2006 - Special Section: Avian Influenza

Farm Sanctuary addresses Strategies for Managing Avian Influenza to the USDA, November 9, 2005

USDA's response to Farm Sanctuary's concerns, January 20, 2006

Bird flu drug probe after 18 teenage deaths in Japan
JAPANESE health authorities are investigating a flu medicine that is also available in Australia after a teenager jumped 11 storeys to his death after taking the drug. It was the 18th juvenile fatality linked to Tamiflu in 17 months.

Factory Farms Fueling Avian Flu, Say Researchers
UN efforts to control the spread of avian flu in the developing world could actually do more harm than good, warns a new study.

Bird flu is linked to global trade in poultry
Most of the scattered bird flu outbreaks so far this year probably can be traced to illegal or improper trade in poultry, scientists believe. This probably includes recent outbreaks in Nigeria and Egypt as well as the large outbreak on a turkey farm in England.

Britain Culls 159,000 Turkeys in Outbreak of H5N1 Bird Flu
Britain's first case of H5N1 avian influenza has been confirmed by government veterinarians. At least 2,500 turkeys died of the disease last week at a farm in Suffolk. The Bernard Matthews farm near Upper Holton held 159,000 turkeys housed in 22 sheds, all of which have now been culled to prevent further spread of the highly pathogenic disease.

Deadly Bird Flu Confirmed in British Turkeys
British authorities confirmed Saturday that an outbreak of bird flu discovered among turkeys at a poultry farm in eastern Britain had been caused by the deadly A(H5N1) strain, which has killed humans in other parts of the world.

DEADLY H5N1 MAY BE BREWING IN CATS
The discovery, announced last week, that the H5N1 bird flu virus is widespread in cats in locations across Indonesia has, according to this story, refocused attention on the danger that the deadly virus could be mutating into a form that can infect humans far more easily.

Bird Flu Resurfaces in Vietnam
Bird flu is popping up after a yearlong hiatus in Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia, and experts are warning now is the time for the H5N1 virus to flourish. The big question: Just how far will it go this winter?

Website for Dr. Michael Greger's groundbreaking book, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching
Provides lengthy excerpts from Greger's book, which is a timely account of the history and progression of bird flu, with implications for the future. This website also provides viewers with multiple credible resources on bird flu.

Bird flu virus 'still smoldering,' U.S. expert says
A year ago, headlines were screaming about a looming disaster: the rapid spread of bird flu across two-thirds of the globe. The H5N1 strain of the virus was killing more than half its human victims. Experts were urging the government to stockpile medicine and experimental vaccines.

Poultry trade likely route for bird flu to Americas, experts say
The H5N1 strain of bird flu is most likely to enter North America through infected poultry trade, researchers say.

U.S. looking in wrong place for bird flu, new study says
Birds from Latin America — not from the north — are most likely to bring deadly bird flu to the United States, researchers said Monday, suggesting the government might miss the H5N1 virus because biologists have been looking in the wrong direction.

Senators Slam Voluntary Bird Flu Testing
"It is surprising that USDA does not have a program that monitors and collects data on what testing is taking place," the senators wrote in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns....We are deeply concerned that the agency has waited until this year to begin to develop a comprehensive surveillance plan for avian influenza, which will not be complete until October....Consequently, some states are adequately prepared, while others are not prepared and do not even have avian influenza response plans," the senators wrote.

Spain Confirms Its First Case of Bird Flu
Spain has recorded its first case of H5N1 bird flu, the Agriculture Ministry said Friday. The deadly strain was found in a water fowl in a marsh area outside the northern city of Vitoria.

State tracking down 1,000 baby geese and ducks for destruction
The recent shipping disaster involving 1,000 baby ducks and geese underscores the pure folly in the current system that allows baby birds to be shipped as postal mail (“Utah tracking down 1,000 baby geese and ducks for destruction,” June 23), and it highlights why we should oppose U.S. Senator Charles Grassley’s legislation, S. 2395, to force the U.S. Postal Service to continue shipping baby birds in the mail.

