BIRD FLU, LIBERTY, AND
QUARANTINE
Dr. Madeleine
Cosman, Ph.D., JD
October 12,
2005
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cosman/madeleine15.htm
NewsWithViews.com
America is handling
Bird Flu much as medieval Europe handled Black Plague. In
the great bubonic plague year of 1348 some cities lost
40% of their populations to the horrendous contagion.
Medieval quarantines, sanitary cordons, and health
passports were necessary to keep sick people in their
homes or cities where they lived, suffered, and died, and
well people kept out of the quarantined areas and away
from the infected. Brute force was required. Today the
World Health Organization sounds loud alarms over a
likely Bird Flu (Influenza A H5N1) pandemic, and the
United Nations encourages countries to prepare vaccines
and medications. President Bush has asked Congress for
special powers to use the military to create
medieval-style quarantines.
To control a lethal
contagious disease, only three methods routinely work.
Vaccine prevents the disease. Medicine treats the
disease. Quarantine contains the spread of disease.
America is woefully unprepared with modern vaccines and
medications. So our President must resort to the medieval
technique of quarantine that in the 14th through the 16th
centuries saved lives but thoroughly disrupted commerce,
private enterprise, and human rights.
President Bush is
asking Congress to supersede the American traditional
possee comitatus and allow federal use of armed troops to
perform the police function of keeping sick people in and
well people out of those streets, towns, cities, or
sections of the country where Bird Flu will rage, sicken,
and kill.
The Patriot Act has
a clause that allows a Governor to declare a state of
medical emergency that imposes martial law, requires each
person's submission to the National Guard, demands
relinquishing of personal firearms, and mandates
involuntary vaccination, treatment, or quarantine. The
President wants to commandeer each state's National Guard
and with the military perform those acts in case of Bird
Flu.
Quick review of
politics of preparedness for disaster, problems of
vaccine preparation, and methods of administering our
pitifully meager supplies of medication suggest why our
President is considering draconian medieval
quarantine.
POLITICS AND
PREPAREDNESS
Why ever in our
proud scientific 21st century America should we use a
14th century European technique? We have not prepared
vaccines. The United States through the National
Institutes of Health has contracted with two firms,
Chiron Corporation in Emeryville, Califorina, and Sanofi
Pasteur in France, for a mere 4 million doses of vaccine.
In the best of circumstances, if Bird Flu H5N1 becomes
pandemic, the vaccine could protect only a mere 5% of our
population. I discuss the origin, meaning, and types of
avian flu in "Bird Flu and Illegal Aliens," www.
NewsWithViews. com, October 6, 2005.
Political problems
both current and future are sinister. Only nine countries
manufacture vaccines: America, Australia, Britain,
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the
Netherlands. Europe makes about 70%. America belongs to
the Global Health Security Action Group that consists of
the G-7 nations plus Mexico. The Group is coordinating
trials of vaccines.
When terrors of
disease and death afflict treaties, will each country
decide to keep its vaccine manufactures for its own
people? Will countries that hate America refuse to
provide what contracts demand? Will poor, dependent
countries through the United Nations riot and try to
commandeer vaccines or medications they consider "their
right"? Will rich Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia
preemptively "steal" their "share" by buying at any
price?
Who in America will
decide who gets what vaccine or medicine? Power to decide
determines who lives and who dies. Will rationing be by
age? By wealth? By social position? Will first responders
and the military get first doses, as the current plan now
provides? Who in government gets protected? Who rejected?
Who far down in the local chain of command is considered
"critical" to protect and who is expendable? Do city
mayors get protection? Town councilmen? All physicians?
All police and fire-fighters? All garbage collectors? Do
you count? Do I?
Finland will
vaccinate its entire population against Bird Flu even
though the precise flu strain is not known. Current
vaccines may be partially or totally ineffective.
Apparently Finnish medical authorities decided that
partial immunity with a premature vaccine is better than
no preparation. Finns also might need less new vaccine
when one is finally created if they already have built up
some immunity to earlier Bird Flu variants. They may be
"teaching" Finnish immune systems to be better prepared
when the actual mutational variant is discovered that
will create a more exact antigen against the
disease.
Canada has a
ten-year contract with its major vaccine manufacturer, ID
Biomedical of Vancouver, and pays a special annual
"pandemic readiness fee." That stipulates that in case of
pandemic, the company has the capacity and will produce 8
million doses of vaccine per month for 4 months, thereby
assuring a portion of the Canadian population its likely
protection.
PRODUCTION OF
VACCINES AND ADJUVANT
A vaccine consists
of inactivated virus injected into a healthy person to
stimulate his body's immune reaction in the form of
antibodies to protect him against catching the real live
virus. Think again if you imagine vaccine production
taking place quickly and efficiently in hyper-sterile
laboratories with giant vats of chemicals monitored with
high-tech devices overseen by white-suited and gloved
scientists. Picture chickens. In fact, picture healthy
hens. Modern flu vaccines are grown during a slow course
of weeks in fertilized chicken eggs.
