I don’t question that antigenic shift through recombination of Human
and Avian Influenza, possibly in pigs (which have receptors for both)
could
cause a massive and massively fatal epidemic. In fact, I’m certain that
something like that will happen, someday, somewhere. It’s just that it
seems not to be very likely at any given time. And the risk is much
more likely to unwind in a variety of much less dramatic ways, whether
or not the WHO does any of the valid and worthy things they can do to
protect us. A resulting new strain which is “completely novel, unknown
to our immune system” and “efficient at human to human transmission” is
simply less likely than resultant new strains which are partially
novel, and only fair at human-to-human transmission. A strain
which is only fair at transmission and makes some people very sick is
one which finds itself under high pressure to drift away from the
catastrophic and back towards the merely humdrum miserable.

CRIKEY: The full debate is up on the site here.