U.N. expert talks of bird flu, world health
If you're wealthier, you're healthier. I am concerned that the drivers of inequity globally are today pretty strong, and if poor people are sick, they stay poor. It's a vicious spiral. So people who want to improve the state of global health need to also be champions of the cause of equity.

US lacks surveillance for bird flu in poultry: USDA
The United States does not have adequate measures in place to survey and monitor for avian influenza, including the deadly H5N1 strain that has killed 130 people overseas, the Agriculture Department's inspector general said on Tuesday.

Bird flu could close military cemeteries
Taps could be silenced for veterans who die during a bird flu outbreak. The Department of Veterans Affairs foresees closing the 120 national cemeteries in a pandemic because of staffing shortages, leaving families the option of delaying burial or seeking interment elsewhere.

Avian flu found in P.E.I. Last
A case of H5 avian flu has been confirmed in a gosling in western P.E.I. by the Atlantic Veterinary College. Dr. Lamont Sweet, P.E.I.'s chief health officer, said in a news release there is no evidence the virus can be transmitted by eating poultry products, but anyone in contact with poultry needs to take special care.

Failure to tackle flu in birds threatens Indonesia’s human population
Efforts by Indonesia to combat H5N1 avian flu outbreaks in the human population are being hampered by the difficulty in detecting and stamping out the disease in poultry, says an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization.

Earthquake survivors at risk for bird flu
Earthquake survivors sleep inside a chicken shed at Bobokan Tempel village in the earthquake-hit Bantul, Indonesia, Saturday, June 3, 2006. Bird flu could threaten survivors of Indonesia's earthquake, an aid agency warned, after finding people whose homes were destroyed staying in dung-smeared chicken sheds. A strong aftershock sent panicked survivors running into the streets early Saturday.

Amid bird flu, activists plead for humane US culling
Horrified by reports from Asia of chickens being set on fire or buried alive in plastic bags, U.S. animal welfare groups are gearing up with trepidation for the arrival of bird flu and the probability of mass killings to contain it.

Eat to Live: Duck-and-goose lock-up
The Périgord pastures are strangely empty this year. In this corner of South West France, devoted almost exclusively to the goose and duck liver trade, the view along the roadside fields usually presents a wing-to-wing waddle of earthbound birds.

Wild Animal Trade Plays Role in Bird Flu Spread, Scientists Say
The legal and illegal trade of wild birds is playing a role in spreading the H5N1 avian flu virus that's killed 127 people, scientists said.

Wisconsin Lab Leads Bird Flu Campaign
An unconventional border patrol in the Midwest is watching for a dangerous migrant that may be trying to enter the country thousands of miles away. On Wednesday, agents will start searching their first detainees — wild birds from Alaska that may be harboring bird flu.

Bird Flu Case May Be First Double Jump
It is a "definite possibility" that the virus jumped more than once inside a family cluster, said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the W.H.O. in Geneva.

Lab Prepares for Bird Flu Testing
Inside an Agriculture Department building known as C-3, four young chickens strut nervously in their cage. They are part of the government's network of defense against deadly bird flu.

Seven Indonesian Bird Flu Cases Linked to Patients
All seven people infected with bird flu in a cluster of Indonesian cases can be linked to other patients, according to disease trackers investigating possible human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus. A team of international experts has been unable to find animals that might have infected the people, the World Health Organization said in a statement today.

The Birds
Crying fowl: A talk with 'City of Quartz' author Davis on another disaster in the making. As Hurricane Katrina revealed, these days natural disasters have plenty of human accomplices. Before Katrina flooded the Gulf Coast and the headlines, another "natural" menace—avian flu—had begun to surface in the media. Since 1997, the influenza strain H5N1 has killed dozens in Asia and forced the mass slaughter of chickens.

