Forget the duct tape and plastic...grab tuna and powdered milk?

I'm looking for an additional source for more information on this, but according to the above link at local WTVG:

March 13, 2006 - In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.
It is being spread much faster than first predicted from one wild flock of birds to another, an airborne delivery system that no government can stop.

Then I found this from Abc National news

"What should the average person do? The average person should be prepared to live in their family unit for three months. You have to have food, dried food, resources to live for 3 months in your unit. And so that's the maximum we can do."

(Hey First Energy, Columbia Gas, SBC and our landlord too....can we have a rain check on paying our bills during that three months we are supposed to hide?)

And in the same article:

"The H5N1 virus has resulted in the killing of 150 million chickens, and it has only infected 169 people. We need to remind everybody that we're dealing with a poultry disease, and we need to deal with it in the poultry. And of course it has a pandemic potential, but we have very good measures to prevent it by acting in poultry. Our concerns are in the countries that have very weak veterinary infrastructure, and don't have the resources or technical personnel to fight it."

"Your chances of winning the lottery are about one in 14 million. Your chances of catching bird flu are more like one in 100 million, even if we had H5N1 among the chicken population in Britain."

To panic or not to panic...that is the question...along with...OMG my kids hate tuna fish!

:-)

Historymike blogged about this too, and he even has pictures of the virus as well as his take on this story.