COMMENT: Recall: Sick birds don't fly far, and dead birds don't fly at all!
October 6, 2006: Georgia birds tested for avian flu Testing ofhealthy wild birds in Europe has not resulted in the detection of the highly pathogenic bird flu virus, according to David Stallknecht, an associate professor who works with the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia. Instead, all of the reports of highly pathogenic H5N1 viruses in wild birds have come from dead or sick birds ___________________________________
September 16, 2006: Massive avian flu tests begin in Isles. The tests at the 260-acre refuge near Kahuku launched an ambitious and unprecedented national inter-agency effort by wildlife management and agricultural health communities to capture and test some 3,500 wild migratory birds in the Pacific between now and next April. "This is the largest effort ever for surveillance of a wildlife disease in North American history," said Kenneth Foote, information and education specialist for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Honolulu and the event coordinator. He was careful to point out that the program is an early detection effort, and not a cause for alarm. ___________________________________
COMMENT; What will they think of next?
September 6, 2006; Swans fitted with transmitters in bird flu fight Outfitting swans with super-light Teflon backpacks containing solar-powered GPS satellite transmitters is the latest way scientists and researchers are trying to fight the spread of avian influenza.
___________________________________
COMMENT: Will they EVER "get" that vaccinations are not going to stop the problem? The birds will get sicker, the food supply will become more contaminated...and the toxic environment will persist, recycling the problem. When will the media WAKE UP to the fact that this is an environmental problem? Everyone should buy a copy of my book, FOWL! Bird Flu: It's Not What You Think and donate a copy to their favorite journalist and editor! September 5, 2006: Indonesia to vaccinate 300 million poultry The Indonesian government will press ahead with plans to vaccinate some 300 million poultry from the bird flu virus despite fears by some health officials that vaccines are not effective, a local report said Tuesday. The plan will be done in stages with 60 million doses being prepared for vaccinations beginning this month and running through December, The Jakarta Post reported.
___________________________________
COMMENT: Everyone is dancing around the cause: a toxic environment. The virus is less important than the health of the ducks...why would a flock die all at once?
September 4, 2006: New bird flu outbreak suspected in Vietnam after 100 ducks die suddenly. More than 100 ducks have died suddenly in southern Vietnam in a suspected new bird flu outbreak, an official said Monday. Another 400 ducks were culled and samples were sent to the Ho Chi Minh City Regional Veterinary Center for testing to determine whether the H5N1 strain of bird flu was responsible for the deaths discovered on Friday, said Tran Van Quang, deputy director of the animal health bureau in Dong Nai province. "When more than 100 ducks died suddenly, we treated it as a bird flu outbreak," Quang said.
___________________________________
COMMENT: -- An American gold-mining company is accused of dumped tons of dangerous levels of mercury and arsenic-laced waste into an Indonesian bay, sickening villagers and causing fish stocks to plummet.....possibly making them more susceptible to bird flu. BTW, what is the "allowable" amount of mercury and arsenic, and what is the amount the accumulates over time? The judge has been assused of being bribed.
Sept 3, 2006: Newmont's Ness denies causing pollution. An executive of Newmont Mining Corp.'s Indonesian denyed all pollution charges against his company during a full day of questioning. He told the panel of five judges, presided by Richard Damanik, that "for the most part we only discharged roughly 10 percent of the allowable mercury and 7 percent of the permitted arsenic". The government has accused Newmont of violating environmental laws by dumping toxins from its mine into the bay between 1996 and 2004, when operations ceased, but conflicting test results on the water have convoluted the case. __________________________________
COMMENT: Migratory birds are such easy scape goats....the problem is the terraine and the sick environment.
August 25, 2006: 'Migratory Birds Not Spreading Bird Flu' ''There has never been any conclusive, properly documented evidence that wild birds are carriers of the virus,'' Richard Thomas, editor of 'World Birdwatch,' said in an e-mail interview. ''Tens of thousands of healthy, wild, migrant waterfowl in Hong Kong have been tested over the last decade, yet there is not a single positive-for-H5N1 amongst them.'' ''Why have there been no outbreaks in countries such as the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, all major destinations for Asian wild, migrant birds?'' asks Thomas, whose journal is published by BirdLife International, a global conservation organisation based in Cambridge, England. ''Similarly, after South Korea and Japan stamped out the disease, why has there been no further outbreaks in either of these countries, where thousands of wild Asian waterfowl winter?'' __________________________________
COMMENT: The Department of Agriculture (ie our tax dollars) are lending a hand to protect domestic multi-billion dollar poultry industry across the country. How do tax-paying vegans feel about the way that their tax dollars are being utilized?