Human Bird Flu Appears in Djibouti, First in Horn of Africa
Djibouti is the latest country to report the appearance of highly pathogenic avian influenza in humans, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with a May 12 account of illness in a 2-year-old girl.

In Austria, Way of Life Is Clipped by Bird Flu
Yet in this small, rural country of about 8 million people, the influenza has cut a broad swath: in agriculture, sparking fights between free-range chicken farmers and factory farmers; in social life, adding to the isolation of the elderly who used to meet to feed migratory birds; and in society, bringing to the fore the primitive fears of disease that have long troubled civilizations.

Migrating Birds Didn't Carry Flu
Migratory birds that flew to Africa last fall, then back over Europe in recent weeks, did not carry the deadly flu virus.

Report Blames Flu on Industrial Poultry Farms Not Backyard Birds
Small-scale poultry farming and wild birds are being unfairly blamed for the bird flu crisis now affecting large parts of the world, according to a new report from an international nongovernmental organization based in Barcelona. The report says initiatives are multiplying to ban outdoor poultry, squeeze out small producers and restock farms with genetically modified chickens.

Summit on flu nation's largest
State and federal officials walked a shaky tightrope Friday hoping to encourage preparedness without striking fear in the masses during the nation's lar-gest pandemic flu summit this year.

Bird flu should not be used as excuse for animal cruelty
It’s ironic to hear Tom Silva’s 1.4 million hen operation described as looking “more like a prison than a farm”

Chicken firms giving poultry to food banks
Fears about avian flu have dramatically cut chicken exports, creating a bonanza for the food depositories that serve the nation's poor and hungry.

British consumers fear no fowl despite bird flu
A bird flu outbreak at a handful of English farms has had no impact on sales of chicken and other poultry products in Britain even though investigators cannot rule out the possibility that more farms are involved.

Bird Flu Movie: Fact Or Fiction?
The scenario as portrayed on the ABC movie "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu In America" on Tuesday night is, by design, frightening.

Facing the bird flu threat
Silva’s chickens pump out 1.4 million eggs a day, but his operation looks more like a prison than a farm.

Poll Shows Fear of Bird Flu Widespread
Their expectations shaken by Katrina, Americans are divided over whether the government is likely to do a good job handling the bird flu if it reaches the U.S., a poll finds.

U.S. to allow processed poultry shipments from China
Poultry processed in China will be allowed to enter the United States despite outbreaks of deadly bird flu in China, the Bush administration said Thursday.

A tourism mecca, Hawaii preps for flu
Hawaii, both tourist mecca and western gateway to the nation, is ahead of many states in preparing for a possible global flu epidemic.

Alaska Natives likely to be exposed to bird flu
Alaska Natives may be the the most likely people in North America to be exposed to the avian flu virus because they depend for food on wild migratory birds from Asia, a health care expert said on Thursday

Nine poultry farmers commit suicide in India
Nine poultry farmers in India have killed themselves and more are facing a grim future after bird flu slashed demand for chicken meat, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Worldwide Wetland Restoration Could Reduce Bird Flu Threat
The loss of wetlands around the world is forcing wild birds that may have avian influenza onto alternative sites like farm ponds and paddy fields, where they come into contact with chickens, ducks, and geese, finds a new report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme.

Cat bird flu risks 'overlooked'
It is vital to restrict the spread of bird flu in cats in order to protect human health, scientists warn....cats might form a bridge to man since they often live in close domestic contact - in the same way that nursing a sick pet bird has been shown to do.

Britain Confirms Bird Flu Found in Scottish Swan
A swan found dead in eastern Scotland is the first recorded case of the deadly strain of bird flu in a wild bird in Britain.

Article on Bird Flu Criticizes Effort to Monitor Cats and Dogs
Five leading European scientists think officials should better monitor cats, dogs and other carnivores for their possible role in transmitting avian influenza.

Doubt Cast on Stockpile of a Vaccine for Bird Flu
Scientists report that a [Avian flu] vaccine would only protect about half the people who receive it, and could not be made in sufficient quantity.

