In todays Australian health minister Tony Abbott shows real leadership.
Fear could be compounded by resentment towards people receiving anti-viral protection. Essential service workers simply have to be protected, particularly if they are heavily exposed to disease; otherwise many simply wouldn’t turn up. Still, in any pandemic it would be vital to counter the inevitable accusations of favouritism and the corrosive suspicion that “I’m suffering while others are not”. In any crisis, people need to feel that leaders are sharing the public’s dangers and privations. That’s why it was so reassuring when the King and Queen remained at Buckingham Palace during the London Blitz.
After much thought, my conclusion is that Australian health ministers have no irreplaceable technical knowledge nor indispensable role in treating the sick, so I have decided to decline any protection that is not available to everyone. A one in three chance of developing the disease and a one in 500 risk of death (based on the official “high estimate”) is not too big a risk to bear if it helps people to feel that “we’re all in it together”.
Practicing what he preaches, Mr Abbott shows recently released detainees and arrivals what real Aussie values are all about. However I have to take Mr Abbott to task on one small point, if he doesn’t save himself who is going to rebuild this country in the aftermath of a pandemic? We need strong leadership like his in order to bring calm to the hysteria that will no doubt be whipped up by the elite ABC and Fairfax, media outlets who will surely find a way to blame the government for the outbreak.
And another thing, I understand that in the event of a pandemic ABC employees are to be given the anti-virals and are regarded as an essential service. I think this is wrong, time after time our private media outlets and commentators have proven their mettle in covering big breaking stories, and supporting the government, it is they who should be given the anti-virals. Surviving the aftermath of a pandemic, ABC types like Kerry O’Brien will just entrench their elite activist views on the rest of Australia.
How sad it must be to live a life of such cynicism that even a noble act can only be met with scorn and sarcasm.
I’m glad I’m not you.
Really, we should be glad at the prospect of a plague to carry off a few radio shock-jocks, if anything!
Look, I can’t discern whether or not this is satire, so if it is, you’re to be congratulated for sounding like every Murdoch and tabloid hack who, through some twisted prism of logic, considers the public broadcaster ‘elite’ and the commercial media the ‘real world’.
Anyway, I’m as fearful as the next person of the pending bird flu epidemic, and I would definitely consider giving my little boy a vaccine if the bird flu came to Australia (and an anti-viral drug, no matter how expensive). However, in light of the Anthrax vaccine disaster, in which thousands of American soldiers were permanently disabled because of a rushed-through vaccine, there are some important issues to consider before we rush to vaccinate our children and ourselves once a vaccine becomes (prematurely) released:
1. US vaccine manufacturers only agreed to release the vaccine provided they were indemnified against litigation. This doesn’t necessarily suggest that the vaccine is dangerous, but it does suggest a lack of confidence in the absence of scientific checks and balances.
2. Health Minister Tony Abbott stated on ABC radio that he didn’t know if the vaccine would be given to children and that the government was leaving this up to CSL (the vaccine manufacturer). In other words, the federal government is relinquishing public health policy into the hands of a commercial operation, whose interests in market expansion are axiomatic.
3. A Japanese report (below) states that vaccinating birds has caused a weakened strain of this virus to mutate and to contaminate these birds. As a result, the vaccine has been outlawed there.
There has been a little media attention on the possibility that the bird flu vaccines might be ineffective, but there has been none (to my knowledge) about the potential ineffectiveness risks of flu vaccines. We must approach the media and the government to disclose fully the risks as well as the benefits. We must weigh up possible risks against those of catching the bird flu.
Woops, I forgot to include the Japanese report. Stand by, I’ll find the link…
Here it is:
Vaccine may be linked to bird flu cases
The Japan Times: Sept. 3, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050903a5.htm
Point of order: Anti-viral drugs are not vaccines.
Yeah, yeah… that’s why I said “a vaccine… and an anti-viral drug”.
Just trying to shape the argument towards my own interests, evil pundit.
