EPIDEMIC PROVISIONS AN INFORMED PUBLIC IS PARAMOUNT.(PERSPECTIVE)

Byline: ROBERT BAKER and WAYNE SHELTON

Later, or perhaps sooner, one will come.

Perhaps this spring the avian flu that has been knocking at our door will become a pandemic, a worldwide super-epidemic like the ``Spanish Flu'' of 1919 that killed between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide -- a half million right here in the United States. Perhaps some terrorist group will send an ``infected martyr'' with some dreaded epidemic disease to our shores.

The only thing that is certain is that we Americans cannot always dodge the bullet the way we did with SARS. Sooner or later, some epidemic will burst through our borders. We will have no choice about letting it in. It will arrive. Will we be prepared?

The public is not prepared. Public officials are …