CDC to monitor children's flu complications: "Children's Medical Center in Dallas has seen more than 500 kids with the flu since October. One day last week, two dozen more appeared, most with enough lung disease to be put on ventilators, said Dr. Jane Siegel. "

Gosh, this is so scary. I think people tend to forget how truly dangerous influenza is, how dangerous it has always been. A report on All Things Considered last night predicted a possible flu pandemic in the near future, similar to the pandemic earlier last century, in 1918, where a good percentage of the world's population had the flu, and millions died. From the CDC:

The Spanish Influenza pandemic is the catastrophe against which all modern pandemics are measured. It is estimated that approximately 20 to 40 percent of the worldwide population became ill and that over 20 million people died. Between September 1918 and April 1919, approximately 500,000 deaths from the flu occurred in the U.S. alone. Many people died from this very quickly. Some people who felt well in the morning became sick by noon, and were dead by nightfall. Those who did not succumb to the disease within the first few days often died of complications from the flu (such as pneumonia) caused by bacteria.

That's not to say that millions of people would die in this day and age - medicine has advanced quite a bit in almost one hundred years - but it still gives one pause, doesn't it?