Yesterday, a Spanish agricultural minister called the threat of the avian flu "science fiction." But the bird flu is spreading, infecting birds in Moscow, humans in Thailand and is expected to erupt in East Africa.

In Europe, they're developing plans on how to deal with a pandemic, including stocking up on vaccinations is the UK.

Which leads to confusion about the threat. Is it a bird flu or a human flu?

The disease is spreading wildly now only among birds. It can leap to humans, occasionally killing them, but it doesn't currently spread among humans.

That could change if, in a random infected person, it mingles and mutates with a human version of influenza that does spread in humans. Only then will it spread and infect us with the same speed and deadliness it now does in birds. The results would be devastating.

That might never happen, as some, like the Spanish minister believe, but it's a question of odds and as the number of infected birds grows the odds get better for that jump to spreading among humans.

An article in today's Washington Post indicates that the most likely place that this will happen is in Indonesia, and that they are not working very hard to prevent it.