FATAL CONTACT: BIRD FLU IN AMERICA

May 9, 2006

May 8, 2006FOR INFORMATION ON "FATAL CONTACT: BIRD FLU IN AMERICA," CONTACT YOUR STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT'S COMMUNICATIONS OFFICEOn May 9, the ABC television network will air the made-for-TV movie "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America." The movie is a fictional work of entertainment, not a factual account of a real world event. Despite this, you or your colleagues may receive phone calls and email messages about it from the public or the mass media. It is suggested that you refer calls and messages from the public to your state health department's communications office. Calls and messages from the press can be forwarded to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Press Office at (202) 690-6343.For additional information about the movie, visit the ABC website at http://abc.go.com/movies/birdflu.html

May 10, 2006

Frist! Cregar <diana.cregar@...> wrote: Is anyone watching this?

New Messenger with Voice. Call regular phones from your PC and save big.

May 10, 2006

BIZARRE...

HHS Viewer Guide to 'Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America' http://tinyurl.com/m2wke

The film depicts scenarios that could unfold should a severe pandemic develop, including limited availability of anti-virals (Gilead) http://tinyurl.com/bsfde and vaccines (Sanofi Pasteur) http://tinyurl.com/jbbju as well as the potential for disruption of supplies, medicines, and other essential services.

The film also illustrates the expected months-long delay in developing an effective vaccine against a pandemic strain of influenza once it emerges. This is why, at the president's request, Congress approved funding for the Department of Health and Human Services to make significant financial investments to improve the technology for vaccine development and to build up our domestic vaccine production capacity, to ensure more rapid availability of vaccine for the population in a pandemic. http://tinyurl.com/97c56

Deciding who gets vaccine was a major question in the film. In a real pandemic, how will you decide who gets vaccine first? Distribution is Key... http://tinyurl.com/flkjf In the US, sanofi pasteur receives requests for emergency vaccines from Americares... http://tinyurl.com/osbro http://tinyurl.com/qaxq4 http://tinyurl.com/h5njz

Many neighborhoods were quarantined in the film. Even the governor of Virginia quarantined himself, his staff, and his family from the rest of the world. Will the government quarantine people in a pandemic? http://tinyurl.com/9g4e3

"Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America" is a movie, not a documentary. It is a work of fiction designed to entertain, not a factual accounting of a real-life event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiction

"Our only hope is the vaccine!"

-----Original Message-----From: EOHarm [mailto:EOHarm ]On Behalf Of redhead60707Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 8:40 PMEOHarm Subject: Re: Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in AmericaNo way!>> Is anyone watching this?>

May 10, 2006

The question is how many pharma ads will be aired durin ghte broadcast

and who is behind the making of the movie. Two questions that I am

sure a lot of us thought of.

On May 9, 2006, at 7:34 PM, Cregar wrote:

> Is anyone watching this?

>

May 10, 2006

This actually makes me sick that folks produced and then to have ABC

airing something like this. Especially for folks to watch and then

have the anxiety over this because it could happen. Whoever thought

of this as entertainment needs a good psych eval. Too I can't

imagine then if this does come to the US. Folks will be breaking

down doors for vaccines to assist with a disease that continues to

morph and will probably never have an appropriate intervention to

prevent it. Sad.

CG

> >

> > Is anyone watching this?

> >

>

May 10, 2006

We watched recordings of The Backyardigans and then scrubs... I am sorry,

was there some bird flu movie on???

May 10, 2006

Greetings,

well, I am very glad ABC aired that movie, period. Every little bit

helps in the attempt of informing the general public about a

possible impending Influenza Pandemic.

The Filmmakers certainly have been listening to the experts and have

been reading some of our message boards and forums too. I wish they

would have paid more attention to the details, applied more common

sense, and incorporated more logical effects and consequences in the

movie. Lots of errors, but hey, who's gonna be picky. It should get

the message out.

Definitely not the greatest movie ever. Absolute worst case

scenario ? Give me a break ! You should see some of the logical

consequences my brain " analyzes and produces " !!!

