In December 2006, the Lancet medical journal estimated that a global H5N1 influenza pandemic could kill over 60 million people
In today's UK Guardian, a letter signed by Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, John Pilger, Walden Bello, Michael Greger, Mike Davis, Caroline Lucas, Green MEP, Gabriel Carlyle, Pandemic Action,
Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Michael Albert, ZNet. Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Nobel peace prize winner and Hans von Sponeck, former UN assistant secretary general warns that "Humanity faces a massive global threat from avian influenza"
and "The world needs: 1) an end to corporate patents that restrict access to critical medicines; 2) urgent funding by the rich world to boost health and surveillance systems in countries most at risk in Asia and Africa; and 3) the elimination of large-scale intensive livestock farming, which is accelerating the development of new pandemic viruses".