This is the line that interests me:
= Still, in any pandemic it would be vital to counter the inevitable accusations of favouritism and the corrosive suspicion that “I‚Äôm suffering while others are not”. =
“accusations”? “corrosive suspicion”?
If there are antivirals and my partner was sick and I didn’t have them I’d pick up a f***ing gun. So would any decent australian, we rightly expect that if antivirals are available then all resources will be directed to giving those to everybody.
I was told that the birds ofconcern don’t fly to OZ so probability of us getting this virus is very low.
Any other info?
Well said, armaniac.
And also–what’s of this divisive language? Is this government going to pit people against each other once again in the face of disaster, to cover up for its own indadequacies? If it can afford more than $150 million flogging its IR ‘reform’, it can afford to send out some anti-virals with its new fridge magnets.
HP–it’s not the birds that are the main problem. It’s the problem of the virus mutating to human form. Then travellers will spread it.
I was discussing with my husband the other morning the possibility of families of ‘essential’ people such as nurses and doctors being given the vaccine or anti-virals as well so that they don’t infect the ‘essential’ people. We agreed that it was more likely that familes would be separated from their ‘essential’ members and pretty much left to fend for themselves.
However, as the Health Minister has pointed out, the chances of surviving are pretty good, even if you get the bird flu, which in itself is still, at the moment unlikely. It also depends on the form the flu takes. Ordinary flu takes the greatest toll on the very young and the very elderly. Interestingly the Spanish flu of the early 1900’s took the greatest toll on young adults.
WG, I know that but if the birds don’t come here there is no mutation.
If there are antivirals and my partner was sick and I didn’t have them I’d pick up a f***ing gun. So would any decent australian, we rightly expect that if antivirals are available then all resources will be directed to giving those to everybody.
And what if there are only 1 million doses for 20 million people? If everyone thought like that, we’d have one big bloody massacre.
Abbott is showing some real leadership by setting an example that others should follow — because fighting over antivirals would kill more people than the flu would.
As some other bloggers have pointed out, the first line of defence against bird flu is in strengthening the health care systems of third world countries, where an outbreak is considerably more likely than in Australia.
As I understand it, it’s far more of a concern that someone in a country like China will contract a deadly new variant of Avian influenza and it will spread through human vectors to the rest of the world. The third world is our first line of defense against new diseases, as it is in the third world that these diseases crop up, thanks to proximity to animals, poor hygience and lack of access to drugs and appropriate medical care.
As natural disasters, unnatural disasters and warfare/terrorism seems to be the order of the day, perhaps we should be thinking about strengthening our public health system and providing adequate funding to health services? Regardless of the stockpiles of vaccines and other drugs, we can never fully anticipate outbreaks to fully immunize everyone and in that case effective aftercare and emergency services becomes necessary.
It’s worth considering that most people who contract the virus will simply live through a dose of the flu. Certainly a new viral strain will be more potent for more people but the overwhelming majority of us won’t be dying from it.
I guess the government is caught between a rock and a hard place in terms of the national discussion but the Health Minister’s increasingly apocalyptic visions of what might lie in store seem to be a tad flamboyant.
Come on, evil pundit. What if there are only 1 million doses?
Where there’s a will–as I said, if the govt can afford $150 million for IR ads (not including the brochures), it can cough up a few million of our money for the anti-viral.
HP: my point is that travellers to Australia who carry the virus could infect Australians. It only takes one.
Weathergirl, you’re assuming it’s only a matter of money.
What if there is some other limit on the production of antiviral drugs? Not everything revolves around money, and not all problems can be solved by throwing money at them.
Also, I think you might have slipped a decimal point in your estimate of money spent on IR ads.
I’m not up with flu-ology. Isn’t it possible all of this is hysterical nonsense?
Phil, I almost missed the sarcasm and was starting to feel deeply concerned about the politics of this blog… glad to see that I was being a little obtuse.
