video at the site
Flashback: Senator Obama rips Bush for being unprepared for avian flu epidemic
posted at 2:41 pm on October 2, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
A nice catch from our friends at
Grabien, who
got it from Ace [
update] and who had to go all the way back to 2005 to find this nugget and the contemporaneous coverage at the NYT. At the time, the US prepared for a predicted epidemic of the avian flu, also known as H5N1, of global proportions. The virus had been identified for 18 years by that time, but by the end of 2004 had only resulted in 36 deaths and 50 known cases over the prior two years,
according to WHO data. In 2005, the number of cases would jump to 98 and deaths to 43, and the prevention of a pandemic became a high priority. At that time, then-Senator Barack Obama scolded the Bush administration on the Senate floor, and
quarterbacked a protest letter from his fellow Democrats over the slow response and lack of preparedness by the White House:
Flashback Senator Obama rips Bush for being unprepared for avian flu epidemic Hot Air