To the editor:

A recent Journal-World headline read “Feds won’t come to rescue in event of flu pandemic,” regarding the plans of the Bush administration to deal with bird flu. Should such an outbreak occur, 20 million Americans (6 percent) would have access to vaccine, leaving 94 percent of Americans exposed, helpless and without options.

The Bush administration will not shut down borders, eliminate travel, contact or imports from foreign countries where an outbreak has occurred, nor cancel hunting seasons on migratory wild fowl. Rather, the White House would have us avoid shaking hands, stand three feet away from each other (out of the sneeze range), avoid crowds and cancel nonessential travel.

His same government rushes billions of dollars in aid relief to Pakistan earthquake victims and tsunami homeless. Yearly, $17 billion goes to foreign aid, plus another $87 billion goes to fight “terror” abroad. Yet, inexplicably, the administration refuses to address the disaster and destruction this deadly pandemic will surely cause Americans at home.

These actions of a government supposedly of the people, by the people and for the people totally abdicate its mandated responsibility to protect the people. The cold, sober, fundamental message from the federal government to us, its citizenry, is simple: “You are irrelevant.”

All the while, Kansas senators and congressmen stand idly aside in apparent full agreement with the Bush administration’s proposed non-actions. Perhaps it is because they know they will get their vaccine. Perhaps through the upcoming elections, it is time we let them know they, too, are irrelevant.

Curtis D. Bennett,

Lawrence