and I've been workin' like a dog. But maybe it's worth it: In Kansas, they're finally catching on: Topeka_Editorial_on_Food _Safety and down in Seabrook, my buddy Northstar has an image that may make you think twice about vegan eating. Animal_Parts

I've spent the last many days hanging with some of the most dedicated people in the world -- public health nurses -- doing some of the most soul-shattering work you can imagine: inoculating a population to try to prevent a communicable disease outbreak.

Prevention isn't rocket science. There's a national "scare" right now (Pandemic flu is the next anthrax/WTC attack/ Cole Incident/ Osama tape all rolled into one, with a cherry on top) about bird flu.

There's no vaccine for bird flu. The powers that be, from Washington's Department of Health and Human Services to the World Health Organization to the Centers for Disease Control are, pretty much, in what my mother would have called a tizzy over the notion that a species of influenza virus could mutate from one currently endemic among the world's wildfowl and decimating the world's domestic poultry to one that people can pass among themselves as readily as they do, say, a cold. Or Norovirus, the "cruise ship stomach flu."

Plans for how to deal with this and estimates of its impact on our economy range from the simple to the mindboggling, depending on how much federal funding emphasis the planners have the (dubious) benefit of receiving exposure to lately. Everything from cancelling NFL games to telecommuting is being laid out on paper. If you've read Tom Clancy's "Executive Orders" you'll see one of the "blueprints" being bandied about.

Here's the deal. In about 1913 a flu virus "jumped" from one species (probably swine) to another (people) and by 1918, more than five million persons had died from it. That virus has been recreated in labs for study within the past two years, and one of its nifty effects, technically termed a "cytokine storm", is to turn your body's immune system into a self-targeting ninja horde. It was, and is, the deadliest single disease on record since the flea-borne "Black Plague" that decimated Europe in the days of rats, mice, open sewers and "miasmatic transference."

In the rising tide of theocratic oligarchism sweeping around the globe, it's worth remembering that science exists and has proven some things.

Preventing communicable diseases isn't rocket science.
1. Wash your hands.
2. Stay home when you're sick.
3. Keep your kids home when they're sick.
4. Cough into your shoulder or elbow, not your hands.
5. Wash your hands. Use warm water and soap, or an antibacterial gel.