New research suggests that the source of bird flu may be factory farm chicken feces that are then used as commercial fish food and fertilizer in fields thus exposing humans and other birds to the H5N1 Avian Influenza virus (AI or bird flu). This is thought to explain some of the outbreaks in China as well as the recent cluster of human deaths in Sumatra. Some feel that this may explain the reservoirs of avian flu in the wild - factory farms are infecting wild fish and birds.
Government officials have been warning about the threat of migratory wild birds bringing AI to our shores and using that as an excuse to push the USDA’s proposed complex, costly and ineffectual National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Recent research has shown that migratory wild birds are not spreading the virus as had been originally thought. One of the puzzling aspects of the migratory bird vector had been that the route of AI infection has not followed the migratory bird routes. It appears that perhaps the infection pattern is following the shipping routes for the trade in poultry products from factory farms.
The concern is that the factory farms represent the ideal conditions for breeding mutated forms of High Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) with their crowded, stressed conditions. Previously the large corporate factory farms were blaming backyard poultry for Avian Flu but recent scientific reports point to factory farms as the cause of bird flu.
The spread of industrial poultry production and trade networks has created ideal conditions for the emergence and transmission of lethal viruses like the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Once inside densely populated factory farms, viruses can rapidly become lethal and amplify. Air thick with viral load from infected farms is carried for kilometers, while integrated trade networks spread the disease through many carriers: live birds, day-old-chicks, meat, feathers, hatching eggs, eggs, chicken manure and animal feed.
-Global Research of Canada
Prior to the virus making the jump to humans the bird flu virus may be spreading with the aid of the international trade in poultry and poultry products including manure from factory farms. The virus is able to survive for long periods in the manure allowing it to travel great distances. Factory farm poultry manure is used in fish food at commercial fish farms, in cattle and other commercial animal feeds as well as commercial garden fertilizer that are used by both large scale farming and by consumers. Thus consumers may be unwittingly spreading infected manures on their home gardens. This may represent the most dangerous worldwide vector for avian influenza in it’s current low path non-human infectious form. It is believed that the recent cluster of human deaths in Sumatra were caused by infected factory farm manures because the manure tested positive while the local backyard poultry tested negative for AI. Initial tests for H5N1 in the other livestock were negative but new tests have found anti-bodies to Avian Flu. It is thought that the manure may have caused the infection in the livestock, farmers and their families. This morning two more deaths were reported in this cluster bringing the total to eight human deaths.
Subsequent exposure to consumers, workers and farmers using the contaminated poultry factory farm manures may provide the virus with the opportunity to select for a mutation that is easily transmissible human-to-human. This would then lead to the second vector, migratory humans. Human to human transmission is widely recognized as the most dangerous threat, especially in urban areas where people are stressed and tightly crowed. A much more real threat is likely to be from human travelers who visit foreign countries and bring back AI infections and bringing back via air travel. The incubation time for AI is four days making it unlikely that HPAI H5N1 viral infections would be detected before the traveler returns home.
This raises the question - “Will the US State Department require tagging of all human travelers in addition to the standard vaccinations?” After all, that makes a whole lot more sense than wasting hundreds of millions of dollars tagging the livestock of small farmers and homesteaders. Given that politicians travel so much I somehow doubt they’ll be willing to pass legislation that would inconvenience them, no matter how sensible it may be.
Very nice article, Walter. It ties together a lot of the info on bird flu & factory farms I’ve also been reading. I find it interesting that the more open discussions of the factory farm connection are found mostly on Asian sites, while the US media continues, for the most part, to push the migratory bird theory. (Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with trying to sell us NAIS…) Even the NIGHTLINE follow-up to that awful bird flu disaster movie (”Fatal Contact”) made absolutely NO MENTION of the poultry industry connection. The movie itself showed the usual stereotyped scenes of rounding up backyard flocks in Asia, with one family hiding their cihkcens and, of course, getting sick and being the vector to wipe out half of America. Thank you for publishing the REAL vector for this poultry disease.