August 17, 2006: More wild birds tested in flu study. Monitoring of wild migratory birds to prevent a deadly bird flu virus is expanding to cover the entire nation and U.S. territories in the Pacific. The stepped-up testing will be done by scientists in the lower 48 states, Hawaii and other Pacific islands. The Agriculture and Interior departments are providing $4 million to state agencies to collect samples from specific species of migratory birds winging along four major U.S. migratory bird flyways. Congress budgeted $29 million for monitoring for the highly pathogenic strain of bird flu. Feces or tissue samples from 75,000 to 100,000 wild birds will be collected, along with 50,000 samples of the water and ground that birds come into contact with. Locations where the samples will be collected will vary depending on weather and habitat conditions __________________________________
COMMENT: Actually, the "early warning system" is telling us about the condition of the environment.....NOT about how deadly the virus is. "Killing" 100 people over the past 3 years isn't really much of a threat to humans. The real threat---and the reason for the monitoring---is the threat to Agribusiness' poultry farms.
August 9, 2006: Bird Flu Monitoring Expands Nationally WASHINGTON — The government on Wednesday expanded its monitoring of wild migratory birds for a deadly bird flu virus to cover the entire nation and U.S. territories in the Pacific. Scientists in the lower 48 states, Hawaii and other Pacific islands will begin keeping an eye out for the deadly H5N1 strain of the avian flu that has killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia. Monitoring began just before summer in Alaska, where the first migratory birds from Asia began arriving. "This move to test thousands more wild birds throughout the country will help us to quickly identify, respond and control the virus if it arrives in the United States,"said Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns."Because we cannot control wild birds, our best protection is an early warning system." __________________________________
COMMENT: The problem with the reoccurance is that they have not resolved the problem. Culling chickens is NOT the answer; cleaning up the toxic environment in which the chicken, ducks and birds live WILL be the answer!
August 09, 2006 The Irrawaddy News Magazine Online Edition Bird Flu Scare Resurfaces in Southeast Asia. New bird flu flare-ups in Thailand and Laos and the steady march of the disease in Indonesia have raised concerns in other Asian countries that they too may see the deadly virus rise again. The re-emergence in Thailand and Laos, along with continuing outbreaks in China, is a reminder of just how difficult it is to rid a country of the virus. __________________________________
COMMENT: "From the moment of conception to the end of life, our bodies play host to a myriad of industrial chemicals that cross into our bloodstream through our skin, gut, or lungs. They are consumer product ingredients, or pollutants in air, water and food. They are fire retardants, grease-proof coatings, plasticizers, and solvents. They are our personal body burden of pollution....." EWG || Body Burden
July 11, 2006: EWG Issues || Toxics Government Study Confirms Dangers of Dioxin. The National Academy of Sciences (www.nas.edu ) released a report confirming that dioxin, the byproduct of several industries, is a potent carcinogen.Environmental Working Group (EWG) researchers have tested the umbilical cord blood of 10 newborn babies, and found that all of them had dioxins in their blood from the moment they were born. __________________________________
COMMENT: More horrid treatment of chickens....and industrial farming causing environmental disasters.
"A typical poultry farm will have at least three houses and up to 20,"Edmondson said, so we're talking about literally millions of birds on a single piece of ground and the waste of those birds, historically, has been spread on the land as fertilizer. He said the fertilizer is excellent, but plants only need so much nitrogen and phosphorus. Once you put down all that the plants need and continue to surface-apply it, the plants can't use it, it washes off into the stream, it fertilizes the water and increases the algae bloom in the water."
__________________________________
COMMENT: Guess the scientists who have proven that this theory is false are still not getting enough press.....
June 15, 2006: komo news | State To Test Wild Birds For Avian Flu OLYMPIA - Washington state biologists will begin testing at least 2,500 wild birds next month as part of the national effort to detect any cases of bird flu entering the United States. The Department of Fish and Wildlife says it will focus on several species of migratory shorebirds and waterfowl that are most likely to interact with Asian migratory birds in the Arctic. __________________________________
COMMENT:
1. They really don't know; many scientists say the migratory birds have nothing to do with it; they are REACHING for an answer...and migratory birds are a convenient scapegoat.
