ANIMAL RIGHTS
BIRD FLU HYPE
Commentary By: Dr. Sherri J. Tenpenny
COMMENT: I hope that the government, FEMA, and all the hired killers will work with PETA to kill birds humanely.
September 8, 2006: PETA calls for humane 'bird flu' killing If bird flu gets loose in Alabama's chicken population, lots of birds will be killed off as the government tries to prevent a wider outbreak. "We just want to make sure we deal with it with as little suffering for the animals as possible," said Matt Prescott, a campaign manager at PETA. PETA's proposed method for destroying infected birds is called controlled atmosphere killing (CAK). Basically, the chicken house is sealed and quantities of nitrogen and argon are pumped in with deadly carbon dioxide. The birds fall asleep and eventually die. This method is preferable to other possible methods, PETA said, which include bludgeoning, bleeding and poisoning. In Alabama, state officials typically would use straight carbon dioxide gas to "depopulate" a chicken farm, which PETA said is painful for the birds and should be avoided. Sparks disagreed, calling the method "very humane."
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COMMENT: Going after the *symptom* instead of eliminating the cause---the toxic environment---will only lead to reoccurances of outbreaks of "bird flu" for many years to come.
September 5, 2006: Bird flu kills nearly 600 chickens in Indonesia's West Java Indonesian authorities have warned of a major bird flu outbreak in the West Java town of Kuningan after 596 chickens died of the disease in August, an official said Tuesday. Local officials said bird flu attacks were found in two districts, namely Cigugur and Darma. "The 596 chickens died of bird flu based on rapid tests (at the scene) and laboratory tests," said Nana Adnan, head of the West Java veterinary office. Following the findings, authorities plan to cull 3,000 chickens in the affected areas, he was quoted by the national Antara news agency as saying. Local officials have culled some 5,000 chickens in nearby Garut regency after one person died of bird flu based on local tests. Indonesia now has the world's highest bird flu death toll of 47 out of 62 sufferers since the first human case was confirmed two years ago.
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COMMENT: Culled birds are a bandaid on a wound that needs major surgery. New chicks in a toxic environment is proving all over again this fall--as outbreaks are starting again in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia--to be ineffective. Like most of conventional thinking, they are looking for a CURE and not investigating the CAUSE.
August 13, 2006: More cullings needed to curb bird flu in Indonesia Indonesian experts say the number of fowl culled and inoculated by the health authorities lags far behind the total infected, which can not cut the chain of the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus transmission. "The millions of chickens being killed is a lot, but proportionally, it's not so much as to cut the chain of virus transmission," Indonesian Veterinary Association chairman Budi Tri Akoso said. On Wednesday, the government claimed it had culled almost 29 million fowls and vaccinated more than 260 million chickens over the last two years, in response to international criticism that it had been unwilling to carry out mass culling.
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COMMENT: More merciless...and unnecessary....killing of chickens. The article doesn't say who owned these chickens, New Hope Group or independent farmers.
July 22, 2006: IOL: Bird flu: China slaughters 360,000 chickens An outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has killed 3,045 chickens in China's far western region of Xinjiang but no humans were reported to be infected, the official Xinhua News Agency said today. The outbreak, discovered on July 14, prompted local officials in Aksu city to slaughter an additional 356,976 chickens as a precaution, Xinhua said, citing the Ministry of Agriculture.
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July 22, 2006: FOXNews.com - Senators Slam Voluntary Bird Flu Testing - Health News | Current Health News | Medical News WASHINGTON ” Senators on Friday criticized the Agriculture Department's planning for deadly bird flu, saying the voluntary nature of its testing program threatens the U.S. poultry industry. At issue is a federal audit that found the government lacks a comprehensive plan for testing and monitoring bird flu in commercial poultry. The department says it will have a plan in place by October.
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COMMENT: Even though the vaccine causes serious problems in chickens and hasn't been proven to work, the vaccination campaigns continue. Remember the birds only have a life span of about 42 days...and get many other vaccines before taken to market.
July 28, 2006: VietNamNet Bridge VietNamNet --The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has instructed local authorities to finish the two vaccination drives for their poultry stocks by October to prevent new bird flu outbreaks.
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COMMENT: Wouldn't vaccinating the organic flocks with a marginally effective vaccine negate the flocks from being "organic"?
July 20, 2006 - Protect against bird flu - Farmers Weekly - "A truly rational government would acknowledge that preventative vaccination is the most effective method of combating avian influenza in the modern world and would now be preparing to vaccinate all outdoor and organic flocks......We should not vaccinate poultry in advance of an avian influenza outbreak because of the well documented limitations of the vaccines currently available."
