Ovearheard on today's Wall Street Journal (PBS)

[Guest guest]

(paraphrase): Eight-seven percent of American public have no faith in

the government to handle this potential avian flu.

At the current rate, four million Americans would have the Tamiflu

vaccine by the end of the year (up from predictions from a few months

ago)

Strassert (senior opinion editor of the WSJ) blamed a lot of

this on overregulation: in '73 we had thirty vaccine makers, today we

have only three, she said. This overregulation also prevents vaccine

makers from working on reverse genetics. If reverse genetics were

allowed, Strassert said, we could have a vaccine for this bird flu

with three months.