No other organism
can grow in those eggs or the vaccine product will be
contaminated. The virus that grows in the eggs first must
be extracted live from the cells it attacked. Then the
virus must be inactivated. Only then when the vaccine is
complete can that inactivated virus be injected in a live
healthy person to create immunity from
contagion.
One major problem
with the H5N1 vaccine is that it takes two huge shots
separated by a few weeks to create immunity. The large
doses of H5N1 vaccine require about 90 micrograms each
injection. That is about 12 times the usual flu shot
vaccine dose. If the current flu vaccine capacity is a
mere 300 million doses, the gigantic quantity per dose
required for current Bird Flu H5N1 yields a paltry 25
million doses. Furthermore, one is vulnerable to
infection between the two flu vaccine doses.
Chiron's Dr. Rino
Rappuoli, based in Italy, reported in the Journal of
Infectious Diseases that it is possible to cut the dose
in half and create an effective low-dose vaccine if it is
injected with an adjuvant. That would immediately double
available doses.
The adjuvant is an
addition to the vaccine injected at the same time. Of the
3 beneficial adjuvants, two are proprietary drugs owned,
respectively, by Chiron and GlaxoSmithKline. These would
add expense. The third adjuvant to work with Bird Flu
vaccine and stretch it is common alum, a salt containing
aluminum.
What about
side-effects? What about individual allergic reactions to
eggs and to adjuvants? What about adverse drug reactions?
What about drug interactions for diabetics and people
immuno-suppressed with chemotherpy? What about injuries
caused by vaccination? What about deaths caused by
vaccines? By vaccines plus adjuvant? All such questions
remain unknowns since we do not even know which strain of
H5B1 flu will be the base inactivated virus for the
vaccine.
FLU
MEDICATIONS
No vaccine, no
immunity. No successful inoculation with the vaccine, no
immunity. Then what? A person with no immunity to the
Bird Flu virus who contracts the deadly disease might
fight it with medication. That depends on how serious the
disease is, how strong or debilitated the person is to
begin with, and how fast the medical treatment gets into
his blood stream.
Influenza H5N1 is
resistant to two of the four major drugs used to fight
Bird Flu, amantadine and rimantadine. The H5N1 virus
fortunately will be killed by proper use of oseltamivir
and zanamivir.
Tami-Flu is made
from oseltamivir If you have access to this Roche
medication, it may protect you. Only about 2 million
doses per year are produced. Government is stockpiling
them for use only for first responders and the military
in case of an epidemic in America. Relenza, made from
zanamivir, is an inhaled anti-viral that also works on
some strains.
Method of
administering medication determines its effectiveness. If
you take a pill or a liquid, that oral drug takes 3 to 4
hours to reach its optimum blood concentration. Some of
the drug may be destroyed along the way by travel from
your mouth through esophagus to stomach with its many
potent acids. Injectable Relenza would take about 30
minutes to reach maximum blood concentration. Intravenous
Relenza would be the swiftest method of
administration.
We have ludicrously
small amounts of medication stockpiled and we are
awaiting the advent of the vaccines. So only quarantine
is left.
QUARANTINES
In his October 4 Rose Garden
news conference, President Bush announced that in case of
the potential disaster of a Bird Flu epidemic, he favored
the military rather than local and state responders
because, as he stated, quarantines would be
necessary.
A quarantine today, just as
in the Middle Ages, is an official legal restraint on
people entering and people leaving a particular place. A
house can be quarantined and everyone inside prohibited
from leaving and no one permitted to get in. A block can
be cordoned off and similarly quarantined. A section of a
city, an entire city, or a geographic region can be
quarantined. The idea is to keep the disease raging where
it is and not spreading to the rest of the population
outside the site of quarantine.
Quarantine through the
centuries has lead to murders of those who impose and
maintain the quarantines. Naturally everyone inside the
quarantine wants to escape. Those cordoned out of the
place of contagion do not want to get near it, or accept
products from it, unless their family or their valuables
are inside. That is powerful incentive to risk entrance
to the forbidden place.
In case of a Bird Flu
epidemic, President Bush intends to preempt state and
local officials, assure a declaration of martial law, and
force people to be imprisoned in their quarantines with
the armed force of the American military. Contemplate
what that means to you and to this
nation.
The greatest danger
to American liberty is not Bird Flu or even our ludicrous
lack of preparedness for natural and terrorist disasters.
The greatest dangers to personal liberty lurk in the
insidious encroachments by leaders who are well-meaning
but without sufficient passion for the Constitution, and
without sufficient honor to defend to the death each
American citizen's precious, vulnerable
freedoms.