The Associated Press the president's suggestion was d angerous. Giving the military a law enforcement role would be an "extraordinarily D raconian measure" that would be unnecessary if the nation had built the capability for rapid vaccine production, ensured a large supply of anti- virals like Tamiflu and not allowed the degradation of the public health system. "The translation of this is martial law in the United States," Redlener s aid. And Gene Healy, a senior editor at the conservative Cato Institute, said Bush would risk undermining "a fundamental principle of American law" by tinkering with the act, which does not hinder the military's ability to respond to a crisis. "What it does is set a high bar for the use of federal troops in a polici ng role," he wrote in a commentary on the group's Web site. "That reflec ts America's traditional distrust of using standing armies to enforce or der at home, a distrust that's well-justified." Healy said soldiers are not trained as police officers, and putting them in a civilian law enforcement role "can result in serious collateral dam age to American life and liberty." The disease has killed tens of millions of birds in Asia. Last week, the UN's health agency, the World Health Organization, sough t to ease fears that the disease could kill as many as 150 million peopl e worldwide. "We're not going to know how lethal the next pandemic is going to be unti l the pandemic begins," WHO influenza spokesman Dick Thompson said, acco rding to The Associated Press. The consequences of an outbreak in the United States need to be addressed before catastrophe strikes, Bush said. The president said he saw things differently than he did as governor of T exas. "I didn't want the president telling me how to be the commander in chief of the Texas Guard," he said. "But Congress needs to take a look at circumstances that may need to vest the capacity of the president to move beyond that debate. And one such catastrophe or one such challenge could be an avian flu outbreak." Should avian flu mutate and gain the ability to spread easily from human to human, world leaders and scientists would need rapid access to accura te information to be able to stem its spread, he said. "We need to know, on a real-time basis, the facts, so the world's scienti fic community could analyze the facts," he said. Bush said he had spoken to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Instit ute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about work towards a vaccine, bu t that means of prevention remained a distant hope. "I'm not predicting an out break, but just suggesting to you we ought to be thinking about it, and we are." Absent an effective vaccine, public health officials likely would try to stem the disease's spread by isolating people who had been exposed to it . "I think the president ought to have all options on the table," Bush said , then corrected himself, "all assets on the table -- to be able to deal with something this significant." Katrina lessons Bush began discussing the possibility of changing the law banning the mil itary from participating in police-type activity last month, in the afte rmath of the government's sluggish response to civil unrest following Hu rricane Katrina. "I want there to be a robust discussion about the best way for the federa l government, in certain extreme circumstances, to be able to rally asse ts for the good of the people," he told reporters September 26. Last month, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush "wants to mak e sure that we learn the lessons from Hurricane Katrina," including the use of the military in "a severe, catastrophic-type event." "The Department of Defense would assume the responsibility for the situat ion, and come in with an overwhelming amount of resources and assets, to help stabilize the situation," McClellan said. The World Health Organization has reported 116 cases of avian flu in huma ns, all of them in Asia. On Thursday, the Senate added $4 billion to a Pentagon spending bill to h ead off the threat of an outbreak of avian flu among humans. The bulk of the money -- $3 billion -- would be used to stockpile Tamiflu, an antiv iral drug that has proved effective against the H5N1 virus -- the strain blamed for six deaths in Indonesia last week. US health agencies have about 2 million doses of Tamiflu, enough to tre at about 1 percent of the population. The money added by the Senate woul d build that stockpile to cover about 50 percent of the population. This material may not be publishe d, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. |