Avian Flu - Are we prepared?

I have always felt that a good representative made efforts to avoid disasters instead of merely reacting after each one. The Titanic could have used someone telling the Captain to slow down in iceberg country.

Today we face the possibility, along with terrorism and high gas prices, of something worse than either 9 11 or paying $3 a gallon for gas --a new flu virus from Asia that could be a worldwide Pandemic. The last one in 1918 killed millions. Much more should be done nationally and internationally to minimize the potential destructive power of this invisible killer.

My concern is that our rep is so focused on his own legal troubles (as one should must when charged with a felony) that he is less able to pay attention to, or deal with, these critical issues before they become critical.

We all know what happened after the side of the Titanic was gashed one watertight compartment too many. Ironically, the ship would have survived had the crew turned it TOWARDS the iceberg instead of away (so the berg merely sliced the side like a long, fatal knife cut). A front end collision would have damaged fewer compartments, and the damaged Titanic would have remained floating, instead of floundering.

We need to tackle this virus head on.

We don't need to flounder in a global world of events when something is happening 12,000 miles away which can forever change our tomorrows in a negative way. We do not have a vaccine or the international controls necessary to avoid this biological creature potentially more dangerous then Al Qaeda.