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| Noted author and Tulane visiting scholar John M. Barry has taken a proactive role in the bird flu controversy. |
When scriptwriters started working on a made-for-television movie about a fictional outbreak of bird flu in humans, they consulted with John M. Barry, distinguished visiting scholar at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane and Xavier Universities, and author of The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.
Barry had already been taking a proactive role in the bird flu controversy, regularly attending meetings at the National Academy of Sciences and participating in other meetings with senior officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization. "I've become pretty involved in some pandemic preparedness," Barry says.
The movie, "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America," premiered on ABC-TV on May 9. It tapped into a growing public concern that bird flu might lead to a human flu outbreak rivaling the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was responsible for as many as 100 million deaths worldwide.
"Their portrayal of what would happen to society under a severe pandemic was a very reasonable portrayal of a worst-case scenario," says Barry.
"Fatal Contact" traces what could happen if the H5N1 avian flu virus, which so far mainly affects birds, mutates into a form that could be readily transmitted from human to human. In the movie, an American businessman visiting Hong Kong contracts a mutated bird flu virus at a market. The virus in the fictional account subsequently spreads worldwide, rapidly breaking down social and governmental structures as a large percentage of the world's population falls ill at the same time. The movie depicts emergency rooms in hospitals being overwhelmed by a flood of victims, while other essential services are paralyzed due to so many people being stricken with flu.
Alarmingly, in reality, more than 200 people, mostly in Asia, have died after contracting bird flu because of close contact with infected domestic poultry.
"Before they wrote the script, I had a lengthy telephone conversation with them," says Barry. "They asked how the virus might behave, and I told them. Then they sent me the script, and I made comments on it. Sometimes they took my advice, and sometimes they didn't. I don't think they overstated the worst-case scenario. In some ways, they may even have understated it."
Health organizations such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services posted notices on their websites assuring the public that "Fatal Contact" was fiction, not a documentary, and that a flu pandemic was not actually under way. Their action brings to mind the 1938 radio drama "War of the Worlds," which caused widespread panic from people who thought it was really happening.
Governments around the globe and health-monitoring groups such as the World Health Organization are taking a serious look at what needs to be done to soften the impact of a possible flu pandemic, from developing vaccines to preparing emergency civil and medical capabilities. Barry has been involved in the process.
"I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that history does matter, even when you're dealing with something that's about basic science," he says. "Because as much as we know about the virus in the laboratory, virologists today are not as familiar as they should be with the way a new virus moves through a human population.
"And we keep learning new things about influenza. For example, until about two years ago, people were convinced that influenza virus could not go directly from birds to people and become a human virus. Now it's pretty well proved that in 1918, that's what happened."
Preparations by national, state and local governments for the next flu pandemic are essential, and "Fatal Contact" has helped raise awareness of this critical need.
"There have been from three to five pandemics a century as far back as we can look. Our last one was in 1968," says Barry. "Like everyone else who knows anything about influenza, I say it's not a question of if, but when."
