Salon.com > A.J. Daulerio http://www.salon.com Mon, 28 May 2012 00:30:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Betting on bird flu http://www.salon.com/2005/12/13/birdflu/ http://www.salon.com/2005/12/13/birdflu/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2005 11:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2005/12/13/birdflu On Nov. 1, Intrade, a Web site that allows people to bet on the likelihood of future events, issued a press release titled "Trading on Bird Flu -- 65% probability of U.S. case by March 2006!" The release announced that the trading activity on the exchange's bird flu contracts -- offering savvy "investors" a chance to gamble on when the first strain of the deadly H5N1 will be confirmed in the United States -- had doubled in the last month. The report, put out by Intrade P.R. executive Mike Knesevitch, ended with an ominous, sobering claim:

"Can these markets give us insight into global events like pandemics, hurricanes and politics? In the short history Intrade has put together, the answer is YES."

If these predictive markets are as startlingly accurate as they say, this spring the U.S. will get its first case of bird flu and some of us may die.

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