Re: ~*Online WACOC News 2006 May 23*~

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http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/hanchette204.html
NiagaraFallsReporter.com, NY
May 16 2006


MOUNTAIN VIEWS: BIRD FLU FEAR BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION
By John Hanchette

OLEAN -- With spring comes optimism, and with optimism comes an
admission
that your faithful columnist too often looks upon the dark side of
things
and considers bad news probably true.

So, forthwith, some good news.

There it was, in The New York Times just before the weekend. Not
exactly
buried, and on the front page above the fold, but given just a single
column, nonetheless. For its previous universal treatment as a Panic in
the
Streets category story, the headline seemed a bit underplayed.

"Migrating Birds Didn't Carry Flu," it said. Unless you've been in a
coma or
a cave, you probably carried a visceral fear during the past several
months
that you and your loved ones were about to succumb to a hideous, deadly
avian flu virus. Those "in the know" claimed it was almost certain.

Fearful health workers and first responders almost certainly would stay
home
should Americans fall ill, went the predictions. That's how contagious
the
bird virus A(H5N1) was thought to be. True, the only global victims so
far -- in the low hundreds -- were mostly chicken handlers and others
who
had persistent daily contact with fowl, but it would morph into a virus
capable of human infestation soon. That was almost certain, we were
given to
understand. Oh, it would be worse than 1918, when Spanish Flu took
millions
of lives. That was the prospect, we were told.

Vaccines were being developed, but were months -- maybe years -- away
from
clinical testing. Billions in federal funds flew out the appropriation
windows here and there to purchase this unproven medicine or that, or
to
support speculative lab work. Obscure pharmaceutical firms -- and some
giants, too -- were handed truckloads of money to develop a defensive
drug.
Tamiflu, without being proved an antidote, was stockpiled in panicky
fashion
around the world. Nightly, we were treated to horror-film specters of
men in
clumsy white biohazard-response suits, plodding along in moonwalk
strides
after some hapless goose or sick chicken, wringing the necks of
supposedly
afflicted barnyard fowl and stuffing them in germ-proof bags. Here's
the way
health officials across the planet had it figured: Flocks of migratory
birds
that flew south to Africa and other tropical and sub-tropical climes
last
autumn would pick up the deadly bird virus that had originated in Asia
and
hopped to other foreign countries in 2005. The infected migratory birds
would live long enough to return north to European summer habitats in
April
and May, carrying the dreaded A(H5N1) with them. From there, it would
surely
spread -- in this age of globalization and constant high-volume air
travel -- to the United States and other bastions of "advanced hygiene"
and
normally "germ-free" environment. The transmission would be subtle, but
swift. So we were warned, constantly.

You could almost measure the effect of the warnings by watching
normally
nonchalant New Yorkers and other big-city inhabitants in America on the
tube
nightly, publicly sprouting those largely ineffective blue or white
paper-fabric face masks the Japanese wear routinely. They stop dust and
some
germs, said the officials, but probably won't stop bird flu virus.

Guess what? Didn't happen. The birds landed from their northward return
migration without such viral infection, say European scientists.
Indeed, in
thousands of samples that scientists collected in Africa over the
winter,
the bird flu virus "was not detected in a single wild bird," according
to
the Times story. This is good news and quite significant for European
health
officials, because while sickness in domestic fowl might be easily
noticed
and controlled, it is almost impossible to monitor a virus in wild
birds.

Health experts in France said the numbers of infection fell so steeply
it is
possible to conclude the northward spring migration played no role in
the
scant numbers of birds who came down with A(H5N1) in recent months -- a
single grebe in Denmark, a couple of swans in France and a lone falcon
in
Germany. These rare sick birds, the experts concluded, picked up the
avian
flu during the winter from wild birds escaping severe temperatures in
central Asia and Russia. The virus apparently never was carried in any
strength to African wild birds. In Holland, Switzerland and Austria,
new
laws that made farmers keep most domestic poultry indoors were lifted
last
week.

African countries such as Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt and Ivory Coast still
have
some domestic poultry cases of bird flu, probably contracted from
imported
poultry and poultry products. But the wildlife spread did not occur
over the
winter. Bird flu virus does not spread from human to human -- the worst
case
scenario. But scientists still warn a worldwide pandemic is possible if
A(H5N1) mutates and starts to do so. The virus can live for long
periods in
water and is fairly abundant still in central Asian lakes.

A United Nations veterinary scientist the Times found in Rome, Juan
Lubroth,
said the good news might stem from people taking the right precautions,
but
it might also be like Y2K -- a scare in which massive computer failures
were
predicted as the millennium turned -- "where also nothing happened."

Maybe, the UN vet hoped, "we will be lucky and this virus will just die
out
in the wild."

So, a breath of good news, but one not totally conclusive. One hopes
for the
best. One realizes it is better to be informed and daily afraid than
clueless and smugly vulnerable.

But the tiny devil of cynicism that constantly whispers in one's ear
makes
one hope this bird flu thing wasn't all a concoction of the greedhounds
who
run huge pharmaceutical firms -- cloaked in the altruistic garments of
public service and medical vision -- yet angle for research windfalls.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Speaking of "good" news, have you been tracking recent developments in
public corruption?

Not that burgeoning public corruption -- the kind that breaks the
government
bank and raises your taxes like a thief in the night -- is ever good
news.
But the growth of awareness and government response and increased
prosecution is.

If you read this paper's diligent tracking of the Laborers Local 91
case,
you may get the idea that the old saw about the "wheels of justice
grind
mighty slow, but they grind mighty fine" is true. And it is. But the
news is
this: Those wheels -- particularly on the federal level -- are now
grinding
so intensely and so loudly, you can almost hear the friction and smell
the
smoke.

I'm not just talking about uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff (already
sentenced to
eight years in Florida and squealing his guts out in Washington), or
about
California congressman Randy Cunningham, who took bribes from military
contractors to throw them lucrative projects, or the racketeering and
fraud
conviction of the former governor of Illinois, or the unmasking of
hanky-panky as usual in Chicago city government. What I'm pointing out
to
you can best be illustrated by some numbers that may surprise. These
numbers
may sadden and enrage you, but the fact they exist provides hope.

FBI public corruption investigations now underway: 2,000-plus.

Government officials on all levels (federal, state, local, police)
convicted
of corruption in last two years: 1,060. Increase in public corruption
convictions from 2004 to 2005: A rise of 27 percent.

After the 9/11 attacks, FBI officials drew broad coverage by
transferring
hundreds of agents from coverage of drug trafficking and violent crime
to
counter-terrorism, but less ink for moving more than 200 agents to
public
corruption probes in the bureau's 56 field offices. The corruption
investigators were surprised it was so widespread. And there's a new
twist.

Previously, federal crime officials -- not all, but many -- were
nervous
about picking up cases first developed by reporters, both print and TV.
Now,
the feds are turning regularly to news outlets across the country and
bringing in cases from scandals and wrongdoing first publicized in the
media. It's a welcome development.

It is never good news that our elected and appointed leaders and
protectors
are consistently robbing the public till, cheating the taxpayers,
lining
their pockets and serving their own interests first.

But taking notice of their trips to the slammer is.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
John Hanchette, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure
University, is
a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning
national
correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today and was recently
named
by Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of the past 25 years. He can
be
contacted via e-mail at Hanchette6@xxxxxxxx
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com



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