Panic Watch!

Long before the financial crisis, even before the Iraq War, Americans fixated on the possibility of an avian flu pandemic. We were rattled at the prospect of a disease that quite literally fell out of the sky, and against which we had no defense. Bleak visions of global infection and plague-level fatality rates darkened the news reports.

Bird flu fear swept the nation like a fad. And, as with any trend, our attention flickered on and then off again. It's been more than two years now since avian flu last made national headlines, and we need to ask: What has evaporated—the threat, or our awareness of it?