All in all, I hope they are repeating it often, and it really shakes

people up.

Anyways, that was my take on the movie.

Blessings,

Mister E.

___________________________________________________

Arizona Pandemic Flu Help and Support Group:

PandemicFlu

" Chance Favors The Prepared Mind "

>

> ABC Spreads The Germ of A Disturbing 'Bird Flu'

> By Tom Shales, Washington Post Staff Writer

> Tuesday, May 9, 2006; C01

> ABC's " Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America " is just what the doctor

> ordered -- Dr. enstein, that is. Who else would find it

> entertaining to watch 25 million people drop dead as the result of

a

> fanciful worldwide plague?

>

> No one can say the film, airing tonight on Channel 7, isn't

topical.

> The producers hired a big-time expert on monstrous disease to make

> sure its vision of a global nightmare is plausible. A disclaimer

> notes, " This film is a fictional examination of the

question, 'What

> if?,' " but the docudrama style carries an aura of awful, if not

> awesome, authority.

>

> It's a question that isn't just being asked by alarmist TV movies.

> According to published reports, a White House study on pandemic

flu

> envisions a nation overtaken by " social and economic chaos " if the

> bird-flu virus should mutate into an influenza that can be passed

> from human to human and country to country.

>

> Not overlooking practical aspects, The Washington Post says the

> report not only " assumes " as many as 2 million dead in the United

> States alone, but also a 40 percent rate of " workforce

absenteeism. "

> Good heavens! Maybe preparedness demands that we all start staying

> home, oh, let's say, this morning. Just to be on the safe side.

>

> " Fatal Contact " argues persuasively that mass suffering, death

and,

> of course, workforce absenteeism are anything but unimaginable;

after

> all, the producers imagined them and put them on film. ABC then

> irresponsibly slotted the frightening movie at 8, early enough to

> scare the kiddies right out of their wits.

>

> The film opens with a poultry roundup in Guangdong, China. Workers

in

> protective garb destroy dozens of the little cluckers in the hopes

of

> preventing the spread of whatever they've got. From there, the

movie

> hops all over the world, with stops in Hong Kong, New York,

> Washington, Atlanta and Angola -- except that all those places are

> really either New Zealand or Australia, where " Fatal " was filmed.

>

> In Richmond, a husband returning from a trip abroad hugs his wife.

Uh-

> oh! Shouldn't-a done that! He's spreading a germ that we've seen

> travel via everything from handshake to cough to smooch to martini

> olive -- all these contacts and many others eventually arranged

into

> a checkerboard screen filled with very infectious images.

>

> The poor chap in Richmond, unaware he's ill, goes to his son's

Little

> League game and shakes hands with a friend. He might as well have

> shot the guy in the head, at least according to the movie's

depiction

> of the flu's contagiousness. And as the illness spreads, so do

> rioting, looting, panic and hysteria.

>

> At least it won't be dull.

>

> Every movie about a medical crisis has to have a medical hero --

if

> possible, a superwoman in a white smock and stern spectacles who

> tries to straighten out all the misguided, mixed-up men. In " Fatal

> Contact " it's y ( " Nip/Tuck " ) as Dr. Iris Varnack,

an

> official of the Epidemic Intelligence Service. She logs many a

mile

> chasing chicken flu and arguing with those so blind (not

literally)

> they cannot see -- mostly other medical authorities and pesky

> politicians.

>

> Singled out as particularly wrongheaded is Mike Newsome, the

> (fictitious) governor of Virginia, played with stern stubbornness

by

> Cohen. Newsome decides that the best prevention is to

> quarantine everybody in the state, and he rushes his own family

and

> staff to a germ-proof shelter. It's important, he explains, that

> there be " continuity of leadership " if the outbreak reaches the

> pandemic level.

>

> One can see his point. Heaven knows people wouldn't know what to

do

> without bureaucrats to guide them.