Trackback: A perspective from Lao PDR - http://nopod.blogspot.com/2005/10/bird-flu-perspective-from-lao-pdr_27.html
EP, it IS only a matter of money. Anti-virals have been around for decades. The only problem with production is patenting laws which prohibit labs other than the IP owners to produce them (read The Truth About Drug Companies by Marcia Angel, published recently by Scribe). If the political will was there, every household would have a packet. I had a packet myself after a recent operation… but didn’t end up taking them, and chucked them. Dang.
IR ad spending: see the latest ad budget figure in last Wednesday’s Australian (the media section). Haven’t slipped a decimal point.
WG, I would have thought it is far easier to stop human beings ccoming into OZ than Birds?
One FLU over the Cuckoo’s nest!!
The advice that we received was that the flu has a 50% death rate. Here is a quote from the WHO:
“Unlike normal seasonal influenza, where infection causes only mild respiratory symptoms in most people, the disease caused by H5N1 follows an unusually aggressive clinical course, with rapid deterioration and high fatality. Primary viral pneumonia and multi-organ failure are common. In the present outbreak, more than half of those infected with the virus have died. Most cases have occurred in previously healthy children and young adults.”
Geoff Honnor, how does this relate to your assertion that “most people who contract the virus will simply live through a dose of the flu”?
Is that an estimate based on a high standard of available medical care or would it apply anywhere?
Homer, this article on the threat of migratory birds to Australia is interesting:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-danger-in-our-skies/2005/10/25/1130006117488.html
The Age sells the article to us with the scary headline “the danger in our skies” and the following highlighted quote: “Scientists have found avian influenza viruses among migratory shorebirds, including some of the species that fly to and from Australia”. But its conclusion is that “the risk that deadly avian flu will be imported into Australia by migratory birds seems low”, and that the real worry is the threat of human-to-human transmission.
Danke schoen mein herr
Lats Wednesday’s Australian isn’t available on their web page, so I can’t check the claim that the IR ad budget was $150 million. I seem to remember $15 million being cited.
In any case, there is still the question of time. You can’t just make 20 million doses of a medicine instantly — you need to get stockpiles of precursors and set up a production line.
Exactly what the timeline is for production I don’t know, but I suspect it would be more than a couple of days.
I was right. Here’s the article — $15 million, not $150 million.
I also have to question weathergirl’s assertion that appropriate antiviral drugs have been available for decades. If that were the case, the patents would have lapsed, and payment of company commissions would not be an issue as she says it is.
But we’re not talking a couple of days. The bird flu has been forcasted for around 8 months now.
And also, remember EP, the first round of advertising alone cost nearly $40 mill, which is why the unions & Labor took the govt to court…
A number of pharmaceutical companies have been granted a licence to produce generic versions of Tamiflu, and a company in Taiwan is producing it despite the patent, because Roche couldn’t keep up with demand.
With all of these companies getting onboard and Roche boosting its own production, I think that the supply problem will be solved. However, it sounds like it will still take a while, because global demand is so high at the moment.
Links:
Roche to boost production - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4342080.stm
Roche to licence bird flu drugs - http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/business/4362864.stm
Taiwan to ignore flu drug patent - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4366514.stm
It wasn’t $40 million or $150 million — it was $15 million, as the linked article shows.
As for flu preparedness, we would need to know things like the cost of 20 million doses, whether the drug would be good for bird flu only (if at all), or for other diseases as well, and its storage life, among other things, to make an informed decision about producing or stockpiling it.
What if we spend all our resources antyicipating bird flu, and get an anthrax plague instead? There are no simple answers.
EP–twas $15 million in just two weeks, and that’s just for media ads (not counting the hotline, the brochures, and the pulped brochures). See the item on this very site. Advertising execs in last Wednesday’s Media section said the govt’s IP ad blitz was the most money spent on any single campaign EVER — commercial or political.
As for money—this would be an argument for spending absolutely nothing on the terrorist “threat”, in case it doesn’t happen. In my opinion (and in that of epidemiologists), a bird flu outbreak is far more likely than a terrorist attack.
“Is that an estimate based on a high standard of available medical care?”
