In the president's request for $7.1 billion to prepare the U.S. for a flu pandemic, one senses his desire not to be blamed--as he was following Hurricane Katrina--for events largely beyond his control.

In the president's request for $7.1 billion to prepare the U.S. for a flu pandemic, one senses his desire not to be blamed-as he was following Hurricane Katrina--for events largely beyond his control. But the truth is that no political leader can do much to stop avian flu--which, so far, has killed fewer than 100 people--from mutating into a form easily transmissible among human beings. The good news is that, if that happened, the existence of modern medicine would probably prevent a pandemic as deadly as the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed 25 to 50 million people worldwide. The bad news is that the Bush proposal wouldn't be of much help: It would stockpile an existing vaccine against bird flu, but, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health, the vaccine would be unlikely to stop a mutated, pandemic-causing virus. The antiviral drugs Bush wants to buy might be useful, but not in the relatively small quantities his plan calls for--and buying them in sufficiently large quantities would be extremely costly, even if adequate supplies were available. What we can do is ensure the health of the vaccine industry. To this end, Bush's plan would heighten liability protections for drag manufacturers. A good first step, but we should do more, expediting vaccine licensing and speeding up the approval process for novel vaccine-production techniques. Whatever we do, we should begin by frankly acknowledging our limitations.