I'm not panicing by any means, but bird flu is something to be concerned about.
The last major flu pandemic was "Spanish Flu" in 1918, 20 - 40 million people died worldwide.
The concern about bird flu is if it mutates enough to start spreading from birds to humans ( which it has somewhat ) and then spreading from humans to other humans, we will have another pandemic.
The human mortality rate of bird flu is over 75 percent at this time.
I don't want to be called an alarmist, but if bird flu starts transmitting from person to person, we could have another pandemic.
This doesn't have anything to do with how well you cook your chicken or turkey before you eat it.
Oh and back on topic, I believe the Earth goes thru climate cycles that we don't really understand, human industrial progress may be having an effect, but I don't think we understand what it is right now either.
I heard an interesting story about an author that did a book on one of the Children's Blizzard of 1888 that killed 500 people in one weekend.
The author talked about the mini ice age that effected the northern great plains in the late 1800s, it was very interesting to hear about this, I had no idea that any of this had occurred.
So weather cycles continue with out us really knowing why at this point, I also recall the harsher winters of the late 70's and early 80's. We got enough snow around Kansas City, Missouri those years to make snow forts and build tunnels in the snow...lately we get a few inches a year at most.
Children's Blizzard book on Border's website
Anyhow, my 2 cents.
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