>

> Later, when a vaccine is finally developed, those in charge decide

> that " essential medical personnel " should be first to get it -- in

> other words, them. That's somewhat reminiscent of the bureaucrats

in

> Stanley Kubrick's " Dr. Strangelove, " who decide it would be best

for

> the country if they all took refuge in an underground shelter

stocked

> with wine and women, if not song, and wait out the nuclear war

raging

> above.

>

> Plagues, of course, are not something to be made light of, but the

> movie is so brutally relentless in depicting the effects of the

> disease -- replete with shots of mass graves, blood-soaked human

> organs and " CSI''-like close-ups of germs -- that it becomes more

> numbing than alarming. It's a cautionary tale with no

recommendations

> on what precautions to take.

>

> There's no time to develop any of the characters. Dr. Varnack

marches

> around issuing warnings, advice and recommendations but doesn't

seem

> to have a life. The mutated virus, H5 in the film, is compared to

the

> Spanish Flu of 1918, believed responsible for up to 100 million

> deaths. As the movie ends (semi-spoiler alert), there's nary a

peep

> of hope in sight.

>

> " Fatal Contact, " written by Ron McGee and directed by

Pearce,

> is horrific but dubiously useful. And as insensitive as it might

> sound, the death tolls and harrowing developments begin to seem

> repetitious and prosaic. Then there are the less-than-hideous side

> effects, like a raging coffee shortage in New York. The horror,

the

> horror!

>

> For reasons not made clear but covered by the term " chaos, "

looters

> grow violent, and teams of hooligans set trucks on fire. Society

is

> breaking down, people are behaving like animals and gas is

probably

> up to 100 bucks a gallon.

>

> Despite the seeming urgency of the subject matter, I think I'd

skip

> the movie if I hadn't already seen it -- maybe opting to wait for

the

> Broadway musical.

>

> So this is how the world ends -- not with a bang or a whimper, but

a

> bluck-bluck-bluck. Thank goodness Colonel didn't live to

see

> it.

> Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America (two hours) airs tonight at 8

on

> Channel 7.

> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

> dyn/content/article/2006/05/08/AR2006050801699.html

>

May 10, 2006

I agree with you. Here are a few of my observations about the movie:

The hospital personell were extremely reckless in their casual

approach to protection. They often were interacting with a sick

population and not wearing any masks or gloves. Or when they did

wear masks, they were usually the almost useless surgical masks and

not the N95s that they should have been wearing.

The general population, if Hong Kong during the SARS scare is any

indication, would have figured out very soon that it was life

threatening to go outside without face protection, yet in the movie,

there was very little of that.

The statement that it would take 4-5 months to develop a vaccine for

the new influenza virus was optimistic by at least 1-2 months

according to everything I have read.

The idea that France would be able to develop a vaccine on short

notice is unrealistic and the idea that they would prevent anyone

else from licensing it or even using it without license fee in the

face of a horrific pandemic is also not realistic.

The social chaos was not realistic in my opinion. Some people are

saying that it was not realistic because they think it was too

chaotic. I say it was unrealistic because it was too reserved.

When the stores are all empty of food for weeks on end as they

realistically were in this movie, people will riot, loot, invade

homes, do whatever they have to do to get food. Gangs will roam.

The few remaining police and national guardsmen who haven't died or

gone AWOL will be easily overrun and outgunned. The scene where

starving people were waiting patiently for a distribution center to

open is fantasy. If it were known that there was food to be had,

the strongest and best armed gangs would not wait for the store to

open and would soon afterward be loading their trucks at the back

door. Same thing for Tamiflu distribution centers. Supply trucks

would not run at all unless they had a military escort because they

would not be able to escape highway robbers. And since this would

be happening in every city and state in the country simultaneously,

there would be few if any military escorts available. Food would

not be available for a long time except to those who have it

squirrled away.

