Actually not, the reply to the bug report is that this is something that can not be worked around.
It is actually a 'feature', making it possible to perform an action on posts from multiple threads at once, like merging. This will however mean that you will have to pay good attention on what you are doing.
The bug report and the answers:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/bugs3...iew&bugid=1007