You might want to make some room under your bed for tuna and powdered milk

Pillow Talk

Have you got plenty of space available under your bed at home? I’m not prying, I’m just asking because you might want to make some room under there for tuna and powdered milk.

Why under the bed? Interesting story

Fly by

If your local grocery store is fresh out of canned tuna fish, don’t be surprised. Last week Mike Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, offered a strategy for coping with severe food shortages that would surely go hand in hand with a bird flu pandemic. As reported by the Associated Press, Secretary Leavitt said: “When you go to the store and buy three cans of tuna fish, buy a fourth and put it under the bed.”

He also suggested that we should buy powdered milk. And store it where? “Put it under the bed. When you do that for a period of four to six months, you are going to have a couple of weeks of food.”

I understand the concept of having some food in reserve, but I don’t get the obsession with under-bed storage. Especially since that’s where I’m storing all my duct tape.

As you may remember, in 2003 the Department of Homeland Security advised us to stock up on duct tape and heavy plastic sheets so we could seal off a “safe room” in the event of biological attack. I still don’t understand how I’m supposed to survive with limited oxygen after I’ve sealed off the room, but I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Duck!

It seems that federal officials have imagined every conceivable plan that might protect us from bird flu. For instance, last week, Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns told ABC News: “There’s no way you can protect the United States by building a big cage around it and preventing wild birds from flying in and out.” I guess computer models showed that wasn’t a workable option.

But I wonder if the federal government has fully pondered the potential health consequences of consuming an extended diet of tuna and powdered milk. I find it less than appetizing to imagine loading up on mercury laced canned tuna, topped off with antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides and bovine growth hormones contained in powdered milk.

Nevertheless, that’s the official emergency diet and HHS is sticking to it. Secretary Leavitt has even set off on a 50-state bird flu tour of the U.S. to discuss emergency preparedness with officials in local governments. And he’ll probably be warmly welcomed everywhere he goes after word gets out that he gave Wyoming (his first stop) more than $600,000 to fund a bird flu pandemic preparedness campaign that will instruct citizens to store cans of tuna under their beds.

Somewhere in here there’s a “chicken of the sea” joke, but a little voice keeps telling me, “Don’t go there.”

Sources:
“Leavitt Urges People, Institutions to Take Precaution Against Flu” Bob Moen, Associated Press, 3/10/06, ap.org
“Ready or Not, Bird Flu is Coming to America” Brian Ross, ABC News, 3/13/06, abcnews.go.com