Feeling Safer Yet?

Heckuva job, Bu$hCo.

"Right now, there are 105,000 ventilators, and even during a regular flu season, about 100,000 are in use. In a worst-case human pandemic, according to the national preparedness plan issued by President Bush in November, the country would need as many as 742,500.

To some experts, the ventilator shortage is the most glaring example of the country's lack of readiness for a pandemic.

'This is a life-or-death issue, and it reflects everything else that's wrong about our pandemic planning,' said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. 'The government puts out a 400-page plan, but we don't have any ventilators and there isn't much chance we're going to get them.'"