Yes but also the fact that the 4 Asian countries in which the (as of 24/10) 121 cases have been recorded have pretty rudimentary health surveillance and public health monitoring systems. It’s likely that only the most severe cases have been noticed and on that basis, a mortality rate of 50% isn’t all that surprising. The worst case scenario stats I’ve seen for Australia suggest something like 5 million people needing medical treatment, some 100,000 needing hospitalisation and up to 20,000 people dying. That’s a mortality rate of 0.4% - against a 1 in 10 chance of it actually happening at all.
In the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919 some 36% of Sydney’s population was infected and of those, 1.4 per cent died.
We aren’t looking at a Black Death scenario. The vast majority of people would live through it, with or without antiviral protection.
Here’s a link to an ABC article from Oct 22, by which time the govt had already spent $40 million:
http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1488342.htm
Weathergirl, you are distorting the facts to suit your agenda. You claim
but what the article you cite actually says is:
So a third-hand claim by the Opposition that the Government will spend $40 million in the future has been transfgormed by you into a fact that the government has already spent $40 million in the past.
You shouldn’t be so sloppy with facts.
Oh, that’s alright then. I was afraid the government was wasting my tax dollars on bullshit advertising.
Point taken, EP. That WAS sloppy. I’m madly wasting time trying to find an online reference to last Wednesday’s Oz.
On the patents point: no, under new Free Trade laws, patents can be extended way, way… see The Truth About Drug Companies by Marcia Angel (Scribe).
Roche have, however, granted licences for other companies to produce more Tamiflu [http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/business/4362864.stm] and Taiwan has gone ahead with production in breach of the patent [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4366514.stm], because Roche wasn’t able to meet demand. Roche have also now stepped up their own production of the anti-viral drug [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4342080.stm].
Still, given the strength of global demand right now, it might still be a while before there is enough available for everyone who would like it. The Australian Embassy here has stockpiled the stuff, but will not provide it to anyone unless and until a pandemic breaks out. Apparently the situation is fairly similar in Australia right now.
You know, wouldnt a first year advertising student advise that you have to offer something to sell a message?
This campaign is all “we arent taking this away, or that”.
Which only leads people to think “unless I see every friggin’ clause of my current EBA on the telly, Im gonna get screwed”
I love the ads. Ive decided they’re abolsutely worth the money. Im convinced every single one is another battler vote lost for the coalition.
I’m not up with flu-ology. Isn’t it possible all of this is hysterical nonsense
http://www.fluwikie.com/
A one stop shop for all your flu-ology needs.
What is interesting about people giving credit to Keating for being a reformer is that the truth lies somewhere else. Keating was credited with floating the Dollar and deregulating interest rate controls. The truth is he had to as there was no other choice. I saw it first hand as I was a currency trader.
Speculation against the Australian Dollar was massive at the time. In fact if you had a cent in your pocket and the wherewithal to do so you would have sold it for US dollars. Interest rates were at over 150% for overight money rollovers. It was impossible for the RBA to starve off the attack as the Aussie Dollar was set too high to begin with (we had a fixed exchange rate at the time). Reserves were being depleted in this massive onslaught.
So Treasury did the only thing it could do. Devalue.
They next tried a semi fixed/ floating method of setting the Dollar rate (they thought they knew better than the market of course). This too failed. They finally floated when there was no choice left.
Floating the currency also required deregulation of interest rate markets.
The rest is history and Keating was credited for being the world greatest Finance minister. Maybe the speculators should have been the ones getting the prize- as a group- with Keating handing out the award. He sure never deserved it.
JC - I think that you are on the wrong thread. How does the floating of the Aus dollar relate to bird flu, or money spent on the IR advertising campaign?
Joe, didn’t the float take place against the advice of then Treasury secretary John Stone?
Sorry wrong thread. Shit. I am really stupid, most of the time.
Apologies from me also.
Tony Abbott is a prick. However if (and it’s a reasonably big if) the bird flu mutates and isn’t stopped in Vietnam or Taiwan or Philipines then I’d want our national health minister to be innoculated and not be doing PR heroics on night time TV. The biggest need will not be for needle jabbers but for national disaster project management and a bit of nous and political and persuasive skills when it comes to logistics and priorities. Oh and a bit of media savvy when it comes to explaining who, what when and where and why. Abbott is paid for it. He should have the skills to do somehard work then.
