BIRD FLU - Special report: Animal Factory Farms guilty for the spread of bird flu worldwide.

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BIRD FLU - Special report

Animal Factory Farms guilty for the spread of

bird flu worldwide.

 

 

 

 

.: Index :.

 

1- BBC: Reality takes wing over bird flu.

2- Animal Factory farms blamed for the spread of bird

flu worldwide.

3- REPORT SAYS GLOBAL POULTRY INDUSTRY IS THE ROOT OF

THE BIRD FLU CRISIS.

4- Nature is promoting vegetarianism.

5- Why to go vegetarian?

 

 

 

 

BBC: Reality takes wing over bird flu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIEWPOINT - Leon Bennun

 

 

Vested interests mean wild birds are being blamed

for the spread of avian flu, argues Dr Leon Bennun in this week's Green Room,

whereas responsibility really lies with modern farming. Demands for culling and

the destruction of nesting sites threaten, he says, to bring rare species to

extinction, but will do nothing to halt the disease.

 

 

The role of migratory wild birds in the

transmission of the disease has been exaggerated and sensationalised

 

 

During the second week in February, Western Europe

reported its first cases of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu in

wild birds.

 

Across Italy, Greece and Slovenia, more than 25

mute swans died; by Valentine's Day, the virus had also been found in wild swans

in Austria and Germany.

 

Conservationists, poultry keepers and health

officials are bracing themselves for more widespread outbreaks.

 

Fuelled in part by alarmist press reports and by

the attempts of government agencies to draw blame away from farming, there are

now calls for drastic measures against wild bird populations.

 

I believe these measures would put some species at

risk of extinction, without having any effect on the spread of avian flu.

 

Catching the culprits

 

The likelihood is that the swans now dying in

Western Europe had recently arrived from the Black Sea, driven south and west by

freezing conditions that prevented them feeding.

 

They may have caught the disease from other wild

birds; but this is unlikely given the tens of thousands of waterfowl that have

tested negative for H5N1 over the last decade.

 

QUICK GUIDE

 

 

Bird flu

 

Much more likely is that before starting out, they

picked up the virus from farms, either from infected poultry or their faeces.

Mute swans often graze agricultural fields, and are likely to have come into

contact with poultry manure spread as a fertiliser.

 

If wild birds had been spreading the disease

across continents there would have been trails of outbreaks following migration

routes; but this hasn't happened.

 

The " wild bird " theory for the spread of H5N1 also

provides no explanation as to why certain countries on flight paths of birds

from Asia remain flu-free, whilst their neighbours suffer repeated infections.

 

What is striking is that countries like Japan and

South Korea, which imposed strict controls on the import and movement of

domestic poultry after initial outbreaks, have suffered no further infections.

Myanmar has never had an outbreak.

 

In fact, countries which have not yet developed a

large-scale intensive poultry industry have also been largely spared. The UN

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that in Laos, 42 out of 45

outbreaks affected intensive poultry units.

 

Lethal evolution

 

Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses are very

rare in wild birds.

 

 

Intensively-farmed poultry provide ideal

conditions for the evolution of highly lethal forms

 

But in intensively farmed poultry, the high

density of birds and constant exposure to faeces, saliva and other secretions

provide ideal conditions for the replication, mutation, recombination and

selection through which highly lethal forms can evolve.

 

Add to this repeated misdiagnosis, industry and

government cover-ups, and panic selling or processing of potentially infected

birds, and we have the explanation for why H5N1 is now endemic in parts of

South-East Asia.

 

Factor in the global nature of the poultry

industry, and the international movement of live poultry and poultry products

both before and after the Asian outbreaks, and we have the most plausible

mechanism for the spread of the virus between places which are not connected by

the flyways of migratory birds.

 

The timing and pattern of outbreaks has been

largely inconsistent with wild bird movements; but they have often followed

major trade routes.

 

The view that poultry movements have played a

major role in the spread of the disease is supported by an analysis of viral

strains recently published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy

of Sciences.

 

Some of the agencies attempting to monitor and

control avian flu, such as the FAO, seem to have been reluctant to draw

attention to the role of intensive agriculture, because of the impact on

national economies and on access to cheap sources of protein.

 

Senseless destruction

 

For this and other reasons, the role of migratory

wild birds in the transmission of the disease has been exaggerated, and further

sensationalised in the press.

