There are a lot of scary stories out there about the next pandemic, but we have to make difficult decisions without a lot of information. The real answer is we don't know until the next pandemic virus appears.
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At this moment there is no pandemic influenza in the United States or the world, but if history is our guide there's reason to be concerned, ... In the last century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics, and viruses from birds contributed to all of them.
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It could be said that the AIDS pandemic is a classic own-goal scored by the human race against itself.
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'The World Health Organisation which had been running their 13-year smallpox eradication programme in the third world until 1980 wondered if the vaccinations were connected to the AIDS pandemic. They hired an outside consultant to do a study on it. He did and said... 'Yes your suspicion is correct.' But the report was buried by the WHO and so the consultant came to us... His credentials can not be dismissed... We are not giving his name, but the WHO know he is our source.'
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We are very focused on the potential for and outbreak of pandemic influenza. We are looking back to the 1918 pandemic virus as a natural resource to help us understand and predict what we are dealing with.
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When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic.
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