>>suggested starting with hearings so that Members of Congress and the nation can understand the full scale of the threat.<<

This would be a good start.  The threat of an avian flu pandemic dwarfs the current concerns over terrorism.  Bioterrorism, natural or engineered, is a significant concern and recent sequences of 2004 isolates from swine in South Korea identify a common human H1N1 laboratory virus (WSN/33) mixed via recombination and reassortment with a prevelent Korean avian H9N2 strain.  The human strain from pigs is also closely related the 1918 pandemic virus.  Two of these viruses are H1N1, but have not been isolated since 1933.  Thus, they would be capable of infecting humans.

Humans born after 1933 may have little immunity to these viruses, which have 7 human genes and 1 avian gene.