Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic

by Marc Siegel

"Marc Siegel is an articulate voice of reason in a world beset by hype and hysteria. We would be well advised to listen closely to what he has to say."  —Jerome Groopman, M.D., staff writer, the New Yorker
"Siegel cuts through the hype about the 'deadly' this and the 'lethal' that, and applies reason in seeking the answers."  —John M. Barry, author of T he Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
"Timely and needed. At such times, we need soothsayers and explicators to redirect the ready-fire-aim mindset. Siegel's book fulfills this role well."  —The Journal of the American Medical Association
As bird flu sweeps through Asia, the rest of the world has begun to worry that it might spread west and start infecting humans. As many experts have pointed out, an influenza pandemic is only a matter of time and that time could be now. Or is it? In  Bird Flu,  Dr. Marc Siegel cuts through the hype, the facts, the fears, and the realities to explain what has the experts so worried and why there's still plenty of reason to be calm. Among the questions he answers are:
In his sensible and entertaining style, Siegel looks at the advances we've made in treatments, the research still to be done, and the challenges ahead for Asia to lay out a realistic plan for ending this global threat. While a bird flu outbreak in the United States may or may not happen this year, there's still a great deal of work to be done in readying America for outbreaks of any kind.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Elizabeth StClair · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author does a good job of trying to rationally way the possibility of a severe bird flu pandemic, while explaining why communication around this topic is so delicate. Reading about the flu scares and vaccine shortages of 2004 reminds me of 2020. I fear the US government hasn't gotten much better about informing the public of incoming diseases without preventing alarm and chaos, but I'm not sure what the government can do better. Perhaps more focus should be spent on health education.

[Mark Russell · Rating 2 out of 5]

At times, Siegel seems curiously dismissive of efforts of private preparation, i.e. telling people that there's no need to stock up on food and supplies, especially considering that such preparations are not only a palliative to a Bird flu epidemic but to a myriad of other potential disasters as well. And at one point he (rightfully) discourages people from trying to storm medical facilities at the first sign of danger in order to get their hands on precious flu vaccines when they might not really need them, but then in the next breath he practically brags about being able to score said vaccines for his wife and parents.

But one thing Siegel is dead right about is the potential for public panic and overreaction in the face of a pandemic to be more dangerous than the pandemic itself. As he says repeatedly throughout the book, "Fear is the virus." This is not to say that the potential for a pandemic isn't real or that such a pandemic won't be deadly. As we can see from what's happening now with the H1N1 virus, the potential is very real and must be prepared for. But we cannot flail wildly and waste all our resources preparing for highly unlikely scenarios simply because there is public pressure to be doing something. If we do, then when these pandemics don't emerge, the public will lose interest in preparation and we won't have the resources to respond when a truly virulent pandemic hits. What is needed is a measured and appropriate public health response to each pandemic threat based upon its scientific likelihood and a larger, though less exciting, commitment to quietly upgrading our medical and scientific infrastructure.