Public health officials worldwide acknowledge that, as in times past, the world will again be visited by an influenza virus that will wreak havoc on human populations. It is only a matter of time. The untold story of the current threat of the H5N1 strain of avian flu haunting the globe today is in the numbers of people likely to die if this strain goes pandemic. Far from official estimates of two million deaths, simple calculations show the potential for deaths exceeding 41 million in the United States alone.