Henry Niman has made quite a lot of bother about the Avian Flu in the last year at his site Recombinomics.  It is still unclear whether he has a better handle on the future of the virus than does the WHO, the CDC, the FAO, and the UN, in part because he has yet to publish anything in a peer reviewed article.  But it is clear some folks are getting touchy about Niman's vocal assertions of doom -- here is a blog entry rebutting some of Niman's claims, and otherwise taking him to task for his behavior.  There's more, for those interested in this sort of thing, at drmartinwilliams.com.

UPDATE (24 October 2005):  Here is a previous post of mine that includes an attempt to figure out whether Niman has interesting or useful contributions to the Avian Flu problem, and a post attempting to sort out the difference, if any, between recombination and reassortment.  Also an early commentary on how little data we have about what evolutionary mechanisms result in pandemic flu strains.

UPDATE (1 November 2005):  Here is a post illustrating the gap between Niman's claims and conclusions based on sequencing data from the World Health Organization.