Re:Factors in our favor (Score 1)

How did this get modded up as insightful? Naysaying is one thing, but wholly incorrect naysaying is anything but insightful.

* As a whole, people do not get as sick as in previous generations. The constant fuss over cleanliness reduces the general health of the immune system because of its lack of exposure to many diseases.

This is as silly a statement as "I do not take as many showers as most people, so my water is not as wet." The immune system works differently than how your muscles do, it does not function in a "use it or lose it" manner. When you are exposed to an antigen, you develop an acquired immune response to it allowing you to fight it faster in future exposures. This is not an issue with the avian flu because it is different from the other flu viruses that are, or have recently been, circulating through human populations (nobody has acquired immunity except for the people who have been infected and have lived). Whether or not people have been exposed to other germs will not change the immune response to a new flu virus. Additionally, during the 1918 flu those with the healthiest immune systems (people in their 20's and 30's) were more likely to die from flu infection (google "cytokine storm" to find out more). So your trite generalization does not apply to this situation.

* Vitamin deficiencies are not as rare as one might think; while scurvy is no longer common, most people in the civilized world consume processed foods, which generally lack vital nutrients. As such, their body mass is maintained or expanded, but the gains made in nutritional science have not, as a whole, trickled down very far into the general population.

You said it right there: "Scurvy is no longer common." Guess what, rickets isn't either. Vitamin deficiency diseases in the "civilized world" are not common. Making generalization about the quality of processed foods does not change that fact. Also, the terms "vitamin" and "nutrient" cannot be used interchangeably as they do not mean the same thing.

* Palliative diseases are of little use against a virus that causes tissue death in the lungs, encephalitis, and destruction of tissue membranes due to necrosis and apoptosis. H5N1 appears to cause a broad-spectrum attack on the human body in ways that aren't helped by rehydration or salt balance.

This statement is sheer nonsense. What is a palliative disease? I think you meant palliative treatments . Nobody expects "rehydration or salt balance" to affect the course of flu infection; the danger of highly virulent flu strains comes from hemorrhaging of alveoli tissues which causes anoxia. Yes, the flu causes vomiting and diarrhea but that's not what does you in. You might have confused the flu for cholera, which is treated with hydration and restoration of salts and sugars.

* The vast majority of people may live in their own bedrooms, but are more likely to congregate in large, relatively cramped areas for work, school (especially school!), and purchasing.

That's nothing new, people are social animals and our working, learning, entertainment, and shopping environments have always been crowded. But like the grandparent post said, what has changed is that our homes and hospitals are no longer as cramped as they once were. Some people think that this will reduce virulence of future pandemic flu strains because (I can't find a link now, but a recent article in Science theorized that the 1918 strain was particularly lethal because it had such an easy time with transmission in the trenches and hospitals of WWI in Europe. It falls in line with the "sick bird can fly, dead bird can't" reasoning that explains why highly virulent diseases like Ebola are not very transmissible and vice versa.)

I have no argument with your assertions that our mobile society faces new danger in disease transmission, but this is partly offset by advances in communications, detection, monitoring, and transmission modeling.

* A virus that spreads via aerosolized particles isn't as susceptible to sanitary conditions as many other diseases. It helps, but isn't as useful in preventative care as you suggest.

Washing your hands never hurts: Clean your hands.