Not just for the birds

FLU SEASON BEGAN EARLY THIS YEAR, at least in the media. In part this is because a major study was released last week showing disturbing similarities between the strain of flu that caused a deadly pandemic in 1918 and the avian flu virus now affecting parts of Asia. And in part it’s because a meeting of international experts to discuss avian flu started Thursday in Washington. Mostly, though, it’s because of President Bush’s summer reading list.

When Bush reads a book, it can change the world. After reading “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” for example, which describes author Kang Chol Hwan’s 10-year ordeal in a North Korean slave labor camp, Bush took a tougher line against North Korea. In August, Bush took John Barry’s book on the 1918 flu pandemic, “The Great Influenza,” with him on his five-week vacation in Crawford, Texas.

Since then, Bush has gotten religion on the flu. He has raised the issue of an avian flu pandemic with the presidents of China and Russia and the prime minister of Thailand. At a news conference Tuesday, he cited Barry’s book while calling on Congress to change the law on military intervention in the United States so that active-duty troops could enforce a quarantine in case of a major flu outbreak.

His administration also is about to release a comprehensive plan for responding to a pandemic, including development and stockpiling of vaccines, public education campaigns and changes in hospital procedures. The Senate recently approved a measure calling for $3.9 billion to pay for flu preparedness. Congressional Democrats, apparently afraid the Republicans will trump them on the disaster-preparedness front, are suddenly rushing out other proposals on protecting Americans from the flu.

All this preparation and proposed funding may seem overblown given that avian flu has killed only about 60 people since 1997. But the threat is real. The death toll has been low because the avian flu virus isn’t yet efficient at human-to-human transmission. Flu viruses mutate constantly, however, and flu pandemics are kind of like earthquakes in California -- we may not get one tomorrow, but you can be sure there’s one on the horizon. Even if the H5N1 strain of avian flu now affecting Asia doesn’t become a problem, another unrelated but deadly strain of flu is all but inevitable.

Pandemics are thought to emerge about three times a century; by that measure, we’re about due for another, the last one having hit in 1968. The 1918 virus, the deadliest on record, killed as many as 50 million people around the world and 675,000 in the United States. A flu pandemic could kill many times more people than a terrorist attack, making government preparedness a necessity -- and the U.S. is not well-prepared. So it’s a good thing Bush brought Barry’s book to his ranch. Maybe somebody can get the president a book on global warming for his next vacation.