It is very unlikely that it would maintain that kind of case mortality rate if it made the jump.

The much greater problem in avian flu compared to SARS is the high mortality, in particular the high mortality amongst children. The family will have dropped off their child and the next time they see him, he will be dying -- can you imagine the effect that will have on staff morale in your unit?

The much greater problem in avian flu compared to SARS is the high mortality, in particular the high mortality amongst children. The family will have dropped off their child and the next time they see him, he will be dying — can you imagine the effect that will have on staff morale in your unit?

We know summer is the height of of being alive. We don't believe in God or the prospect of an afterlife mostly, so we know that we're only given eighty summers or so per lifetime, and each one has to be better then the last, has to encompass a trip to that arts center up at Bard, a seemingly mellow game of badminton over at some yahoo's Vermont cottage, and a cool, wet, slightly dangerous kayak trip down an unforgiving river. Otherwise, how would you know that you have lived your summertime best? What is you missed out on some morsel of shaded nirvana?

You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh! do not lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is in this way that mortals become angels. It is not their fault; they do not know how to set about it otherwise. This hell from which you have come out is the first step towards Heaven. We must begin by that. -- Jean Valjean --

Teach we must, for we owe all that we are to all those who have been and all that we have to those who are yet to come ...if they but ask!