Oops, Have We Been Sensationalizing?

Just what the paranoia-driven media feared:

A study suggests that most people exposed to avian flu do not become seriously ill and recover in a few days, even as a surge in suspected human bird-flu cases is raising alarm in Turkey.

The Swedish study, published yesterday in Archives of Internal Medicine, said a survey of Vietnamese showed that most people who handled dead or sick poultry reported mild flulike symptoms but did not have the severe reaction health officials said could sweep the globe.

Well, good news for us non-journalists, anyway.

Oh, wait! The study's subjects weren't tested for the H5N1 avian flu virus; they just showed the symptoms.

The Swedish researchers studied a population in a rural province of Vietnam, the Asian country with the largest number of confirmed human cases (93) and deaths (42) from avian flu. Vietnam also is one of 16 nations in which the H5N1 strain has ravaged poultry flocks.

Out of a random sample of nearly 45,500 residents in Ha Tay province near Hanoi, the researchers found 8,149 persons who reported flulike symptoms. Most described the symptoms as mild.

I guess we can go back to being scared.