Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching

BIRD FLU: A VIRUS OF OUR OWN HATCHING opens not with H5N1, the modern day "bird flu virus" which has the potential to mutate into the deadliest pandemic that the world has ever seen, but with H1N1, the influenza virus responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic. In just two short years, an estimated 50 to 100 million people perished as World War I raged on. As described by author Michael Greger, MD, in chilling detail: "What started for millions around the globe as muscle aches and a fever ended days later with many victims bleeding from their nostrils, ears, and eye sockets. Some bled inside their eyes; some bled around them. They vomited blood and coughed it up. Purple blood blisters appeared on their skin. [...] [The Chief of the Medical Services, Major Walter V. Brem] wrote that `often blood was seen to gush from a patient's nose and mouth.' In some cases, blood reportedly spurted with such force as to squirt several feet. `When pneumonia appeared,' Major Brem recounted, `the patients often spat quantities of almost pure blood.' They were bleeding into their lungs." Yet, H1N1 had a "low" (relatively speaking) mortality rate of 2.5% to 5%. Compare that to H5N1, which thus far has killed 55% of those infected - and one must wonder why the possibility of bird flu pandemic is confined to occasional media reports that are quickly dwarfed by the latest Hollywood gossip. Is bird flu-inspired panic just another example of media sensationalism? Not so, argues Greger. From 1918 he transitions seamlessly to the research laboratories of today. Greger, who is Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States and "an internationally recognized lecturer on public health issues", launches into Viral Biology 101, explaining in layman's terms how a virus reproduces, spreads, mutates, and interacts with its host. Though he's dealing with (arguably) dry subject matter, Greger manages to keep the discussion engaging via the liberal use of colorful analogies and sharp, witty prose. This isn't your high school bio textbook. Once a basic understanding of viruses has been established, Dr. Greger addresses modern animal agriculture, specifically, how it's especially conducive to the transmission and evolution of avian influenza. Animals, particularly "broiler" (meat) and "laying" (egg) hens, are packed into windowless sheds by the thousands; by the time they're fully grown just 45 days later (in the case of broiler hens), they don't even have enough space to spread their wings or turn around. Chickens are selectively bred for fast growth or maximum egg production - much to the detriment of their immune systems. Rather than improve the birds' ability to stave off disease (which would come at the expense of their "energy efficiency"), large-scale corporate "factory farmers" opt to pump their livestock full of antibiotics, thus contributing to bacterial resistance in humans. Add to this mix the fact that chickens lit

H5N1. Pandemic or fizzle? Will this version of Avian Flu be a killer as bad as the great Pandemic Flu of 1918 (also an avian flu)? Or worse? Or a fizzle like Swine Flu in President Gerald Ford's administration? If it is akin to the first two choices, Americans will be faced with one of the worst health threats in its history. Michael Greger's book, "Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching," explores H5N1 (the current strain of the virus that has generated so much concern)--from its origins, to its transmission, to its potential lethality, to how we might work to minimize the death and destruction that a pandemic might cause. He begins by discussing the 1918 pandemic (sometimes referred to as Spanish Flu), from its origins as a relatively mild flu bug to its emergence as a mass killer. This serves as a starting point for considering H5N1. It also allows him to discuss the origins of a number of major diseases. One thing to note: influenza in its various forms began as a bird flu. A couple basic statistics to orient one. The 1918 pandemic killed about 5% of those exposed to the virus (in an interesting tidbit, Greger notes that we have rediscovered the 1918 virus and, through modern genetic technology, have supplies of it in labs. It is also sobering to note that when the rediscovered 1918 bug was injected into mice, most were dead in a short period of time. So we have a very lethal strain from 1918 to study). Thus far, of the 200+ known victims of H5N1, almost 50% have died. If the H5N1 strain does not lose its killing power (and it may, since some lethal strains become less lethal with time), this suggests a destructive potential that is almost unimaginable. And, if the author is correct, humans have done this to themselves. Mass chicken farms are havens for the rapid spread of H5N1. Also, the virus has been shown to infect pigs. This is bad news, since pigs can also be infected by human viruses. If bird flu and a human virus interact, pigs might provide the breeding ground for a lethal strain of H5N1 that can be easily transmitted from pigs to people and then from person to person. One plus at the present is that H5N1 does not pass from one human to another easily. What to do about the threat? First, address how chickens and other commercial birds are raised. The vast farms where they are now raised are seedbeds of mass infection by H5N1. Prevention of the emergence of a virulent virus that can be transmitted from human to human is a priority for the author. He says (page 347): "To reduce the emergence of viruses like H5N1, humanity must shift toward raising poultry in smaller flocks, under less stressful, less crowded, and more hygienic conditions, with outdoor access, no use of human antivirals. . . ." Next, work hard to develop vaccines against the virus. This may be difficult, given that we are not sure of what form the virus will take and the slowness of development of a new vaccine. Third, try to develop larger

