Senate approves $8B for bird flu
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate, increasingly concerned with the possibility of a deadly influenza pandemic, on Thursday approved nearly $8 billion to help the government stockpile vaccines and other drugs to fight the disease.
Avian flu, which is widespread among flocks of poultry in Asia and has spread west into parts of Europe, has only infected about 120 people, killing half of them. The deaths were in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.
"What this pandemic could do to us as a people is even more threatening than what a few terrorists could do, even a few terrorists with a nuclear device," said Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who led the drive for the emergency funds.
The measure was attached to a fiscal 2006 funding bill for the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies that the Senate passed by a vote of 94-3. It is not yet clear whether the House of Representatives would provide its needed concurrence for the avian flu
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/28/news/birdflu.reut/