Comment rooster-lover — May 19, 2006 @ 7:56 am
Walter: I need your help. I have recently had an exchange with a state official who used the following argument for NAIS and premise id. The official stated;
“Foreign countries such as Japan, EU, India and others (some of our major trade partners for PA livestock products) are restricting imports UNLESS the imports are age and source verified. Additionally, much of the food service and restaurant industry is heading down the age/source verified path, and most importantly consumers are beginning to demand such preference factors.
I repeated my reasons for opposing NAIS, but afterwards it occurred to me that I did not really have a good sounding counter punch for the above mentioned statement.
I mean; if they are going to say “right or wrong, like it or not, we need NAIS to compete in the global market”…then how should we answer that?
If somebody used that argument with you, how would you respond? Thanks.
Comment Neil W. — May 19, 2006 @ 8:56 am
RL, It is an interesting point about the asian media being more open to the fact that factory farms are a source of problem. I have been noticing that too. I don’t know if this is cultural or if there is a top down (conspiracy) pressure by our government and industry (advertisers).
The fact that the USDA pushes NAIS on us while preventing BSE testing and other preventative measures that would have real positive, cost effective results is also an indicator that they are more interested in controlling us than in actual disease prevention. The government has been working hard to earn our trust with propaganda - I trust the government about as far as I can overthrow them. -WJ
Comment walterj — May 19, 2006 @ 9:24 am
That’s what I’ve been saying is the government’s ultimate aim with all of this stuff that’s going on.
They want total control over us and our comings and goings.
Internet records
Phone records
Animal and Premises tracking
Its all leading in one direction and has nothing to do with terrorism or health
Its about CONTROL!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment Faith Graichen — May 19, 2006 @ 9:24 am
Neil, The solution is simple and does not require any government involvement. Apply Occam’s Razor.
For the anonymous wholesale commercial food distribution stream they can have Animal Trace-back as a 100% voluntary, industry provided system. Buyers who demand it (like McDonald’s, Japan, EU, etc) can buy from sellers who provide the service. The buyers should pay those sellers a premium for the service. This is good old capitalism at work. There is no need to make it complicated by involving the government or forcing heavy handed mandatory NAIS regulations on people who do not need source verification.
Our customers have source verifications without NAIS. They can come to our farm and see their meat walking around grazing out in our fields any day of the week. Their dinner is bred, born and raised on our pastures. There is no need to waste money and time having the government involved. Our customers buy from us because they want to. We only sell locally. We and our customers don’t need NAIS.
Likewise, homesteaders raising their own meat for consumption by their family and friends do not need NAIS either. NAIS represents a hidden tax on food for these people, many of whom are rural poor. NAIS creates a system that profits the richest corporations while placing the burden on our poorest folk.
NAIS offers no benefit to small farmers selling direct, to local buyers, to homesteaders and pet livestock owners. NAIS is not about disease, it is about profits for the big meat exporters and corporations like McDonald’s that don’t want to have to pay a premium to get source verification. NAIS should be have a 100% voluntary, industry controlled program.
-WalterJ
Comment walterj — May 19, 2006 @ 9:35 am
Not too long ago on the maine no nais list somebody posted an article about officials planning on composting the birds that fell to ethnic cleansing right in their barns.
Now I know proper composting kills a lot of germs but I found that article disturbing. Have to dig around and see if I can find it again.
Comment Sue F — May 19, 2006 @ 12:28 pm
MN Constitution Party has their convention this weekend. I am providing a flyer on this topic and I hope that most people will already be well informed…
We’ll see.
Comment LuAnn — May 19, 2006 @ 1:06 pm
I can see some of the congressmen’s stance on the NIAS issue on the right side of my screen but do not know how my congressmen stand on this issue. Is there a list somewhere for ALL of them? Our Iowa folks do not include that information in their web sites. Thanks for all the information you share.
Comment Deanna J — May 19, 2006 @ 2:02 pm
Thank you Walter for your answer to my question. I know that you have been involved with opposing NAIS for a long time. I suspect that perhaps at times you get tired of having to repeat the same information over and over again.
Please try and remember that each day, there are new people coming on board. And often these people, such as myself, need to ask the same questions that have been asked and answered before.
We are all very glad to have you and your web site available for quick answers to our questions. Things are happening fast. Many of us are finding that public officials are becoming aware of the grassroots opposition to NAIS, and they are making themselves more available for public input.