If joe c can use his background as a currency trader to make a point (and not a bad one either, albeit on the wrong thread) then I can use the time from my equally shady past when I impersonated a copywriter for money.
If you’re developing a campaign about an issue that’s already attracting negative vibes, you cannot afford to be seen to be on the back foot, even if you are. What you do is first redefine the issue so then you’re offering not just a solution but a new valued-added, clinically-trailed, many agree it’s the best around product.
“Alright then, it’s not water resistant, it’s water absorbent!”
The ACTU campaign put the Government right on the back foot. And Dewey Horton, who are doing the “Workchoices” campaign, is basically a boutique hot shop set up to service the Liberal Party - an approach that has built-in problems when things get sticky.
They have done effective work like the “L for Learner” attack campaign at the last election. But basically they’re too close to their (only?) client to provide truly objective advice, ’specially when things get shaky and I’d imagine they’ve now got panicky appartchiks on the phone every time internal party polling burps and hiccoups.
I can’t think of any other explaination for a campaign that’s gonna be taught to new adland copymeat as an example of a great fuckup. Tens of millions spent and the product approval ratings move down? Even the colours are yucky. And anyone wondering about their job is not gonna be turned on by a recurring red stamp motif that echos the Reject Shop logo.
“If the client moans and sighs, make the logo twice the size.
If they’re still refractory, show a picture of the factory.
Only in the direst case should you show the client’s face.”
Watch out for “Honest John”’s personal signed message on WorkChoices soon.
nabs - wrong colour? - but someone predicted 6 months ago that the new black would be yellow.
But Nabakov, what of the “Protected by Law” stamp? Genius.
“”Protected by Law” stamp? Genius.”
It’s a stamp, an archiac graphic that is loaded with negative connotations about bureaucrats going “next!”.
Taking a wild punt here W-Girl, but I reckon you may have heard of the concept of “invisible literature”. Well, there is also the folk memory of graphics.
As for me, I won’t be happy until I see a Commonwealth of Australia IR ad with a cash register going ‘ka-ching!’, interposed with Sharan Burrow’s and Greg Combet’s faces. Bring on more revanchism!
“but someone predicted 6 months ago that the new black would be yellow.”
Harking back to my ad days again, my rabbi (work mentor) handed me a copy of Goethe’s “Colour Theory” on my first day at work.
I was like “No way man, it’s got no pics and plus I know how the whole Mephisto story turned out anyway.”
And he was all like “Way man, this dude’s got the shizz about our emotional reactions to colour and all.”
(OK, I’m rendering this exchange in dialect for our younger readers.)
And they were both right. Why do you think supermarket aisles featuring yeasty staples and cheap fast food are predominately yellow while others featuring hygiene and health products are so bluish?
Using that sickly yellow-red wood veneer colour in the WorkChoice ads might have tested well in focus groups but they weren’t shown the whole bloody aisle in which the product would be postioned.
I’m not up with flu-ology. Isn’t it possible all of this is hysterical nonsense?
Maybe it is CL. I think everyone should take a deep breath and look at the facts (as best my unreliable memory recalls them) …
1. Authorities say there’s a 10% chance that the virus will mutate and become easily transmitted between humans. That’s a 90% chance it won’t.
2. At the moment, its very difficult to catch. You really have to be in constant, close contact with infected birds. In it’s present form, it doesn’t spread between humans. There’s only been one case where this has happened.
3. It has a high mortality now, but should become less severe if it moves to humans. The virus won’t thrive if it kills before it can be transmitted, so is likely to lessen in severity. (The process is call ‘natural selection.’)
4. The consequences of it transmitting to humans are impossible to predict. Anything from negligable to disastrous. If it’s the latter, I suspect all the planning won’t make much difference.
Of course, the threat is real, and we should be planning against the eventuality, while not losing sight of the high probability that it may never happen.
*cough*