The big current excuse for Premises ID and the USDA’s proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is that wild birds were going to migrate over the poles, bring Avian Influenza (H5N1) to Alaska and then down the west coast of the United States. The scenerio presented by experts was that then it would come eastward to all the other state and infect our backyard flocks who would then kill off millions of people in the United States.
There are a few problems with this.
- Chickens are terminal hosts to bird flu. It isn’t normally transmissible to humans. Sure, if you suck the blood out of your fighting cock’s throat you may get H5N1. If you eat raw ducks blood soup you may get H5N1. If you play soccer with infected chicken heads you may get H5N1. But otherwise the odds of you getting bird flu from a chicken are extremely remote.
- If we are supposed to worry about migratory wild birds carrying bird flu then why isn’t the US government warning us about our cats?!? Cats catch birds and eat them. Cats are highly suseptible to H5N1. Cats mutate the virus in their mammal bodies. Cats then return to their human families, lick them, scratch them, breath on them, cough on them, etc. This transmits the mutated form of High Pathenogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) virus to humans who can then run around spreading it to each other. Pussy is more dangerous than chicks. But for some reason this isn’t what the government is focusing on. It makes you wonder if all this fear of the Bird Flu has anything to do with science.
- The migratory birds aren’t carrying bird flu according to a recent report. Oops. So the excuse of wild migratory birds bringing bird flu to our chickens is like a screen door on a submarine - full of holes and not that useful.
- The path of transmission of H5N1 from country to country appears to have more to do with the smuggling of exotic birds and trafficing in poultry products from factory farms according to this GRAIN article.
This sounds rather like the Y2K scare. Sure, it is a very good idea to have your pantry stocked up and be always ready for a disaster, after all, an ice storm, hurricane, flood or earthquake could come. But, we don’t need to be all in a panic. We don’t need to be wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on Premises ID and NAIS. We don’t need to be scare mongering the public like with ABC’s Bird Flu drama. We don’t need to be vilifying farmers and backyard chickens as “walking pandemics” in the words of Vermont’s Agriculture Secretary Steve Kerr.
Curbs in the international transport of chicken parts, poultry and manures from factory farms are what our government should be looking at if they want to solve the bird flu “crisis”. Factory farms use mono-genetic flocks in concentrated, crowded, confinement conditions that are the ideal breeding grounds for new and dangerous mutations of H5N1. Backyard poultry are genetically diverse and geographically dispersed. Grandma’s egg hen is not a threat to society. The real threat is Big Agri-Corps that spread disease, decimate local economies, pollute our environment, breed new strains of disease and waste petrolium with their intensive protien factories and long supply lines.
It is time the government sat back and took a break from all this science fiction. I enjoy a good novel as much as anybody but the government’s reaction is getting absurd. NAIS need to all be dumped for the boondoggle they were. Lets stop pouring money, time and efford down this blackhole. Time to get back to traditional farming.
I read this headline from the USDA food safety and inspection services site a while back and figured NOW I know how they can predict the timeline…
China Added to List of Countries Eligible to Export Processed Poultry to the U.S.
Comment Kathleena — May 11, 2006 @ 12:39 pm
WOW! What a MUST read… the article in grain magazine that you provided a link to above!!! I hear Duck’s Unlimited is going to start discussing the bird flu issue and how it may impact them. I just forwarded the article to one of their member officers. Thanks again for providing it.
Comment Valerie — May 11, 2006 @ 1:34 pm
In “The scenario presented buy experts”, who is the expert? I apparently missed quite a movie! I have been following the bird flu for years now but my source has been the CDC and WHO. Spreading from bird to bird is much less likely than spreading from person to person here in the USA. The theory has always been the virus could mutate in Asia and then spread from person to person. That is how an influenza pandemic occurs; reference link.
Where did this come from all of a sudden? The answer appears to be Hollywood! Read this link write up about the movie. From this write up:
“Bird flu expert Michael Osterholm … said “This is too far important an issue to create further confusion in the public’s mind,” said Osterholm, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “
Apparently what little expert advice the producer received was ignored when creating this movie. I am very glad I missed it.
It looks like the movie producer did reality Hollywood style and from what I am hearing they have indeed caused confusion about the bird flu which is a real danger but not the way this movie depicts it.
Please don’t underestimate an Influenza pandemic but also recognize that for the USA the real threat will be in the form of infected people. Not finding the flu in migratory birds is great news but in no way diminishes the threat that the bird flu has to offer. It is truly unpredictable and very deadly. The fact that the USDA or anyone else would capitalize on a pandemic threat is deceitful.
As far as cats go, here are two sites with information:
link
link
Don’t worry Walter the USDA will include tracking cats; it is just a matter of time!
[I don’t have TV so I didn’t see ABC’s fictional account of Bird Flu. Sounds like Sci-Fi with very little science. To bad it is being used for propaganda. By the way, if you would like to read a good book about a viral pandemic read Greg Bear’s book Darwin’s Radio. The virus is completely different than Avian Influenza but the government’s reaction is scarily close to what our government is doing. Good by Democracy, hello fascism! -WJ]
Comment Melanie Petren — May 11, 2006 @ 2:32 pm
Very good article Walter…
I say: “Sick birds don’t “fly” very far…
If they are known “not”to be sick, then this is just”fear mongering.” If the birds are sick, they are not going to move very far, so the illness will remain concentrated to an area, until treated.
People, may be the problem, by being a carrier of illness, via national and international transportation, like airlines, where symptoms can pass amoung people very quickly.
I suggest Johanns, take his “chips” and stick them up an airplane’s back side, to track the real threat, not my one horse whom I take perfect care of, without USDA.inc help or ID control.
Dean Ayers
Glenwood, Iowa
IOWANS AGAINST NAIS
Comment DeanAFOSI (IOWA) — May 11, 2006 @ 4:46 pm
There is the concern of birds being carriers but not actually sick. Fortunately, in this case they are neither.
Comment walterj — May 17, 2006 @ 1:17 pm