Does chicken little have the flu?

Recent outbreaks of the avian flu (H5N1) in Romania and Turkey and previous outbreaks in Asia are spurring a flurry of recent press coverage about a coming epidemic.

One Texas based TV station's website has a story titled Fears About Bird Flu Pandemic In East Texas Are Premature, and another source from Scranton, PA.

So, what do we really know (most of these "factoids" come from TIME magazine:

1. The virus has a mortality rate of 50% or greater - not good
2. The virus has not mutated significantly in recent cases - good
3. Some limited protection may come from previous flu vaccines - good
4. The only vaccine available for H5N1 takes a ton of vaccine per individuals which given limited manufacturing capacity - not good
5. Current anti-virals need to be administered really quickly after infection to be effective - not good
6. Poultry handling and slaughter techniques in many of the infected regions are not as sanitary as the US and Canada

Other "hypothetical" factoids from my head:

1. The virus has many, many hosts giving it ample chances to mutate
2. To date, the virus has mainly been in underdeveloped populations so the death rate may not be quite as high in a population that had been vaccinated against many strains of flu annually


Other nonsensical "factoids":

1. Personally I think I'll start eating more frogs and pork - sorry Kermit and Miss Piggy
2. Why aren't we freaking out about Mad Cow and Chronic Wasting Disease still?
3. Newspapers and Magazines are desperate for more sensational disaster stories because O.J. has killed anyone recently and Bush doesn't sleep with his interns