Your web site provides us with talking points that we can use when we actually get to speak with public officials. And, I am finding in recent days, that more and more of these people are willing to listen to our objections to the NAIS three phase program.
Unlike a fascist government that would do everything in its power to put an end to opposition to a government program, I am finding that more and more elected and non-elected officials are bending over backwards to listen to my concerns. And I rely on the information presented on your web site when I speak to these people.
And…they are starting to listen. God bless the USA!
Comment Neil W. — May 19, 2006 @ 2:16 pm
Deanna, I don’t know of any list of positions for all candidates and legislators. One of my ‘projects in the wings’ is to make a guide that lists all of them. I will need a lot of help from readers. Start by contacting your legislators. Tell them how you feel about NAIS. Ask them for their position. Ideally in writing. Email is good. Paper mail and fax okay. If you get email then please send me a copy of the email with full headers and I can add them to my Naughty & Nice lists. If it is fax or paper mail then you can send them to the postal address: Walter Jeffries, NoNAIS, West Topsham, VT 05086
Comment walterj — May 19, 2006 @ 3:19 pm
Dear Walter,
An excellent article. But, please don’t even suggest chipping or tagging humans (not even politicians) hard as it is to keep up with them. That would be just one more government intrusion. We don’t want or need it. Thanks so much for all you do to help protect and inform the public.
Comment Fran Wooden — May 19, 2006 @ 5:58 pm
Fran, they are already planning to chip you. It is called REAL ID. They want to put RFID chips in your wallet and passport and then require you to carry them everywhere for bank or government transactions. This effectively tags you. -WJ
Comment walterj — May 19, 2006 @ 6:52 pm
Hi Neil W,
I have been thinking about your question this rainy afternoon and I think I have some suggestions for you.
There are some questions we are better off not trying to answer or argue over. The legitimacy of an animal tracking program to satisfy our current or future trading partners is one of those. I believe the response is that the government, at any level, has no business developing and implementing such a program. That is the business of the interested industries, their customers and the consumers of the product. It is unacceptable for the government to use taxpayer dollars for the purpose of promoting any industry.
Another way to answer, and much more importantly, is the fact that American citizens’ privacy and personal freedom is more valuable than any business sector, any global trading partner, any amount of money,any degree of safety supposedly gained by the registration, tracking and surveillance of our real property and personal possessions. There is nothing more sacred to us, as Americans, than our constitutional freedoms. Our elected representative are supposed to know that. Those who don’t, or who choose to ignore the value of our freedoms over all else, must be replaced with those who do.
The animal identification program, health care system, beliefs about the right for citizens to keep and bear arms, or any other program or policy in any other country that does not have our Bill of Rights, our Constitutional freedoms, is irrelevant.
I urge you to not be afraid to confront any elected official who even suggests our individual freedom is for sale on the world market. It is they who either do not understand what is most important, or for reasons of their own, have chosen to turn away from their sworn duty.
Comment Paul Horton — May 19, 2006 @ 6:58 pm
Paul,EXCELLENT! Well said!
Comment LEE — May 20, 2006 @ 8:53 am
So if i under stand this all right the flue gets into the factory farms and then it turns into a bad form that is more dangorous and then the manure gets used on farms and sold in garden stores to gardenors who then put it on there gardens and they some how get the flue to from the infecuted chicken manure from the factory farms and then they get sick and that is mutating to a kind of virus that can be passed between people? Yuk!!!!! Is that fertilizor sold around here or is that just happenning in indonesia and china and places like that?
Comment PV — May 20, 2006 @ 12:25 pm
PV,
Yes, that is essentially correct.
It is looking like the migratory birds are not the culprit. Rather it is the international trade in poultry products, including garden fertilizer and animal feed made from the manure of factory farm chickens which may be spreading Avian Flu.
That is the thinking of some people at this time. Nothing has been proved out clearly yet. They might be able to prove it using a DNA tracking, like a paternity test, on the virus found in the manures.
Tune in next year for more details.
Until then you may want to avoid fertilizer and other products that originated in factory farms, especially from factory farms in countries with Avian Influenza (H5N1) infections.
