Word: avian
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Science fought back against avian flu with a successful test of a new vaccine. In a study of 451 subjects, the preparation caused no significant side effects and produced antibodies at a level that is usually sufficient to protect against common strains of flu--a good sign that it will work against the avian variety too. It's the common strains, of course, that ought to cause us concern, since avian flu has yet to kill anybody in the U.S. and the common flu kills 36,000 each year. Girding for this winter's assault, the Food and Drug Administration...
Shadowed by peril as we are, you would think we'd get pretty good at distinguishing the risks likeliest to do us in from the ones that are statistical long shots. But you would be wrong. We agonize over avian flu, which to date has killed precisely no one in the U.S., but have to be cajoled into getting vaccinated for the common flu, which contributes to the deaths of 36,000 Americans each year. We wring our hands over the mad cow pathogen that might be (but almost certainly isn't) in our hamburger and worry far less about...
...handicappers. For one thing, we can take the time to learn more about the real odds. Baruch Fischhoff, professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, recently asked a panel of 20 communications and finance experts what they thought the likelihood of human-to-human transmission of avian flu would be in the next three years. They put the figure at 60%. He then asked a panel of 20 medical experts the same question. Their answer: 10%. "There's reason to be critical of experts," Fischhoff says, "but not to replace their judgment with laypeople's opinions...
...communicable diseases at the World Health Organization; as the WHO's next director-general; in Geneva. A former head of Hong Kong's health department, Chan succeeded Lee Jong Wook, who died of a stroke in May. She was praised for her decisive handling of Hong Kong's H5N1 avian-flu outbreak in 1997. But during the 2003 SARS crisis that killed 299 in the territory, she was criticized for her slow response and her failure to investigate earlier outbreaks of the disease across the border on the Chinese mainland. During her campaign for the WHO's top job, Chan...
...largely failed. Exports from the north to the south - primarily farm products such as tomatoes - fell short of €1 million last year. The lack of cooperation extends to matters of public health, too. When authorities in northern Cyprus announced last year that they had identified a case of avian flu, Greek Cypriot authorities refused to acknowledge the warning and accused Turkish Cypriot authorities of trying to spread alarm and discourage tourism. Meanwhile, officials continue to bicker over cases like the Guzelyurtlu murder. "We won't recognize the [Turkish Cypriot] courts because that would mean recognizing the government," says Attorney...