Spain down plays Bird flu.

www.breitbart.com...

Spanish agi minsiter Mrs Espinosa calls a epidemic "science Fiction"

Link is to story. She down plays the idea of a epidemic, however at the end of the article it mentions that Spain stocks up on some anti-virul drugs.

I am curious is this just a anti panic stance by spain.

While I am not overly worried as of yet I do respect the fact that this bird flu could get nasty..If I was in a postion of power I am not sure I would be taking such a hard stance with this.

Does any one else agree with her ??

Coho

Either the Agriculture minister knows something or else its nice to see that other countries has morons in office as well.

Right now, its not a question of if H5N1 moves around the globe. We cannot stop the flight of birds. It also will take a lot more than putting some anti virals in storage somewhere either.

If it mutates into a variant that makes h2h transmission then we have issues

It's nice to hear some common sense from a government for once.

[edit on 19-10-2005 by TPL]

What most people are failing to acknowledge here is that IF H5N1 infects a human that is already infected with another flu virus, the 2 viruses could exchange DNA and mutate into a new, otherwise unknown form of virus that retains the brutal infection characteristics of the H5N1 strain BUT is easily transmitted from human to human. That is basically what happened with the 1918 flu virus pandemic. Given the certaintly that H5N1 will eventually become global, and given the nature of the relationship between birds and mankind there evolves a near certainty that H5N1 will encounter other viruses under the right conditions for this mutation to take place. In my opinion, this is not an IF scenario as much as it is a WHEN scenario and under what circumstances.

The chances of it happeing are relatively small, and if it does we may even get lucky and the virus lose some of its potentcy in the process.

TPL I truly hope you are right. However I still find it a little troublesome that this one single person is going to make such a statement..I guess my point was, what does she stand to gain.?

With other countrys taking into consideration huge steps to protect thier countrys populations, it just seems counter productive to have the Spanish Agi Minister making statements like this on a international level.

I will again state that I am not overly conserned as of yet. But I dont find my self going around, even on a local level, telling folks to not worry about it..This is just science fiction.

Coho