Unqualified GOP crony opines on bird flu after "fact-finding" trip to Asia

[barbaraann]

Official: Preventing Pandemic Impossible
By MARGIE MASON, AP Medical Writer 1 hour, 18 minutes ago

HAIPHONG, Vietnam - After wandering amid cages of birds and rabbits at an open-air market in Hanoi, after watching the gutting of a freshly slaughtered chicken, and after visiting a Haiphong family sickened by bird flu, the United States' top health official came to a grim conclusion: Preventing the start of a global flu outbreak is just about impossible.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt was wrapping up a fact-finding mission Saturday in the region hardest-hit by bird flu. He said his tour of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam has painted a clearer picture of just how daunting it would be to identify and contain an outbreak if the virus mutates to a form easily spread among people. It could skip across borders and oceans, killing millions and crippling entire nations.

"Can we create a network of surveillance sufficient enough to find the spark when it happens, to get there fast enough?" he said. "The chances of that happening are not good."
...
Manufacturing of a new vaccine has just started, and Leavitt said the United States may help finance some of the $100 million production burden.
...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/bird_flu_us

So, this man, who has a Bachelor's Degree in BUSINSESS AND ECONOMICS, needed to take a grand tour of SE Asia to "study" the implications of a bird flu pandemic. HE, not scientists with Ph.D.s in medicine or biology or qualified health officials, needed to TRAVEL AT GOVERNMENT EXPENSE, probably with his family, to some very interesting TOURIST areas of SE Asia to see for himself how the bird flu might spread and be combatted.

Excuse me, but couldn't he have just read reports from QUALIFIED PEOPLE and looked at PICTURES FROM SE ASIA to understand what cost the taxpayers a lot of money for him to see personally?

And why do we taxpayers have to help the highly profitable drugs companies with the "$100 million production burden?"

There are many things in this article that worry me sick. :-(

Mike Leavitt's bio:
http://www.hhs.gov/about/bios/dhhssec.html

[Maraya1969]

1. Yea and one big question about this "bird flu" Are they trying

to tell us that a virus can survive 370 degree heat for 45 minutes?

I think this is just another $$$ making venture.

[Fridays Child]

2. It doesn't take a scientist to terrorize Americans, just a Bushbot.

And I would imagine that Leavitt is eminently qualified, on that score.