First Contact: Bird Flu on ABC

Yes, I watched it -- ABC's made for TV movie. First Contact: Bird Flu in America.

Well, as a movie, it had its limits, as do all "concept" movies that attempt to make you identify with a large number of characters and stories that are progressing, as well as educate you so you know what's going on.

I mean, I can't believe that they had Stacy Keach die at the end without having had him dramatically refuse to take the vaccine, so there'd be one more dose for a doctor. I can't believe the screenwriter didn't think of that, so it must have been cut.

They got a few details wrong -- we've known of H5N1 infecting people since May 1997, not 1996. There's no way that we can begin manufacturing a specific vaccine against a specific virus in mass quantities in just 3 months. The current WHO death count is 115, not 126.

Just a relatively few deaths totally disrupted the United States immediately, but that can be written off as over-dramatization.

Perhaps most disturbing to me was the underlying feel-goodish message that we'll beat this disaster just by being nice.

Michael Newsome the Virginia governor is portrayed as an asshole just for taking proactive steps and wanting to fight back against the virus.
It takes the death of his diabetic son to make him see the error of his ways.

The pivotal scene is between him and the EIS agent where she tells him that we'll beat bird flu only through our "humanity." What, specifically, does that mean? She's a trained epidemiologist and she's spouting cliches.

Quarantines, restrictions on travel, restrictions on who enters the U.S. -- all these are written off immediately as ineffective. And even though containment is WHO's basic strategy for dealing with contagious bird flu once it's found in some rural village.

And the U.S. government itself plans to take these steps. I don't mean putting barbed wire around housing projects -- that was over the top -- but the recently released report on Pandemic Influenza mentions that such measures can slow the spread of bird flu.

True, they may not stop it completely, it had already spread from the initial carrier into the U.S., but slowing its spread could give people time to prepare and save some lives.

Besides -- various communities, islands and the entire continent of Australia did protect themselves from flu in 1918 by cutting themselves off from the rest of the world before the flu reached them.

Yet the ending was certainly unliberal and feel badish. Sheesh, just when we think it's winding down, it mutates again?

That to me was the most unrealistic part . . . making us think the terror was just beginning.

Still, I have to admit, they came up with a twist that I hadn't thought of -- that H5N1 will continue to mutate after it becomes contagious. This means that any vaccines developed will have limited usefulness -- and probably be out of date before they're manufactured and distributed (something people should think about).

I guess there's no particular reason why it won't mutate into a strain that's even more lethal than the current 55%, but it seems unlikely.

The images of the dead Africans were deliberately meant to evoke Ebola, with its extremely high mortality rate.

I'd have believed that scene more if the mutation had occurred in one of the overcrowded mega-cities of Africa. There natural selection would favor its mutation into highly lethal forms.

If the new strain of H5N1 kills EVERYBODY -- then how is it "out there"? Who carried it from one small isolated village to "out there"?

However, I am glad ABC made this movie. I hope it does scare more people into taking action to prepare themselves against bird flu.