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COMMENT: They have it BACKWARD. Exposing people to H5N1 would give them IMMUNITY...not make them sicker....And the real reason for the Sumatra outbreak (like Vietnam) is dioxin, not wild fish and birds. The details of this is in the NEW edition of FOWL! Bird Flu: It's Not What You Think to be released this week!
June 27, 2006: NoNAIS.org » Factory Farms Ferment Flu 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.
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COMMENT: Good news for birds! Maybe the culling will stop....
June 17, 2006: People's Daily Online -- Distinctive seasonal patterns of bird flu still unclear, WHO official says It remains unclear whether there are truly distinctive seasonal patterns to outbreaks of the bird flu in poultry, said an official with the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday. "We do know that the bird flu virus can survive for a time in colder weather, but it's really not clear at this point whether the virus is changing in such a way that it can survive in warm weather for a longer period than it was previously able to," said Roy Wadia, spokesman of the WHO office in China.
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COMMENT: The villagers are probably right! The birds that don't die are developing immunity to the virus, just like the migratory birds. This is the best way to stop an infection: TRUE HERD IMMUNITY. As discovered in the 1930s, when 60% of a population has experienced the infection, the rest become immune. THIS IS NOT HOW VACCINATION WORKS!
Disbelieving promises of compensation, many people from North Sumatra to Jakarta to South Sulawesi are refusing to support the government's bird flu containment program. Thousands of chickens are dying daily in Gowa regency, South Sulawesi, with random testing suggesting most are succumbing to bird flu. While villagers incinerate the bodies of the dead birds, they leave the living birds untouched, allowing the disease to spread further. "I don't want to kill the rest of my chickens because the government has not promised me any compensation," one resident said.
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COMMENT: More horrid treatment of chickens....and industrial farming causing environmental disasters.
June 16, 2006: Pryor Daily Times - Waste worries: Ag, AG square off A single poultry house can hold up to 25,000 birds in close quarters, and the number can turn over four or five times a year.
"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."
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June 9, 2006: allAfrica.com: Ghana: Bird Flu Scare Devastates Poultry Industry Mr. Agyei-Henaku was speaking at a press briefing on Tuesday organised by the Ghana Sustainable Change Project in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) among other partners on the theme, "You've Heard From Everyone Else...Now Let's Hear From The Chicken."
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June 6, 2006: Reuters AlertNet - FEATURE-Amid bird flu, activists plead for humane US culling Americans who keep small backyard flocks are also desperate to ensure their chickens and ducks will not be swept away in the general hysteria. "Suffocation, starvation, bludgeoning, bleeding and poisoning should be explicitly prohibited in your planning documents," says a letter being sent by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to officials in all 50 states.
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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.
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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.
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May 18, 2006 - China rules out bird flu in 30,000 chicken deaths - Reuters - "China on Thursday ruled out bird flu as the cause of death of 30,000 chickens in the northeast city of Dalian last month, blaming badly administered vaccinations by unskilled workers. The Agriculture Ministry also ruled out bad vaccines or feed poisoning as the cause."
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COMMENT: The global agenda of agribusiness is one of the agendas behind the bird flu contrived crisis. They have the money to "ride out" the storm of the temporary decrease in poultry consumption. Backyard farmers must either give up farming--and starve--or become part of the factory farming.
May 5. 2006: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Fowl-Play-in-Bird-Flu.php Fowl Play in Bird Flu
Numerous papers, statements and documents issued by the United Nations FAO, WHO, and government agencies have been silent on the role of industrial poultry farming in the bird flu crisis, and indeed, have proposed to compensate them generously for loss profits (see above). Instead, the finger is pointed at backyard farms, calling for tighter controls of their operations and greater 'restructuring' of the poultry sector.
A team of scientists who analysed the H5N1 epidemic in Thailand 2004 found that the risks for HPAI infection were 5.3, 5.1 1.5, 32.4 and 2.3 times higher, respectively in commercial layers, broilers, ducks, quails and geese than in back yard chickens [16]. This is clear evidence corroborating other findings that corporate factory farms are to blame, and not backyard farms. On that basis, we should be calling for closure of factory farms, not family farms.
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COMMENT: Tyson Foods has a financial interest in educating the public about bird flu. Tyson Foods has 26 percent of the industry's market share, and roughly 15 percent of their U.S. poultry production is exported. Russia buys roughly $252 million of Tyson Foods' chicken exports, with another $49 million sold to China.