 

 

A dead swan is examined for evidence of H5N1

infection

In some countries there has been a backlash

against bird conservation, leading to calls for the culling of whole

populations, draining of wetlands and destruction of nesting sites.

 

In fact, H5N1 outbreaks in wild birds have so far

mostly burned themselves out without culls or other human interventions.

 

Some of the world's most threatened birds may be

put at risk. But there is also the near-certainty of damage to ecosystem

services on which people and economies depend.

 

Alarmingly for those who fear a human bird flu

epidemic, such a distorted picture also means that the right questions are not

being asked, and the most effective protection measures may not be undertaken.

 

BirdLife is calling for an independent inquiry

into the spread of H5N1 which gives due weight to the role of the global poultry

industry, and maps both official and unofficial poultry trade routes against the

pattern of outbreaks.

 

It may also be time to take a long, hard look at

the way the world feeds itself, and to decide whether the price paid for modern

farming in terms of risks to human health and the Earth's biodiversity is too

high.

 

 

Dr Leon Bennun is Director of Science, Policy and

Information for BirdLife International.

 

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on

environmental issues running weekly on the BBC News website

 

Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4721598.stm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Animal Factory farms blamed for the spread of

bird flu worldwide.

 

 

 

 

Factory farming and the international poultry trade are

largely responsible for the spread of bird flu, and wild birds are being

unfairly blamed for the disease, a new report says.

The report says the deadly H5N1 virus developed inside

intensive poultry units in Asia and has proliferated through exports of live

birds and the use of chicken droppings as fertiliser. Its publication by Grain,

an agricultural pressure group, follows an announcement that the virus has been

found in a turkey farm in eastern France. Though the farm was close to where two

infected wild ducks were found, all its 11,000 turkeys were kept indoors with no

contact with wild birds.

 

Dissident scientists accept that the flu began in wild

birds, but say it developed in the cramped conditions of Asian factory farms.

Research published in the official journal of the US National Academy of

Sciences blames the poultry trade for the virus spreading from China to Vietnam.

 

BirdLife, a charity, says the virus's spread across

Russia last summer - widely attributed to migrating birds - took place when

birds were moulting and unable to fly. It adds that an outbreak in Nigeria took

place on a factory farm far from migratory routes.

 

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

Published: 26 February 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article347790.ece

 

 

 

 

REPORT SAYS GLOBAL POULTRY INDUSTRY IS THE ROOT

OF THE BIRD FLU CRISIS

 

 

 

 

Small-scale poultry farming and wild birds are being

unfairly blamed for the bird flu crisis now affecting large parts of the world.

A new report from GRAIN shows how the transnational poultry industry is the root

of the problem and must be the focus of efforts to control the virus. [1]

 

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 kilometres, 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. [2]

 

" Everyone is focused on migratory birds and backyard

chickens as the problem, " says Devlin Kuyek of GRAIN. " But they are not

effective vectors of highly pathogenic bird flu. The virus kills them, but is

unlikely to be spread by them. "

 

For example, in Malaysia, the mortality rate from H5N1

among village chicken is only 5%, indicating that the virus has a hard time

spreading among small scale chicken flocks. H5N1 outbreaks in Laos, which is

surrounded by infected countries, have only occurred in the nation's few factory

farms, which are supplied by Thai hatcheries. The only cases of bird flu in

backyard poultry, which account for over 90% of Laos' production, occurred next

to the factory farms.

 

" The evidence we see over and over again, from the

Netherlands in 2003 to Japan in 2004 to Egypt in 2006, is that lethal bird flu

breaks out in large scale industrial chicken farms and then spreads, " Kuyek

explains.

 

The Nigerian outbreak earlier this year began at a

single factory farm, owned by a Cabinet minister, distant from hotspots for

migratory birds but known for importing unregulated hatchable eggs. In India,

local authorities say that H5N1 emerged and spread from a factory farm owned by

the country's largest poultry company, Venkateshwara Hatcheries.

 

A burning question is why governments and international

agencies, like the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, are doing nothing to

investigate how the factory farms and their byproducts, such as animal feed and

manure, spread the virus. Instead, they are using the crisis as an opportunity

to further industrialise the poultry sector. Initiatives are multiplying to ban

outdoor poultry, squeeze out small producers and restock farms with

genetically-modified chickens. The web of complicity with an industry engaged in

a string of denials and cover-ups seems complete.

