It’s hard to turn on the television or listen to the radio without hearing about the dangers of an impending pandemic of the Avian Flu (often called the ‘bird flu’). Day after day, the media interview expert after expert who claim that the bird flu is going to cause massive world-wide illness and death. Fortunately, the ‘bird flu pandemic’ is more of a monster in the media than it is in real life.

While it is true that the 1918 influenza pandemic, which led to the deaths of millions of people, was also a bird flu, there are some things to think about before you spend your money to build a quarantine chamber in your home or purchase a biological contamination suit off of eBay:

• The bird flu is not new. It has been around as long as birds have. There have only been a couple times in recorded history when a mutation in the virus allowed the bird flu to infect humans. In virtually all incidences when human infection did occur, only a few people ever became sick.
• To date, there have been only a tiny handful of cases of human bird flu world-wide, and almost all of them in under-developed countries where sanitation and public health standards are minimal, at best. Even if a hundred thousand people world-wide were to become infected with the bird flu and a third of them were to die, that would still be far fewer than the number of people who are hospitalized or die from adverse drug reactions each year.
• Even in the very unlikely event that the bird flu came to a neighborhood near you, your chances of becoming infected would be very small as long as your immune system was healthy and you took some simple precautions, such as washing your hands throughout the day.

Research has shown that chiropractic care boosts the function of the immune system and helps the body ward off disease. The key to avoiding diseases like the bird flu is to keep your immune system strong through a healthy diet and regular chiropractic care.