A reason to be concerned about bird flu

Posted by Tim Lambert on December 20, 2006
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Michael Fumento thinks there is nothing to worry about. Revere disagrees:

It isn’t that what Fumento says is so outrageous one would have to be stupid or ignorant to believe it. It’s that it would be folly (and stupid) to act as if you believed it. Fumento couldn’t care less about public health nor does he care that what he writes makes it still more difficult to get government to make a puny investment in keeping us safe from disease at the same time he encourages it to sink more down the rat hole of the War in Iraq.

Fumento, of course, shows up in comments to insult not just Revere, but all of his readers:

No, but little things like that and my impeccable track record on disease hysteria dating back to “the heterosexual AIDS explosion,” SARS, Gulf War Syndrome (ask the IOM about that), and even pandemic avian flu back in 1997 (Yes, you read right) count for nothing. You’d like people to forget all that, while remembering “false facts” that you provide. Fortunately, most people aren’t as stupid as your readers.

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Comments

  1. #1 Eli Rabett
    December 21, 2006

    It’s a Darwin test, and F fails.

  2. #2 chicksandheifers
    December 21, 2006

    Your friend has been very busy insulting people and generally being rude. It’s just too bad he never stops by the same place twice.

  3. #3 Jack Lacton
    December 21, 2006

    Why would anyone still be concerned about Bird Flu?

    More hype from the end-of-the-world-is-nigh ninnies.

  4. #4 guthrie
    December 22, 2006

    Why be concerned? Well, I’m not, I pay people to be concerned about this stuff for me. The problem is that bird flu is an indeterminate threat, which could blow up and become a pandemic. But then again it might not. IT all depends. All the experts said that there was this dangerous possibility. Is the possibility done for now? For now yes, but it might return.

  5. #5 Ian Gould
    December 22, 2006

    Yes, it’s obviously ludicrous to suggest that a new strain of influenza could spread around the world and kill millions:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Flu#Asian_flu

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Flu#Hong_Kong_Flu

  6. #6 Meyrick Kirby
    December 22, 2006

    Yer, who cares if millions of people die … they’ll mostly be poor folks so it’ll probably have a net positive economic benefit.

  7. #7 z
    December 22, 2006

    “Why would anyone still be concerned about Bird Flu?”

    After all, we have to keep looking for the WMD.

  8. #8 jemima
    December 22, 2006

    Still up there contending for blog commenter of the year z, good on you :)

  9. #9 romunov
    December 26, 2006

    Notice that he doesn’t attack the idea, only the person(s).