 

" Farmers are losing their livelihoods, native chickens

are being wiped out and some experts say that we're on the verge of a human

pandemic that could kill millions of people, " Kuyek concludes. " When will

governments realise that to protect poultry and people from bird flu, we need to

protect them from theglobal poultry industry? "

 

[1] The full briefing, " Fowl play: The poultry

industry's central role in the bird flu crisis " , is available at

http://www.grain.org/go/birdflu. Spanish and French translations will be posted

shortly.

[2] Chicken faeces and bedding from poultry factory

floors are common ingredients in animal feed.

 

 

+++

GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation

(NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural

biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local

knowledge.

 

 

CONTACT:

Devlin Kuyek, GRAIN, in Montreal

Tel: +1 514 2737314

Email: devlin

Website: http://www.grain.org

 

 

 

 

 

Nature is promoting vegetarianism

 

 

 

 

We are all well aware of the dangers of Bovine

Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). From 1995 through August 2004, 147 cases of the

variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal human neurodegenerative

condition strongly linked with exposure to the BSE agent, probably through food,

and affecting mainly young people, were reported from UK alone.

 

Almost 200,000 cattle fell sick and nearly four and a

half million were culled. Even though the pyres of burning animal corpses are

now extinct; the problem of mad cows is by no means resolved. From a variety of

countries, new cases are reported all the time, leading to import barriers

yo-yo-ing up and down.

 

Just now, a somewhat sinister campaign in UK will

certainly bring sleepless nights to those affected: On 27 February, the

'Guardian' informed that " Five thousand people who have been told they may be

infected with the human form of BSE may be asked to agree to post-mortem tests

and to donate their bodies in the interests of the living. " Quite a hefty bill

for beef consumption....

 

With BSE being by no means out of the picture any time

soon, it is the deadly avian influenza virus H5N1 now showing a stunned world

public what it is made of.

 

New infections are exploding in the faces of those who

thought they could outwit the disease by closing borders, by culling huge

numbers of birds, or by vaccinating and/or momentarily locking up those animals

destined for massacre at a later date.

 

Confronted with huge crashes in poultry sales, farmers

panic about bleak trade prospects and tout the safety of their products.

Perplexed politicians grab every media opportunity to be seen with drumsticks

between their teeth. FAO noisily reassures that controls are " extremely

effective " and bitterly complains that as " unfounded fears of disease

transmission reduce consumption and imports, lower domestic prices are forecast

to limit production growth. "

 

Unfounded fears? Not too long ago, UN's David Nabarro,

who is charged with co-ordinating responses to bird flu, has stated that a flu

pandemic could happen at any time and kill between 5-150 million people. WHO

spokesman on influenza, Dick Thompson, immediately jumped into reassurance-mode

explaining that only between two million and 7.4 million (equalling in numbers

the complete population of Bulgaria!) people could lose their lives because of

bird flu. Oh well, that's alright then?

 

No, it isn't! We are all witnessing UN officials

contradicting one another, a chorus of soothing voices imploring us to eat

poultry (disregarding dangers and in the interest of national production

growth?) and the grim fact that so far nothing has been able to stop the spread

of bird flu. On the contrary, it has become abundantly clear that the situation

has completely spun out of control and is exploding all around us, like

intimidating fireworks exposing the fact that something about the production of

meat has gone terribly wrong: Factory farming is just not affordable any more.

 

The situation has now become too dangerous for 'business

as usual'. With H5N1 popping up in all corners of the world and consequently the

threat of death dangling over the head of each inhabitant of the global village,

dogged reassurances and standard meat-pushing strategies won't do any longer. It

is time to admit that there is no such thing as a safe and free meat-lunch!

 

A good, honest and courageous look at meat and all the

destruction it creates is overdue:

 

1. Even the toned-down predictions of the UN admit that

the very survival of millions is threatened because of bird flu. (1)

 

2. Just to mention some of the many other health

hazards:

-Some research shows that processed and red meats can

increase the risk of bowel and some other cancers.

-There is widespread routine use of antimicrobials as

growth promoters or pre­ventive agents in food-producing animals and poultry

flocks, contributing to the rise in re­sistant microbes, which can be

transmitted from animals to man. (2).

