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Let me preference this posting by saying I personally think the probability of bird flu becoming a pandemic is remote. My limited understanding from the experts I’ve read or listened to indicate thy do not know how many mutations to the current H5N1 would be required to allow the virus to spread human-to-human. Right now, to the best of my knowledge, all human cases have come from direct contact with birds.

A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled Chaos Feared in Pandemic Flu Plan covered some of the government’s recommendations. The major message seems to be that state and local governments are on their own and shouldn’t rely on the federal government for help. Looks like the federal government at least learn something from Hurricane Katrina, but not the lesson most of us would hope. Some of the suggestions make sense; cancel nonessential travel and wash your hands as well as telecommuting if possible. Others are little more questionable like recommending people stand at least 3 feet apart?! Supposedly, this is all the further a sneeze can travel.

This got me to thinking about who in the government is in charge of these plans and what their background may be. I was hoping to see someone with medical experience or maybe someone who had worked for the Center for Disease Control or at the least some experience in public health. The person in charge of “the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies” is Stewart Simonson, Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness. Wikipedia has an interesing bio on him. Seems he has little experience with public health, but has a lot of experience running railroads. He was the chairman of the board of Amtrak in the late 90’s. According to this bio he has close ties to the former Wisconsin governor and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson. Stewart Simonson worked under Tommy Tompson when he was govern and did some work on emergency management.

interestingly, the Health and Human Services site no longer include his biography on their site, but there is still a cached copy at Yahoo. Interestingly they still include the position on their listing of bios here, but it is no longer linked to anything.

I am by no means an expert in public health and pandemics but I can’t help wondering if we couldn’t get someone better qualified for this position.

Here are some resources on this topic:

• The actual national plan is on the White House website.
• Government Pandemic Flu site
• Yahoo search results for “Stewart Simonson”
• POGO blog The Mike Brown of HHS
• Google search results for “Stewart Simonson”
• Sourcewatch (a project of the Center for Media and Democracy) on Stewart Simonson.

Technorati Tags: bird flu, flu pandemic, H5N1

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