A balanced analysis of Bird Flu over at Business Week. Cutting to the chase: very little likelyhood of the disease hitting humans via human to human contact BUT because viruses have the ability to mutate, this COULD be bad. So far NO record of anyone getting it by any other means than contact with infected birds. Now for the scary stuff:

Most experts, however, believe H5N1, if it does end up threatening humans, will probably be quite deadly because of its similarity to the Spanish-flu virus. Also, doctors have noticed that more people are surviving the infection recently than they were when H5N1 was first discovered. That's not necessarily a good thing. It could mean that the virus is mutating into one that is easier to carry -- and spread. Ominously, the Spanish-flu virus, which also started in birds, followed a similar evolutionary path.

This strain, when caught by humans, has been particularly deadly so far; fatality rate is close to 90%. Now, go watch a game. Again, we are talking about lots of IFs here.