Given these possibilities, one would think that any government would make preventing and preparing for this potential catastrophe a major priority. It's therefore nice to see that, for the Bush administration, avian flu is a priority. However, the priority isn't preparing for it but preparing to spin the government's failure to prepare.
Take this new article on U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt's trip to Asia, the origin of this disease [Official: Preventing Pandemic Impossible]. Secretary Leavitt of the "see no obstacles" Bush administration proclaims defeat in advance.
"Can we create a network of surveillance sufficient enough to find the spark when it happens, to get there fast enough?" he said. "The chances of that happening are not good."
"He said the U.S. government was considering ways to help offset the economic loss to Asian farmers forced to slaughter infected flocks, but help would be limited. Without subsidies, poor farmers resist killing their sickened livestock."
While prevention is the best hope for the world, once a pandemic starts, public health strategies for coping are three-pronged: vaccination; use antiviral drugs; and quarantine. None of these approaches is a panacea, of course, and there are questions as to the degree of effectiveness of vaccination and antiviral drugs. There are also open questions regarding the best strategy to deal with flu epidemics.
As for vaccination, some efforts seem to be underway. Thoughtfully, the "United States may help finance some of the $100 million production burden." "May?" "Some of the burden?" This hardly seems like an all out effort to prepare for potential catastrophe. And let's not forget that that $100 million price tag is for vaccine for the United States only. Other wealthy industrial countries also will make preparations to vaccinate at least some of their populations. But what of the several billion people living in countries too poor to shoulder this cost on their own? Evidently they are simply to be left to get infected and die in their millions. In addition to the immorality of this, it will be a disaster for prevention in the United States and the other industrial countries. An epidemic left unchecked in large parts of the world will be a breading ground for the virus and for the development of modified forms of the virus which we may be less protected by vaccine. So any reasonable strategy for dealing with the virus would be based upon considering the entire world as an interconnected system. But not, evidently, that of the Bush administration.
Another important tactic is preparing stockpiles of antiviral drugs, such as Tamiflu, to treat people when they become infected. So is the Bush administration doing all it can to get as many doses of these drugs as possible? These drugs are protected by patent, interfering with the ability of multiple companies to devote their resources to manufacturing them. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has made the obvious suggestion that these patents be suspended in the interests of protecting millions of people. Secretary Leavitt's response is that U.S. intellectual property rights would not allow such action. No urgent call for suspending those rights in an emergency from the administration that has deemed virtually no human right worth protecting as it pursues its GWOT (Global War on Terror).
As for quarantine, the Secretary says the country isn't ready, but hasn't outlined a detailed approach to make it ready. Obviously, such an approach should be developed in close coordination with the career professionals in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health agencies whose job it is to protect the public from health dangers. However, President Bush's main idea was to propose giving the military, those experts in preserving the health of the public, a key role in imposing quarantines. As usual, the administration is more concerned with using the potential crisis to advance its agenda of militarizing American society than with actually preventing or coping with the crisis.
Never fear, however. Should a pandemic hit these shores Secretary Leavitt has already outlined the administration's excuse. It's all the fault of those other people, those individuals, families and public officials who were too shortsighted to prepare:
"People have not exercised adequate personal preparedness to last more than three or four days in their normal environment without going to the store," he said. "What's the responsibility of communities? What's the responsibility of families? Is it important that the mayor of a small town be thinking about a decision between Tamiflu and a swimming pool?"
Stephen Soldz, a researcher and psychoanalyst, is Director of the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He is a member of Roslindale Neighbors for Peace and Justice and founder of Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice. He maintains the Iraq Occupation and Resistance Report web page.
