I'm going to view with great suspicion the geese that come our way this fall

Bird flu is grabbing the headlines again, with cases appearing in Siberia this time. Fortunately, it still appears as if the flu is going from animal to human (which is bad), but is not going easily from human to human (which would be disastrous). Our local public radio station did a good program on the avian flu, and it's worth listening to if you want to hear a lot of information on the subject. One of the things that the program emphasized is the need to get regular flu shots. This will help prevent avian flu from blending with ordinary flu, increasing its transmissibility. Also, for reasons I didn't quite understand, having lots of people get flu shots this fall will help the U.S. maintain a higher level of available flu shots should the avian flu really hit here. (I think that you need to have systems in place to generate vaccines, and if industry amps down because people are getting fewer flu shots, it won't quickly be able to gear up again in a crisis.) UPDATE: Presbypoet's comment about American vaccination policy reminded me that I have a somewhat related post about vaccinations.