2. Scientists have been warning that the bird flu virus will get stronger and just ship; now they say it may die off.
3. The Missing Link is the effect of the environment. They should read my book, FOWL!
June 2, 2006: The Hindu : National : "Wild migratory birds have role in spread of bird flu" The participants at the conference did not agree on the key issue of the role of wild birds in the spread of HPAI to more than 50 countries in three continents, and whether wild birds should now be considered a permanent reservoir of the virus. If they are such a reservoir, there is a strong likelihood they will carry the virus with them in subsequent migrations. Alternatively H5N1 may subside naturally as infected animals die off, or it may mutate to a less aggressive form. "This was one of the main gaps identified in our present scientific knowledge. We must intensify our investigations,'' said FAO's chief veterinary officer Joseph Domenech. __________________________________
If bird flu can be carried long-distance by wild birds, experts hope to see it first here, before the fall migration through other states. Of course no one knows if the H5N1 flu will arrive on the wings of a migratory bird. Or if it will reach this continent this year. But if it does, federal wildlife officials want to stop it from spreading through many bird species and threatening domestic poultry.
__________________________________
COMMENT: An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has occurred in Vietnam's cattle. This is a mild infection, similar to a "cold" in humans. Yet, cattle is being culled and 35,000 more liters of chemicals are being dispersed. Vietnam should be a WAKE UP CALL for all of us in more ways than one...our chemically toxic world is reaching its tipping point.
May 25, 2006: People's Daily Online -- Roundup: Vietnam actively copes with foot-and-mouth disease Besides, Vietnam has intensified detoxification of affected areas and culling of ill animals. The government has provided 35, 000 liters of detoxification chemicals to some localities to clean affected areas. Affected cities and provinces nationwide have culled nearly 1,500 pigs and some 200 bulls and buffaloes, Thong said. To support farmers, the ministry has asked the government to compensate them, but has yet to receive response, he said. Recently, the government has asked localities to be active in using their standby state budgets to battle and prevent the disease, and assisting residents whose cattle have been culled.
__________________________________
COMMENT: Despite the growing number of scientist who agree that H5N1 viruses are not spread by migratory birds, the "witch hunt" continues.....
May 17, 2006: Testing for Bird Flu Begins in Alaska Bird experts narrowed the list to the 28 species considered most likely to be carriers and most practical to sample.To screen the birds for the deadly virus, the Fish and Wildlife Service and Alaska's Fish and Game Department also are setting up more than 50 remote backcountry camps accessible mainly by float planes or boats. __________________________________
COMMENT: Remember, sick birds don't fly far, and dead birds don't fly at all! (thank you Wendy Orent!)
In thousands of samples collected in Africa this winter, the bird flu virus, A(H5N1), was not detected in a single wild bird, health officials and scientists said. In Europe, only a few cases have been detected in wild birds since April 1, at the height of the migration north. The number of cases in Europe has fallen off so steeply compared with February, when dozens of new cases were found daily, that specialists contend that the northward spring migration played no role.
__________________________________
"Moreover, experts are unanimous that the original reservoir of the [avian influenza] is found within domestic birds. Consequently, Birdlife International wants to be precise that till date the responsibility of migratory birds is clouded in ambiguity and imprecision - cases of epizootics observed in China and Siberia testifies to this," he maintained.
__________________________________
COMMENT: Good grief...they have predicted the death of more than 100,000 children in the UK now that the "bird flu has arrived." Now they say the testing was flawed????
April 12, 2006: Bird flu tests in Britain 'flawed' - World - Times Online Tests for bird flu in Britain may fail to detect cases because of the way samples are collected. Scientists abroad are puzzled that so few of the tests carried out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) prove positive for the forms of flu commonly carried by birds. __________________________________
April 9, 2006: International News Article | Reuters.com The role of migratory fowl versus the trade in bird products in the spread of avian flu has been the source of much debate, with conservationists contending the disease's spread has not closely followed known bird migrations...Because the role of migratory birds is a very obvious one, it's often very tempting to say that migratory birds are bringing the disease," Robert Hepworth, executive secretary of the Convention on Migrating Species, told Reuters. "Migratory birds have been involved of course, but the actual evidence of migratory birds spreading this disease across continents on a large scale is very patchy." __________________________________
April 7, 2006: Taipei Times - archives The amount [of arsenic] is not enough to kill anyone in one fell swoop, but arsenic is a recognized cancer-causing agent and many experts say that no level should be considered safe. Arsenic may also contribute to other life-threatening illnesses, including heart disease and diabetes, and to a decline in mental functioning. It is deliberately being added to chicken in the US, with many scientists saying it is unnecessary. Until recently there was a very high chance that if you ate chicken some arsenic would be present because it has been a government-approved additive in poultry feed for decades. It is used to kill parasites and to promote growth.