The dumping of bodies into mass graves was somewhat realistic. If

you read the HHR response to the movie, they really hedge on this

point and say that they don't yet know what they will do, check back

later, but probably not mass graves. But the British flu

contingency plan that was leaked contains just this solution to the

problem of millions of dead people. It is an emotional hot button

that they don't want to expose. But there won't be much way around

it, except to leave the bodies rotting where they die, which is also

going to happen some places. Try to imagine a city govenment with a

severely reduced work force ordering crews to go out and collect a

few hundred thousand rotting infected bodies and dispose of them.

Crews with no access to food or medication and with families that

are dead and dying. Good luck.

The final scene in the movie was not realistic from what I

understand. While it is true that pandemic influenza usually comes

back in several waves, often with a more virulent strain in one or

more of the waves, it is very unlikely that a strain would develop

that is 100% fatal. Not impossible, but not likely either.

So, it was a scary movie, but not as scary as the reality could turn

out to be, in my opinion. Unfortunately, no one knows what the

actual likelihood of a worst case scenario is. And this certainly

wasn't the worst case.

I was a little surprised at Dr. Fauci's statement on

Nightline last night when he said that a virus that had gone H2H

wouldn't spread that fast initially and that there probably would be

time to contain it or prepare for it. Influenza can be highly

contagious and can and has spread extremely rapidly. Fauci is a

molecular biologist and not an epidimiologist, but he is the

director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious

Diseases, so who am I to argue with those credentials. I hope he is

right.

> >

> > ABC Spreads The Germ of A Disturbing 'Bird Flu'

> > By Tom Shales, Washington Post Staff Writer

> > Tuesday, May 9, 2006; C01

> > ABC's " Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America " is just what the

doctor

> > ordered -- Dr. enstein, that is. Who else would find it

> > entertaining to watch 25 million people drop dead as the result

of

> a

> > fanciful worldwide plague?

> >

> > No one can say the film, airing tonight on Channel 7, isn't

> topical.

> > The producers hired a big-time expert on monstrous disease to

make

> > sure its vision of a global nightmare is plausible. A disclaimer

> > notes, " This film is a fictional examination of the

> question, 'What

> > if?,' " but the docudrama style carries an aura of awful, if not

> > awesome, authority.

> >

> > It's a question that isn't just being asked by alarmist TV

movies.

> > According to published reports, a White House study on pandemic

> flu

> > envisions a nation overtaken by " social and economic chaos " if

the

> > bird-flu virus should mutate into an influenza that can be

passed

> > from human to human and country to country.

> >

> > Not overlooking practical aspects, The Washington Post says the

> > report not only " assumes " as many as 2 million dead in the

United

> > States alone, but also a 40 percent rate of " workforce

> absenteeism. "

> > Good heavens! Maybe preparedness demands that we all start

staying

> > home, oh, let's say, this morning. Just to be on the safe side.

> >

> > " Fatal Contact " argues persuasively that mass suffering, death

> and,

> > of course, workforce absenteeism are anything but unimaginable;

> after

> > all, the producers imagined them and put them on film. ABC then

> > irresponsibly slotted the frightening movie at 8, early enough

to

> > scare the kiddies right out of their wits.

> >

> > The film opens with a poultry roundup in Guangdong, China.

Workers

> in

> > protective garb destroy dozens of the little cluckers in the

hopes

> of

> > preventing the spread of whatever they've got. From there, the

> movie

> > hops all over the world, with stops in Hong Kong, New York,

> > Washington, Atlanta and Angola -- except that all those places

are

> > really either New Zealand or Australia, where " Fatal " was filmed.

> >

> > In Richmond, a husband returning from a trip abroad hugs his

wife.

> Uh-

> > oh! Shouldn't-a done that! He's spreading a germ that we've seen

> > travel via everything from handshake to cough to smooch to

martini

> > olive -- all these contacts and many others eventually arranged

> into

> > a checkerboard screen filled with very infectious images.

> >

> > The poor chap in Richmond, unaware he's ill, goes to his son's

> Little

> > League game and shakes hands with a friend. He might as well

have

> > shot the guy in the head, at least according to the movie's

> depiction

> > of the flu's contagiousness. And as the illness spreads, so do

> > rioting, looting, panic and hysteria.

