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A week ago, this web site carried an article about the emergence in Canada of a new, more drug resistant, more virulent, strain of the bacterium Clostridium difficile.

Like a Californian walking the delightful streets of Montreal, this EMMNN report is an American anomaly surrounded by Canadians. Seventy per cent of the first page Google News links for "Clostridium difficile" have Canadian datelines.

Even with all the noise about "re-importing" drugs from Canada, pro and con, many people on both sides of that issue are acting as if they believe that powerful drugs can be easily imported from Canada, but not lethal micro-organisms.

If Clostridium difficile can cause increasing problems in the U.K. ("Wards shut in bug crisis" in Birmingham), an ocean away from Canada, it can cause them in the U.S., a shopping trip by car (to take advantage of the weak Canadian dollar) away. Yet, apart from coverage in EMMNN, this serious threat is getting "no respect." Help may be on the way against C. difficile, however, at least against those samples in Petri dishes and mice.

As dangerous a threat as the possible spread of C. difficile is, it pales in comparison to the equally unreported-upon and unprepared-for threat posed by the possible mutation of the avian virus already responsible for 1,510 dead birds in several areas of Java Island between July and September this year, according to the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture.

Some other points from the Philippine-based web site running this Agence France-Presse article:

"A variation of bird flu was blamed for the deaths of as many as 40 million people worldwide in 1918.”

"Thai officials last week confirmed the country's first probable case of human-to-human infection of bird flu following the deaths of a mother and daughter."

This, from the U.K.-based Big News Network:

"Thailand confirmed the first outbreak of avian influenza in January, although there had been mass poultry deaths months before. Since January, more than 60 million fowl have been killed."

Back in the U.K., efforts are underway to exhume the body of then-20-year-old Phyllis Burn, who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic which killed 50 million people worldwide 86 years ago.

You can read more about efforts underway in January of this year in the U.K. to better understand the pathogen responsible for that outbreak by clicking on the article's title, "1918 flu victim may hold clues to outbreak." In that article, at that time, its author wrote:

"At present, the bird virus does not seem capable of passing from person to person, as happened in the 1918 pandemic.

"The greatest fear of experts is that it will genetically combine with normal human flu to produce an infection that can sweep through populations.

" 'That’s the Armageddon scenario - that the two will mix together,' said Prof Oxford.

"A key question that scientists want answered is whether such a combination triggered the 1918 pandemic."

Repeating the material from the above-quoted Agence France-Presse article about the situation in Indonesia:

"Thai officials last week confirmed the country's first probable case of human-to-human infection of bird flu following the deaths of a mother and daughter."

Also contained in the British article about the exhumation are these important facts:

"Only a handful of samples from the 1918 pandemic exists in Britain and the United States. They consist of small lung "blocks" about half the size of a sugar cube.

"Scientists have already managed to identify half a dozen of the virus’s genes. The clues point to an avian, or bird, virus - but not the same strain as the one currently worrying health officials in Vietnam and Thailand.

"The 1918 virus was an H1 strain, whereas the virus responsible for the new outbreaks is categorised as H5."

The two big unanswered question now, therefore, are "Can avian flu viruses of the type H5 mutate in a manner similar to what happened with the type H1 strain in the 1918 pandemic?" and "If they can, will they?"

For a frightening but extremely lucid set of additional questions and answers on the subject of whether the current serious poultry problem could become a disastrous human problem, take a look at "How Dangerous is the Bird Flu?", by the brilliant science writer Laurie Garrett, written in February, 2004.

It behooves us at this point first to quote and then to paraphrase the words of Martin Neimoller, who wrote, in 1945, amidst the rubble of a Europe then shattered by war, as it had been in 1918 by both war and pandemic precipitated by war:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

First, the bird flu came for the Vietnamese, but I did nothing--
because I was not a Vietnamese;
Then it came for the Indonesians, but I did nothing—
because I was not an Indonesian;
Then it came for the Thais, but I did nothing—
because I was not a Thai;
Then it came for the Koreans, but I did nothing—
because I was not a Korean
Then it came for me--
and there was no one left to do anything for me.

Of course, this dynamic applies to many other scourges facing humanity, both natural and man-made, but, for now, why don't we focus on bird flu?

For the latest bird flu news, visit ThePoultrySite.

For in-depth information about avian influenza, visit the comprehensive web site of the World Health Organization, including the WHO's press release from 27 January 2004, titled "Unprecedented spread of avian influenza requires broad collaboration."

As if that weren't enough, there's even more bird flu news at, well, Bird Flu Today.