Bird flu is something to be aware of and to be concerned about, but I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about something that may or may not happen. NPR did a really good series about bird flu at the beginning of April- they still have the reports posted online if you want to listen to them. One of the stories was about how the bird flu will have a hard time mutating to acquire the ability to jump from human to human. There’s always a chance that this may occur, but at least the chances are slim.
Kathy- apparently the bird flu (or at least strain when it jumps to humans) sometimes causes some kind of autoimmune reaction within the lungs. So people who have a healthy active immune systems are more likely to ’overreact’ to the virus and have this autoimmune reaction which destroys healthy lung tissue and thereby increases chances of mortality.

Oh and here’s the link to the NPR reports:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4949542&sourceCode=gaw

Goodness knows, I’m keeping half an eye on the situation since I work with chickens every day. To tell the truth, I’m more concerned about our birds catching it and ruining our experiments that we have going on that I am of catching it myself!

Martha