Much of what is said in this book could be blown off as hype if you are one who trusts mainstream news sources. Dr Greger must be aware of this, as he cites every single source that his information comes from with painstaking detail. The final 1/3 of this book contains all of the references, mainly from scientists and government who probably have some idea of what they are talking about. Ominously, I received a guide from the government on how to prepare for a flu pandemic as I read this book. The implications of what could happen to our civilization should the bird flu virus mutate from poultry to humans and then from human to human is quite frightening. Dr Greger shows in this book how that is not only possible but even likely due to the way modern agriculture keeps birds in intensively overcrowded conditions where viruses are free to mutate and become more effective at spreading. As a spiritual person I believe that the way we have turned food animals into genetically modified Frankenstein creatures who live lives of intense confinement, torture and abuse is asking for karmic retribution. Dr Greger perhaps does not share this belief, but he lays the facts and science of pandemics out in a way that is hard for even the most scientifically-minded atheist to refute. We are on the brink of a apocalyptic catastrophe and what is being done to avert it is next to nothing. I hope this book will wake some people up and maybe we can rethink our values in time to save ourselves from disaster.

Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching by Michael Greger, MD is one of the best-researched and documented books on the coming pandemic published to date. It is clearly written and in a form that is accessible for the non-scientist. Dr. Gieger has the admirable ability to make the complex medical and scientific minutiae understandable. This text provides the reader with an excellent background on the current situation and how we arrived here. The descriptions of the 1918 pandemic in this text and the parallels between that devastating virus and the H5N1 virus currently circulating worldwide are particularly disturbing. This book is a must read for those wanting to get a grasp of the risk we face from the coming pandemic. It is well written and highly informative. I recommend it to anyone interested in becoming better informed about this threat to humankind. Grattan Woodson, MD, FACP Author of The Bird Flu Preparedness Planner and The Bird Flu Manual

Dr. Greger succeeds where virtually everyone else misses the mark on avian influenza and the coming pandemic -- bringing together the historical, medical, ecological, agricultural, viral, and economic factors that have contributed to the "hatching" of this new disease threat. The human choices and decisions that are evident at every turn in the history of H5N1 call to mind the Titanic: 1500 people drowned not solely because the ship hit an iceberg, but because of decisions about the design of the decks and the underwater compartments, reflecting priorities that had consequences for people's lives. The iceberg exposed those decisions for historic reflection. Blaming disasters on "nature" gets us off the hook every time. The same attitude prevails in the official rhetoric about avian viruses and the pandemic that lies "dead ahead." Virtually all of the official emergency preparedness materials and health department websites echo the mantra that because influenza viruses are natural (true), therefore H5N1 is natural(not entirely) and consequently, this particular pandemic is also "natural" (not so). With eloquence and precision, Dr. Greger pulls apart and then weaves together the mix of natural and manmade threads that comprise the H5N1 tapestry. Citing data from hundreds of scientific and lay sources within multiple disciplines, he overcomes the compartmentalization that characterizes almost all other approaches to analyzing the origins and characteristics of the virus itself, without diluting the rigor of scientific analysis. Dr Greger examines the totality of variables that engender and accelerate ongoing genetic mutations within H5N1. He takes us step by step through the process whereby a harmless waterborne duck virus has become a deadly airborne chicken killer that now threatens all of humanity. The result is to allow us finally to understand why we are staring down the barrel of this pandemic gun and that we ourselves (well, some of us....) designed and loaded it. It is time to abandon the fiction that the emergence of such an unprecedented disease threat to humanity is entirely a "natural" phenomenon just doing its evolutionary "thing." One can only hope that this book will finally enable us to stop talking about the inevitable pandemic as if it has nothing to do with the drastic changes in food production methods worldwide over the last 15-20 years. The book is brilliantly organized, meticulously documented, and provides absolutely essential background and depth for anyone who wants to know more than the superficial rhetoric currently available to the public. The scientific community would be well advised to read this book, as well, in order to acquire a more interdisciplinary and contextual perspective appropriate for the era of globalization. Although "Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching" is harrowing in its implications, it is nonetheless hopeful. As Dr. Greger points out, only when we grasp the extent to wh