If Michael Specter’s February story on avian flu and the accompanying online Q. & A. scared the feathers off you, Lawrence K. Altman reorts a provisional breakthrough in today’s Times: Avian Flu Vaccine Called Effective in Human Testing. Only thing:

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, said that although the vaccine that had undergone preliminary tests could be used on an emergency basis if a pandemic developed, it would still be several months before that vaccine was tested further and, if licensed, offered to the public.

“It’s good news,” Dr. Fauci said. “We have a vaccine.”

But he cautioned: “We don’t have all the vaccine we need to meet the possible demand. The critical issue now is, can we make enough vaccine, given the well-known inability of the vaccine industry to make enough vaccine?”

Say what you will about bake sales and bombers; I’d like to see the amount of money spent worldwide on developing ways to kill and injure people vs. what’s being spent trying to save them. I have no idea how it’d compare. I’m just wondering.

To Create a Vaccine, a Virus is Tweaked, Then Replanted [Altman’s sidebar, NYT]