US MOVIE ABOUT BIRD FLU PANDEMIC SHOWS FUNERAL PYRES OF HUMAN CORPSES, NEIGHBOURHOODS QUARANTINED WITH RAZOR WIRE, TENS OF MILLIONS DEAD

From The Mercury News : "Bodies piling up so quickly it takes dump trucks to haul them away. Barbed wire to keep whole neighborhoods quarantined. It's Hollywood's version of bird flu, a blur of fact and fiction that some scientists say could confuse the public.

"'Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America,' an ABC made-for-television movie, airs May 9, just as scientists are to begin testing of wild birds in Alaska that could herald the arrival of bird flu in North America. Scientists fear the bird flu virus could evolve so it could be passed from human to human, sparking a global pandemic.

"The two-hour movie plays up that notion to the fullest, with a running ticker that tallies tens of millions of victims worldwide. In one scene, the bodies are thrown on a pyre, like the carcasses of cows torched in the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Great Britain.

"Bird flu expert Michael Osterholm said the movie realistically portrays the shortages of goods and services, and some of the ensuing panic, that could occur in a pandemic.

"But Osterholm frets the blurring of information and entertainment could do the public a disservice....He singled out for criticism how the movie shows Virginia officials using barbed wire to fence off and quarantine entire neighborhoods.

"Dr. Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program office, praised the movie's timeliness in raising public awareness of bird flu, as well as its portrayal of 'a number of potentially realistic scenarios.'

"Those include the limited availability of antiviral medicines in a pandemic, the months it could take to develop an effective vaccine and in turn how the United States could be dependent on other countries - yes, that means France - to provide vaccine. The movie's stressing of the importance of planning also won kudos from the department.

Said one of the movie's producers : "There's a lot of science in the movie about why this would be scary if this were to arrive. Unfortunately, in our scenario, it is too late to stop the spread and that is what is being predicted by scientists if this were to occur."