There is an interesting article from The Register on the possibility of a world pandemic:

You may think this is overblown. But discussion of the possibility of a flu pandemic has fallen out of the news. And as the security consultant Bruce Schneier says: “One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. By definition, ‘news’ means that it hardly ever happens. If a risk is in the news, then it’s probably not worth worrying about. When something is no longer reported - automobile deaths, domestic violence - when it’s so common that it’s not news, then you should start worrying.”

The risks posed by an outbreak of flu passed from chickens in the Far East, in countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, burst into the news in February. But now they’ve passed out of the news. Since then we’ve had more important things, like the Crazy Frog ringtone, to concern us.

Time to worry. And the scientists are. In fact, they’re edgier than I’ve seen them since the BSE outbreak was in its earliest days and people were wondering if it might pass to humans. Quite a few scientists stopped eating beef at that point. Oh, you didn’t know?

Now, their reaction is to write papers and watch what’s happening, very closely. If you read the scientific journals (we do, so you don’t have to) the articles are piling up. Last week the journal Nature pulled together an entire online resource on the threat of avian flu.

That’s the trouble with scientists. They get an idea into their heads - CFCs and ozone, carbon dioxide emissions and the greenhouse effect, the transmission of BSE to other species such as humans - and they worry away at it until they determine what the answer and the mechanism is.

I find the comments on the news and what to worry about are right on target.

I hope to write more about this later, but for now, I have to run.