h/t Drudge

A headline running on the Drudge Report right now, says "Hungarian researchers find H5N1vaccine for humans...", which sounds great, and I guess it is, but it's not as great as you might think.

You might assume that the next concern after finding this vaccine would be the cost, but it's not. The problem is that the vaccine found is for the current H5N1 strain which is the one killing all the birds and has jumped to a handful of people. But the "pandemic" concerns are for a mutation of the virus that would be transmittable from human-to-human.

So yes this is a great development, but it's not an end all to "bird flu". I still think much of the "bird flu pandemic" is media and UN/WHO hype, but cautiously you have to prepare for all possiblities. The problem is, I don't think they could come up with a vaccine for a human-to-human mutation of the bird flu until it exists. And not being a scientist, I don't know, but I would think that finding this vaccine would bring them a few steps closer to being able to develop one for a human-to-human strain if/when one emerges.

Below is the text of the AFP article on this find:

Hungarian researchers have devised a vaccine for humans against the current form of the H5N1 bird flu virus, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany revealed.

This vaccine was developed by the Hungarian company Omnivest and has been approved by the country's pharmaceutical authorities, he told a press conference at the firm's laboratories at Bilsborosjeno, near Budapest.

Showing journalists a vial of the vaccine, Gyurcsany said it "contains six micrograms (of an active agent), enough for one person to be immunised against the H5N1 virus."

The vaccine would be used to protect people working in close proximity to diseased birds.

It is not intended, though, as a shield against a feared mutated form of the H5N1.

In its present form, H5N1 is transmissible amongst birds, and humans can catch it if they are closed to fowl which carry the virus.

But it cannot be transmitted from human to human. The fear is that the virus may acquire the genes to do these, triggering a global pandemic.

 

Despite all the reports of "bird flu" spreading this week, I'm still not sold on the potential pandemic. Maybe it's just because I feel the UN is trying to scare us with it, because I have no respect for that circus. So I may be letting my distain for the UN cloud my views of this thing, but I just am not that worried for some reason, call me crazy.

At this point, I'm much more concerned about germ and chemical warfare than some chicken disease mutating in to a human-to-human disease. Of course conspiracy theories might argue that "bird flu" was manufactured to kill millions of people, and they developed it in such a way that it wouldn't be obvious and traceable. I think that's ridiculous, although I don't totally discount those who theorize the same thing about AIDs.

Anyway, as always Drudge is running all the latest "bird flu" headlines including one about Indian begining it's mass slaughter of birds in an effort to control the spread of the disease. Don't read this PETA...

Health officials and farm workers in protective gloves and masks slaughtered thousands of chickens Sunday in western India a day after the country's first reported outbreak of deadly bird flu.

more...

Some 500,000 birds will be slaughtered within a 1.5-mile radius to check the spread of the virus in the area, more than 250 miles northeast of Bombay.

More than 50,000 chickens have been killed in Navapur since early Sunday, Ahmed told The Associated Press. Top health officials were telling the heads of 52 big poultry farms that they must begin destroying their chickens.

Read AP the article via Breitbart here

Europe seems to be (maybe rightfully) worried about the spreading disease, but I suspect at least a measure of this is media hype. Check out this Yahoo! News search on 'europe bird flu' for the latest. Too much going on to cover, and again I'm less than worried at this point so I don't feel like really devoting any time to the various angles of this story.

We found one worker in charge of slaughtering birds not wearing his mask, and when we asked him why, he simply smiled and said "Reporting For Duty!"