Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Nightmare scenario

If a bird flu pandemic did strike the UK, those to receive protection via Tamiflu would be those most at risk, the chronically ill, the elderly, key workers and... Daily Mail journalists.

Details of the Pandemic Influenza Management Scheme were set out in a letter this week from group employment director Ken Thompson.
He said that scientists believed a flu pandemic was "inevitable" and would lead to "significant and sustained disruption to our businesses."

So reports Hold The Front Page, a journalism website run by, let me see, the Daily Mail. No wonder there's not a great deal of investigation into whether this might be a good idea or not - is a flu pandemic really 'inevitable'? Well, the man from the WHO, he say yes - or does he?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday warned that a pandemic of the bird flu strain lethal to humans is inevitable, and would likely kill between one and seven million people worldwide, Reuters reports.

Mostly the poor and rural, although let's not let that get in the way of a good panic, shall we? And this isn't the Doomsday scenario of a human/avian flu hybrid evil uber-virus, either; this is from a pandemic of just avian flu.

Although you have to have a bit of sympathy for some Mail employees:

The scheme will apply to all journalists at the Daily Mail and its sister titles as well as the Northcliffe Media group of regional daily and weekly titles.

Oh dear. The poor sods at the websites (including HTFP) appear to have been Natalie Wooded and cast adrift. Work for the paper? Yes, we'll save you! Work for the websites? You take your chances, pal!

So if avian flu does mutate and threaten the world, those people most likely to survive are chronically ill people, the public sector, and Daily Mail journalists. Christ, can you imagine the news in the Mail? They'll be apopleptic with fury at all the 'scroungers' still being allowed to be alive - and guess who's paying??!!?! But no doubt there'll be a fury as the threat grows, as to why 'hard-working taxpayers' can't get priority over the poor and black (probably).

One final point:

Further doses of the drug will also be available to close friends and families of DMGT staff members for a payment of £50 per dose.

Is that how much it costs? Or are DMGT going to be making profit out of those employees who are shitting themselves about their family dying from bird flu...?

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