Flu Bugged.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Health: President Bush's plan to spend $7.1 billion on avian flu prevention understandably gives pause to the cost-conscious. But if the plan ends up saving millions of lives, it'll be money well spent.

It's hard persuading people to take expensive precautions to prevent a hypothetical threat. Just ask those who lived in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina and who are now trying to rebuild shattered lives. A little more spending on levees, a little less on pork, and they'd have escaped unscathed.

The avian flu virus -- H5N1 to scientists -- hardly seems like a Katrina-like catastrophe. Since its emergence in Asia in 1997, bird flu has killed about 120 people. Tragic, perhaps, but not much of a disaster. In context, that's how many die of gang shootings in South Los Angeles over a two-year period.

Some critics complain the $7.2 billion Bush wants to spend on research and new vaccines will add to the size of government. Still others object to his proposed easing of liability rules on drug firms -- so they can make needed vaccines without fear of being sued.

Then there's the feeling in the scientific community that avian flu, as currently constituted, presents little risk to the human population. To quote the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "The H5N1 virus does not usually infect humans." So why worry?

Well, here's the problem: H5N1, like other viruses, can alter, evolve and adapt. That means at some point a strain that isn't easily transmitted from person to person can suddenly become quite communicable -- creating a rapidly spreading disease that ...