May 12, 2006: The Morning News :: Business Page Education is a first line of defense and an integral part of what the industry as a whole is doing to safeguard flocks, according to the company. The company also noted:
-Growers are trained regularly on new biohazard protocol.
-The vertical integration within the American poultry industry gives additional protection against outside contamination.
-Controlled indoor facilities also protects American flocks from possible outside infection from migratory birds.
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COMMENT: Remember, sick birds don't fly far, and dead birds don't fly at all!
May 11, 2006: Migrating Birds Didn't Carry Flu - New York Times (requires registration)
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.
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MILLIONS of chickens could be killed by suffocation if an epidemic of avian flu in Britain threatened human health. Emergency legislation was placed...to order “ventilation shutdown” at chicken farms. This would remove oxygen flow from chicken houses. Birds could take up to a day to die, depending on their age and size and the time of year. Death would be caused by a combination of overheating, bird flu and lack of oxygen.
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COMMENT: The myopic fixation on this virus could lead to extermination of "everything!"
April 30, 2006: Smuggled Pets Worry Bird Flu Watchdogs - Forbes.com
In 2004, two Crested Hawk-Eagles carrying the virulent strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus were seized from the hand luggage of a Thai passenger at Brussels International Airport in Belgium. The passenger had planned to sell the birds to a Belgian falconer. Not one of the 25 people exposed to the virus became ill. Officials killed 200 parrots and 600 smaller birds that had contact with the Crested Hawk-Eagles.
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April 25, 2006: Ducks on Bali culled for bird flu - Authorities on Indonesia's resort island of Bali have slaughtered and burned hundreds of ducks after tests showed some had the bird flu virus, officials said.
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COMMENT: All this to protect the industry; what is being done to keep the birds HEALTHY and what is being done to protect the WORKERS??
April 23, 2006: Star-Telegram | 04/23/2006 | Poultry industry bolstering defenses against bird flu "If it gets into our industry, the only way to get it out is to euthanize complete complexes like this," he said during a tour of an egg-laying operation whose 1.5 million hens he valued at nearly $10 million. Today, all trucks entering and exiting Silva's complex are given an automated bath of ammonia-based disinfectant. All employees enter the site through a "dirty door" into a trailer that serves as a changing room. They swap their street clothes for pre-washed boots, hats and coveralls, then enter the henhouses through a "clean door." They reverse the process on the way out.Poultry companies try to avoid one another on the road. They plot routes and stagger deliveries throughout the day for fear that the virus might jump from truck to truck.
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COMMENT: H5 can be combined with N1 through N9; just finding the (H) antigen does not mean that this is an outbreak of the "deadly" bird flu virus.
April 8, 2006:Reuters AlertNet - Vietnam reports bird flu outbreaks near China Vietnam usually tests for the N component of the strain when a sample comes from a suspected human case. With poultry, the finding of H5 is enough to carry out preventive measures such as slaughter and disinfection of birds.
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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.
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April 5, 2006: The Jakarta Post - Avian flu and inhumane burning Avian flu and inhumane burning. In recent days, the Indonesian Agriculture Ministry has instituted a "sweep" policy of culling all birds within a certain radius of cases of avian influenza in chickens in local communities. Sadly, they have mixed all birds in this policy, which apparently includes some of Indonesia's avian treasures -- such as endangered parrots, cockatoos and lories -- along with chickens, other fowl and pet birds. After confiscation these birds are burned alive.
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COMMENT: What a unique marketing "scam".....no antibiotics makes the chickens "natural." What about the vaccines, the growth hormone and genetic modification? Whare is the FTC when we need them?
January 26, 2006: "Natural" chicken takes off. Four of the nation's top 10 chicken producers have virtually ended a practice that health and activist groups for years charged was causing a public health crisis: feeding broiler chickens low doses of antibiotics to make them grow faster and stay healthy. Tyson Foods, Gold Kist, Perdue Farms and Foster Farms say they stopped using antibiotics for growth promotion. In addition to ending a practice that Europe banned and McDonald's ended a month ago, the four companies also have severely limited antibiotic use for routine disease prevention, though antibiotics are still used to treat disease outbreaks. "It is the first time that these companies have admitted to major quantitative reductions in antibiotic use. And it's not just one company but a tier of companies — the top tier of companies," says Margaret Mellon, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group that is a member of the coalition Keep Antibiotics Working.
