Washington, D.C.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson offered some sobering warnings last week after announcing his resignation from President Bush’s Cabinet. Thompson said Asian bird influenza strains were “a really huge bomb” that could kill 70 million people if they mutated into a flu affecting humans. Thompson also said he worried “every single night” about the potential for terrorists to poison imported food. “For the life of me,” he said, “I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do.” A spokesman said Thompson was just trying to be candid, and that there was no reason for the public to panic.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Selling sex: why investors are wary of OnlyFans despite record profitsIn The Spotlight The platform that revolutionised pornography is for sale – but its value is limited unless it can diversify
-
Garsington Opera opens its summer festival with two 'very different productions'The Week Recommends A 'fabulous' new staging of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades and Donizetti's fake-love-potion comedy L'elisir d'amore
-
The Rehearsal series two: Nathan Fielder's docu-comedy is 'laugh-out-loud funny'The Week Recommends Television's 'great illusionist' has turned his attention to commercial airline safety