> >

> > At least it won't be dull.

> >

> > Every movie about a medical crisis has to have a medical hero --

> if

> > possible, a superwoman in a white smock and stern spectacles who

> > tries to straighten out all the misguided, mixed-up men.

In " Fatal

> > Contact " it's y ( " Nip/Tuck " ) as Dr. Iris Varnack,

> an

> > official of the Epidemic Intelligence Service. She logs many a

> mile

> > chasing chicken flu and arguing with those so blind (not

> literally)

> > they cannot see -- mostly other medical authorities and pesky

> > politicians.

> >

> > Singled out as particularly wrongheaded is Mike Newsome, the

> > (fictitious) governor of Virginia, played with stern

stubbornness

> by

> > Cohen. Newsome decides that the best prevention is to

> > quarantine everybody in the state, and he rushes his own family

> and

> > staff to a germ-proof shelter. It's important, he explains, that

> > there be " continuity of leadership " if the outbreak reaches the

> > pandemic level.

> >

> > One can see his point. Heaven knows people wouldn't know what to

> do

> > without bureaucrats to guide them.

> >

> > Later, when a vaccine is finally developed, those in charge

decide

> > that " essential medical personnel " should be first to get it --

in

> > other words, them. That's somewhat reminiscent of the

bureaucrats

> in

> > Stanley Kubrick's " Dr. Strangelove, " who decide it would be best

> for

> > the country if they all took refuge in an underground shelter

> stocked

> > with wine and women, if not song, and wait out the nuclear war

> raging

> > above.

> >

> > Plagues, of course, are not something to be made light of, but

the

> > movie is so brutally relentless in depicting the effects of the

> > disease -- replete with shots of mass graves, blood-soaked human

> > organs and " CSI''-like close-ups of germs -- that it becomes

more

> > numbing than alarming. It's a cautionary tale with no

> recommendations

> > on what precautions to take.

> >

> > There's no time to develop any of the characters. Dr. Varnack

> marches

> > around issuing warnings, advice and recommendations but doesn't

> seem

> > to have a life. The mutated virus, H5 in the film, is compared

to

> the

> > Spanish Flu of 1918, believed responsible for up to 100 million

> > deaths. As the movie ends (semi-spoiler alert), there's nary a

> peep

> > of hope in sight.

> >

> > " Fatal Contact, " written by Ron McGee and directed by

> Pearce,

> > is horrific but dubiously useful. And as insensitive as it might

> > sound, the death tolls and harrowing developments begin to seem

> > repetitious and prosaic. Then there are the less-than-hideous

side

> > effects, like a raging coffee shortage in New York. The horror,

> the

> > horror!

> >

> > For reasons not made clear but covered by the term " chaos, "

> looters

> > grow violent, and teams of hooligans set trucks on fire. Society

> is

> > breaking down, people are behaving like animals and gas is

> probably

> > up to 100 bucks a gallon.

> >

> > Despite the seeming urgency of the subject matter, I think I'd

> skip

> > the movie if I hadn't already seen it -- maybe opting to wait

for

> the

> > Broadway musical.

> >

> > So this is how the world ends -- not with a bang or a whimper,

but

> a

> > bluck-bluck-bluck. Thank goodness Colonel didn't live to

> see

> > it.

> > Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America (two hours) airs tonight at 8

> on

> > Channel 7.

> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

> > dyn/content/article/2006/05/08/AR2006050801699.html

> >

>

May 10, 2006

Greetings,

If you hear that the movie is going to be re-broadcast, please post the

time and date. Thanks!

May 10, 2006

Greetings Don,

great posting and very good observations. There were lots of such

little errors in the movie.

As far as Fauci is concerned, he is certainly an expert as far as

Bird Flu is concerned and I very much appreciate and value his

statements. He does however tend to hold back on " scary " statements.

Not sure if he really doesn't realize how fast influenza can spread

or if he just doesn't like to " rock the boat " . I like to think he

prefers to keep a low profile in those matters.