ABC Nightline: Movie Depicts Worst-Case Scenario

[Guest guest]

Movie Depicts Worst-Case Scenario

May 9, 2006 — The ABC-TV drama " Fatal Conflict: Bird Flu in America "

puts forth a worst-case scenario. It is a Hollywood account that

exaggerates and condenses events to create an exciting story. But is

there truth in these exaggerations? " Nightline " examined the

difference between fact and fiction.

Watch Terry Moran's full report on " Nightline " tonight at 11:35 p.m.

ET.

Health and Human Services Secretary Leavitt saw the movie and

described it as " a fictional account designed to entertain.

" It was not a factual presentation of a real-life situation. It's

obviously depicting events that have occurred in the past and could

occur in the future, " he said.

One striking scene in " Fatal Contact " depicts the collapse of the

health care system. A New York City subway station is turned into an

enormous health care center because the huge number of infected

people has overwhelmed existing facilities.

The film also shows severe shortages of water, food and medical

supplies, which the Hurricane Katrina crisis showed can still become

life-or-death problems in a major emergency.

The most worrisome issue raised by the movie, however, might be the

speed at which a vaccine can be produced, manufactured in large

quantities and then delivered to the public.

" We do have optimism that vaccines will be available, " said Leavitt.

But he followed that good news with some bad news. " Because we have

to create a vaccine that is crafted to the individual virus, it will

be at least six months before we have a vaccine. We don't have the

300 million courses necessary to give every man, woman and child a

course of the vaccine. "

Most virologists believe, as the movie shows, that the human strain

of avian flu would originate in Asia and arrive in the United States

via an international flight. In the movie, a U.S. businessman

contracts the virus from a worker's cough while overseas and then

flies home carrying the virus.

But experts cast doubt on " Fatal Conflict's " portrayal of how quickly

the virus evolves to a form that's transmittable by

humans. " Literally overnight it went to spectacular efficacy in going

from human to human, " said Fauci, director of the National

Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in an interview with

Terry Moran.

" Sure, in biology everything is possible, but that's an extremely

unlikely scenario. When people wake up in the morning after seeing

the ABC movie, they shouldn't be assuming that we are one mutation

away from that movie. But what would be unfortunate would be that it

scared the heck out of people in a nonproductive way, " said Fauci.

Though the film may exaggerate the speed at which a pandemic could

spread, it also shows how some officials can overreact. In one scene

the governor of Virginia orders officials to use barbed wire to

quarantine neighborhoods.

In real life, however, the Virginia governor's office assures us it

has no plans to bring out barbed wire and fencing. " We haven't done

that since the '50's, " said spokesman Rich Hall. As part of its

preparations the state has produced a 15-minute DVD to show the major

issues associated with bird flu.

The Department of Health and Human Services has produced a viewer's

guidefor tonight's broadcast

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1941777 & page=1