FROM THE CHICKENS' PERSPECTIVE, THE SKY REALLY IS FALLING
The disease is self-limiting in wild birds." But when a new virus gets into a barn packed with thousands of young chickens that have been genetically selected for their plump breasts rather than their ability to survive in the wild, it leaps from bird to bird, mutating slightly each time, and sometimes morphs into a lethal strain...

Bird-Flu Pandemic Would Likely Start in California
If a bird-flu pandemic does hit the United States, it may well start in California and spread across the country in just two to four weeks.

Fowl play: The poultry industry's central role in the bird flu crisisBackyard or free-range poultry are not fuelling the current wave of bird flu outbreaks stalking large parts of the world. The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is essentially a problem of industrial poultry practices.

Bird Flu Defies Control Efforts
The culling of flocks has failed to slow the rapid spread of the virus, due in North America this year. Vaccination of poultry is under study.

FDA bans use of anti-viral flu drugs in poultry
The Food and Drug Administration Monday banned the use of anti-viral influenza drugs in chickens, turkeys and ducks in order to keep the drugs effective for use in humans.

Don't blame the wild birds
Those of us who have been studying avian influenza and other bird diseases for decades, when few people beside pet owners and the poultry industry cared, are dismayed that voices of reason are being drowned out with regard to the role played by wild birds in the spread of the H5N1 virus.

Key West chickens may run afoul of bird-flu fears
They've survived hurricanes, hawks, pellet guns, poison, politicians and naughty boys. But now, after ranging free for more than 50 years, the chickens of Key West may finally have met an enemy they can't outsmart: avian flu paranoia.

Donald Rumsfeld makes $5m killing on bird flu drug
Donald Rumsfeld has made a killing out of bird flu. The US Defence Secretary has made more than $5m (£2.9m) in capital gains from selling shares in the biotechnology firm that discovered and developed Tamiflu, the drug being bought in massive amounts by Governments to treat a possible human pandemic of the disease.

INDUSTRY CAUSED THE FLU; WHY BLAME WILD BIRDS?
Not just in India, industrial poultry is the cause of the spread of the bird flu outbreak worldwide.

The price of cheap chicken is bird flu
CHICKEN HAS never been cheaper. A whole one can be bought for little more than the price of a Starbucks cup of coffee. But the industrial farming methods that make ever-cheaper chicken possible may also have created the lethal strain of bird flu virus, H5N1, that threatens to set off a global pandemic.

Bird Flu Found in Weasel-Like Animal
A German lab has found the H5N1 bird flu virus in a weasel-like animal called a stone marten, officials said Thursday, marking the disease's spread to another mammal species beyond cats.

U.S. stepping up efforts to fight bird flu
A deadly strain of bird flu could appear in the United States in the next few months as wild birds migrate from infected nations, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

Govt Beefs Up Efforts to Look for Bird Flu
The strain, which has been spreading rapidly in Asia and parts of Europe and Africa could show up in wild birds in the Americas soon, Dr. David Nabarro, the head of the U.N.'s bird flu project, said Wednesday. "I think it's within the next six to 12 months," he said. "And who knows - we've been wrong on other things, it may be earlier." Nabarro reiterated the World Health Organization's warning that "there will be a pandemic sooner or later" in humans, perhaps due to H5N1, or perhaps another influenza virus, and it could start any time.

Austrian Cats Test Positive for Bird Flu
Several cats have tested positive for the deadly strain of bird flu in Austria's first reported case of the disease spreading to an animal other than a bird, state authorities said Monday.

Foie Gras Endangered Due to Bird Flu Fears
Wings flap, feathers fly and, in a flash, the needle sinks into the fleshy snow-white neck of another of Benoit Descorps' 35,000 ducks.

Deadly bird flu virus spreads to southeast France
France announced on Sunday a new case of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in a wild duck in the east of the country, while another test on a wild swan showed the virus had spread several hundred kilometres to the south.

