Assessing Bird Flu Fears

Dr. Mark Siegel has a new book out, entitled Bird Flu, in which he apparently asserts that our fears are in overdrive when they probably shouldn't be. In a Washington Post interview, Siegel elaborates:

Bird flu is one in a long line of things we've been warned about, and for which we supposedly need some kind of "safe room" with an ample supply of food and water just in case. First it was anthrax, then West Nile virus, then smallpox, then SARS. In each case we were warned that we had no immunity and could be at great risk.

The national psyche has been damaged by all these false alarms. On alert for potential threats, we're worrying more and more of the time. The emotional center of the brain, the amygdala, cannot process fear and courage at the exact same moment. If we could train ourselves to filter out dangers that don't threaten us by setting our default drives to courage or caring or laughter, we'd be a lot better off.

I don't know anything about bird flu risks, so I would be very interested to hear what others think about Siegel's argument that we may face more danger from fear than from a pandemic.

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Just to add, the question he was answering in that first paragraph was, "Should I prepare emergency supplies of food and water just in case ?", and he answers, "absolutely not," then continues with the "bird flu is one..."

While I agree with much of what he says in the interview, I strongly disagree with his statement above. Sure, I don't think you need to have extra food and water just for "bird flu," but there are all kinds of emergencies that can pop up and it helps to be prepared. I think he's doing a disservice to speak out against that in general.

Additionally, am I the only one who finds it a bit ironic that his thesis seems to be "don't worry," while his book is all white-and-red, with panic-looking, giant letters?

Thanks, Tara. I didn't know what to make of this. I haven't prepared my own emergency kit yet....

Kevin Drum made in interesting point a few months ago I think. He noticed that we all seem to have an end-of-the world obsession, be it global warming, bird flu, nuclear winter for the scientifically minded, or the rapture type stuff for those with the religious bent.

My family has an emergency supply of food, water and medicine - just because it's a good idea for whatever might arise. That way we don't have to panic when the gov't tell us to run out and buy duct tape. For the latest emergency du jour, we're ready!

I also want to note that - in this day and age we have a different delivery system. There are no warehouses full of food and supplies anywhere. In a broad emergency, grocery shelves would be depleted rapidly and there will be no more supplies to bring in - they have to be made first. This is entirely different from how things were done 20 years ago - when say - if you ran out of ketchup - there was a warehouse full of ketchup ready for an order to be placed and delivered. Because of this as a county, we can less handle an emergency now than we could have years ago.

By melissa p (not verified) on 16 Feb 2006 #permalink

I'm late picking up on this topic, but I thought the article in the Post was incredibly misleading and irresponsible. Don't stock food and water? Puh-leaze.

I'm told by a source that I trust in the public-health community that Siegel "doesn't know what he's talking about."

The URL points to an article I wrote outlining a couple of positive news items in this furor over bird flu.

In summary: we will soo have a bird vaccine that is 100% effect against H5N1 and its mutations and tracking money appears to be a good way to model the flow of people and hence the spread of contagious diseases.