I have been inside factory farms and personally would avoid anything that came out of them…
Cheers,
-WalterJ
Comment walterj — May 20, 2006 @ 1:52 pm
Yup, poop, check out this report by an ortinthologist professor, about the spread of H5N1 and “integrated fish farming”. Yes, aqua culture. Evidently the FAO has been encouraging it in Asia.
Mar 06
link
Comment AE — May 20, 2006 @ 10:56 pm
Those who don’t, or who choose to ignore the value of our freedoms over all else, must be replaced with those who do.
thankyou paul horton
run for office
throw the bumbs out
walter is kept hopping
what’s time to a pig????
Comment sid sargent — May 21, 2006 @ 11:26 am
sorry walter
it’s a complement
without this website
i would be even crazier
than i already am
thanks brother’
sid
Comment sid sargent — May 21, 2006 @ 11:29 am
This only backs up what we experience here in our area where we have lots of commercial chicken houses in operation. It’s not the backyard free-range chickens that are getting sick - it’s the commercial flocks that get sick and die. Here’s a good example: this winter, a friend of our’s told us what had just happened to him. He has free range chickens that he’s owned for years, and the farm next to him has commercial chicken houses. Some of the commercial chickens got sick and started dying. The owner of those houses pointed his finger at our friend’s chickens and said they were where the sickness was coming from. Before he knew it, our friend had all of his chickens taken from him by the government, killed and tested…and guess what. NOT A SINGLE ONE WAS SICK WITH ANYTHING. Yes, they were ALL HEALTHY. They died for nothing. But all it took was the COMMERCIAL guy pointing a finger with NO PROOF WHATSOEVER, and the backyard guy was automatically guilty. Our friend is very angry, needless to say. If it’s already this bad, what will it be like if the NAIS gets put in?! Our own personal free range chickens hardly ever die - we’ve got some hens out there who are 7 years old and still laying! A chicken hawk was getting some of our chicks last year, but the adult chickens are pretty hardy. When we do lose them, it’s usually due to old age. Really, really old age.
Comment Anita — May 21, 2006 @ 3:49 pm
if this happens…. NAIS…..I will have to surrender my horses, i have a family, my family would be broken hearted if they came here and culled my animals, not only that, I can’t afford being fined thousands of dollars for errors that may be from faulty chips or paperwork. NOt only that, all this chipping of animals is inhumane. If we kept our horses (3) we risk loosing the house. We simply can’t.
The warrantless search and seizure is downright wrong, again i say, i have family, and surveillance?
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHY THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT HAS WIPED OUT THE CONSTITUTION AND DECLARED WAR ON IT’S OWN PEOPLE?
I am considering leaving the country if i see any more legislation like this, there are still some european countries that have preserved thier agriculture. I’m not a farmer, but i have a way of life. Don’t think that big pharma isn’t behind this too, this bird flu scare, for every disease they create, they soak the taxpayer and generate billion dollar paychecks from the government. First NAIS, then US, then we will be lab rats. Not only that, I don’t want GM crops, or the food they produce, i don’t eat meat but the antibiotic and harmones all run off into the enviorment. This is sooo bad, I am terrified.
We have to create a major effort to defeat Cargill and Monsanto, or they will be the death of us all.
Monsanto is worse than a nuclear bomb. Ashamed to be an American
Comment Irene — May 26, 2006 @ 9:24 pm
I am a farmer who raises beef cattle, and free range chickens..and do horse barding..This whole ID program would kill us…I always thought the USDA was a good thing, but with all these new regulations they are trying to enforce it would distroy the family farms for sure..They are putting blinders on alot of people who are going along with their lies. We need to fight this to the end…
Comment Brenda Lee — June 18, 2006 @ 9:51 am
I am sure many of you have seen this WND article, “U.S. Under U.N. Law in Health Emergency”:
link
The second paragraph will link you to the SPP agreement finalized this month in Canada.
Also, a Reuters article, “Study Confirms 2006 Human-Human Spread of Bird Flu” comes on the heels of this agreement. (I am not saying I believe this human-to-human transmission.)
link
It is obvious that the adepts are planning something soon. I think they taunt us to see how few of us “get it”, even when things are right in front of our faces. Glad to be in the company of folks who “get it”.
Comment Texas Goat Gal — August 29, 2007 @ 8:15 am