Eastern Canada and Northeast United States may be reporting the first cases of Bird Flu (Avian Influenza, H5N1) in birds in those areas this spring, some insiders anticipate. Other researchers suggest that it is only a few mutations away from spreading to humans. Who's right and who's wrong?

RealAge Inc., which calls itself the leading source for personalized health and lifestyle information and management tools, will launch its Bird Flu Health Center at www.RealAge.com on Wednesday, March 8, 2006.The RealAge Bird Flu Health Center will provide access to the facts and new findings on the bird flu and help consumers evaluate true data, according to a news release. The site will include validated information on risks, reports, outbreaks, medical breakthroughs, and information on what consumers can do to help protect themselves and their family against a potential avian flu pandemic.

Up-to-date findings by Dr. Axel Goetz, MD, PhD., will be reported in a blog that lives within the RealAge Bird Flu Health Center. This Bird Flu Health Center will put the overabundance and sometimes-contradictory medical and scientific information into context and deliver a real understanding of the information backed by hard science, the news release continues.

The Bird Flu Center will provide insight into the history of flu pandemics, which have happened before and will happen again, and it promises to explain why that is. Many people are unaware that the flu pandemic of 1918-1919 (H1N1) killed between 40 and 100 million people, that is more than World War I, maybe more than AIDS and the Black plague combined. The recent H5N1 bird influenza virus strains threaten to be worse, the news release relays.

“If you read John Barry's The Great Influenza , you'll see why it is so important for people to have a truthful picture of what is going on, and why it can be so hard to get it,” says Axel Goetz, MD, PhD and Chief Science Officer of RealAge. “At this point, we should not be overly alarmed, nor should we feel complacent."