 

3. Each and every day, slaughter soaks our beautiful

Blue Planet with the blood of many millions of animals. (3)

 

4. Food is exported from poor countries and given to

slaughter animals, leading to misery and hunger. (4)

 

5. Factory farming creates ecological havoc by

destroying forests for grazing animals that are polluting soils, rivers and

oceans by never ending floods of manure. (5)

 

During the last years, WMDs (Weapons of Mass

Destruction) have been omnipresent in the international media. But even these

alleged stockpiles were not supposed to create the horror which is now,

according to the most respected international organizations, raising its ugly

skull: between 'two million and 7.4 million' dead people.

 

After centuries of ruthless and brutal exploitation of

animals and the environment, nature is now fighting back and forces us to look

for sustainable and durable alternatives. Would it, in these dangerous times,

not be worthwhile to listen to Albert Einstein who proclaimed that evolution to

a vegetarian diet would benefit human health and increase chances for survival?

This precious moment of truth, when looming disasters can still be stopped, is

the perfect opportunity to adopt an age-old and healthy lifestyle full of

compassion: Vegetarianism.

 

 

Source: http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=9517 & lang=en

 

 

* * *

 

Sources:

 

(1) -New Scientist: China is the home of bird flu

 

-GRAIN: The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is

essentially a problem of industrial poultry practices. Its epicentre is the

factory farms of China and Southeast Asia and -- while wild birds can carry the

disease, at least for short distances -- its main vector is the highly

self-regulated transnational poultry industry, which sends the products and

waste of its farms around the world through a multitude of channels.

www.grain.org/front/

 

(2) -Some research shows that processed and red meats

can increase the risk of bowel and some other cancers. www.cancernz.org.nz

 

-Antimicrobial resistance

 

(3) FAO: Globally, slaughter of farmed animals for food

increased to more than 50 BILLION individuals in 2003, not including any types

of aquatic animals. The estimates, which are compiled and provided by the Food

and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, are based on reports

from more than 210 countries and territories. It is important to note that,

while fairly comprehensive, these estimates may be significantly understated due

to some countries or territories not reporting statistics and exclusions of some

types of slaughter. http://www.upc-online.org/slaughter/92704stats.htm

 

(4) -FAO: Hunger and malnutrition are killing nearly six

million children each year

 

A growing share of wheat is used for animal feed in the

industrial countries-45 percent of total use in the EU

 

More than 99 percent of Argentina's soy is exported. to

feed cattle..

 

-The majority of farm animals globally are fed on

imported soya and cereals - globally between a third and a half of the world's

harvest is fed to animals. Yet much of the nutritional value of the feed is lost

in its 'conversion' to meat. It takes 10 kilos of feed to produce 1 kilo of

beef, 5 kilos for a kilo of pork.In a world of increasing water scarcity, we

know that it takes 100,000 litres of water to produce a kilo of beef, yet only

900 litres to produce a kilo of wheat.

Eat less meat - It's costing the earth/Feeding the world

 

(5) -FAO: Industrial livestock production near cities

often damages the environment

 

-Farm animals produce 13 billion tonnes of waste every

year. Liquid effluent from factory farms often pollutes soils and rivers,

gaseous wastes like methane and carbon dioxide contribute to global warming

Environmental damage

 

-Bavarian village is recovering after being flooded with

liquid pig manure

 

 

Source/Quelle: EVANA

 

Link: Appointment Dr. David Nabarro to lead coordination

of the UN response to avian influenza and a possible human influenza pande

Link: Bird flu 'could kill 150m people' - video

statement Dr. Nabarro

Link: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Variant

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

Link: FAO: Escalating bird flu crisis jeopardizes global

poultry trade prospects

Link: WHO has distanced itself from Dr. Navarro's

statement

 

 

Date/Datum: 2006-02-28 19:36:29

 

 

 

 

* GO VEGETARIAN *

 

 

 

 

HELP STOP THESE PROBLEMS

Help protect Nature, Animals and your Health

GO VEGETARIAN

 

GoVeg.com - http://www.goveg.com

The Vegan Society - http://www.vegansociety.com

Vegan Outreach - http://www.veganoutreach.com

VegSource.com - http://www.vegsource.com

Vegan Peace - www.veganpeace.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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