Arlen Specter Says He Doesn't Trust The Administration's Assessment of Avian Flu

Sustained person-to-person spread of the bird flu or any other super-influenza strain anywhere in the world could prompt the United States to implement travel restrictions or other steps to block a brewing pandemic, say federal plans released Wednesday.

If a super-flu begins spreading here, states and cities will have to ration scarce medications and triage panicked patients to prevent them from overwhelming hospitals and spreading infection inside emergency rooms, the plan says.

It provides long-awaited guidance to the front-line local officials urging them to figure out now how they would prevent that — and to practice their own plans to make sure they'll work.

Pandemics, or worldwide outbreaks, strike when the easy-to-mutate influenza virus shifts to a strain that people have never experienced before, something that happened three times in the last century.

...snip...And Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he doesn't trust the administration's assessment of the nation's health care needs and demanded that Leavitt provide more information about its response to the evolving bird flu.