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Wednesday, August 03, 2005

National Security, Terrorism, and the Bird Flu

Anonymous

Over at PrawfsBlawg, I have a post that follows up on a topic I've been blogging about a lot lately (here and here). Inspired by a great cartoon by Tom Toles (Washington Post), which I've included in the post, I argue that we're wasting money on elaborate ways to detect terrorists, such as Secure Flight, data mining, and searching bags in NYC subways. Instead, the bird flu remains a very sigificant risk, and we're so focused on terrorism that we might be caught inadequately prepared for a bird flu epidemic. I also include statistics that show that a 9-11 attack each year would not even make the annual top 20 causes of death.

Comments:

there's a great article in the new yorker on this very topic, i think the issue date is 28 feb '05.

also: toles is great.
 

You're right. This could be the greatest public health panic since West Nile virus nearly wiped out the NBC Dateline crew. They were hit, you'll remember, with fevered notions of the plague, overheated imaginations, and torn muscles from jumping to unsupported conclusions about the threat.
 

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