Bird flu spreads to Poland as Austria cats infected
Avian flu extended its spread across Europe as Poland confirmed on Monday that two dead swans had the virulent H5N1 virus and Austria reported that several cats had been infected.

Drumstick not so tasty it justifies pandemic, says vegetarian U.S. doctor Charlie Fidelman, Montreal Gazette
Stop bird flu before it invades North America by excising poultry from your plate, a vegetarian physician said Tuesday.

Chickens to be gassed in bird flu outbreak rehearsal
The date and exact place of the exercises has not been given yet. What is known is that the exercises involving special bird flu services will take place in southern Poland. A thousand healthy chickens will be killed with carbon dioxide at a yet unspecified poultry farm. This is not a cruel whim but a grim necessity, argues Grzegorz Kawiecki, representing the veterinary authorities for southern Poland.

Factory farms blamed for spread of bird flu
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

Veg restaurants benefiting from bird flu
The incidence of bird flu has made people aware that diseases in animals like the mad cow disease or the bird flu can affect humans, if the diseased animals are consumed by them.

IN PILE OF WASTE, MD. SCIENTISTS DIG UP A RESPONSE TO BIRD FLU
"It's as much of an art as science," said Nathaniel Tablante, associate professor of poultry health at the University of Maryland. Tablante has spent the past three years studying the possibilities of recycling chickens. His office in College Park is overflowing with chicken paraphernalia: clocks, paintings, cartoons, even a little chicken statue made by his daughter after she learned about his job. But Tablante said he has no sentimental feelings for chickens.

India begins bird flu cull
Indian health officials and farm workers have begun culling hundreds of thousands of chickens in a bid to stave off the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus.

EU farm ministers discuss bird flu aid measures
European Union farm ministers are meeting on Monday to discuss the issue of state aid to the poultry sector as bird flu spreads among wild birds across Europe. Under current rules, Brussels can co-finance 50 per cent of the cost of any required culling of birds or destruction of eggs.

Reality takes wing over bird flu
"Intensively-farmed poultry provide ideal conditions for the evolution of highly lethal forms"

Italy fights to contain bird flu
Italian health officials have announced a range of emergency measures after the country's first discovery of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.

Europe taking steps to fend off avian flu
Swan deaths, risk from migratory birds intensify concern
European governments are bolstering their guard against bird flu, faced with a growing number of dead swans and the risk that migratory birds - which begin returning north next month - could bring the disease from Africa.

EU battens down hatches as bird flu hits meat sales
The arrival of bird flu in the European Union prompted governments across the region on Monday to bolster their defences against the deadly H5N1 virus as farmers braced for a plunge in poultry consumption.

Iraqi Government Tries to Prevent Bird Flu Outbreak
The Iraqi government is killing hundreds of thousands of chickens in northeastern Iraq in an attempt to avert a widespread outbreak of bird flu in the region.

Nigerian Bird Flu Outbreak Means No Country is Immune
Thousands of chickens have died in northern Nigeria this month, and now the bird flu may have appeared in the city of Lagos. Chicken sellers say that about 200 birds have died from unknown causes in Lagos state markets within the week.

Deadly bird flu found in Nigeria
The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been detected on a large commercial chicken farm in Nigeria - the first reported outbreak in Africa, the World Organization for Animal Health said Wednesday.

More bird flu in Nigeria alarms WHO
The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in two more Nigerian states, the Agricultural Ministry said Thursday.

Bird Flu and Chicken Factory Farms: Profit Bonanza for US Agribusiness
Look to the giant ‘chicken jails’ or chicken factory farms around the world as a more likely source for emerging Bird Flu viruses, not to small peasant chicken farmers, and we might be closer to the truth.

First Iraqi Bird Flu Death Confirmed
Iraqi and United Nations health officials confirmed yesterday that a teenage girl who died two weeks ago was a victim of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza.

Live Poultry Markets Raise Bird Flu Fears
The odor is the first clue, a sharp barnyard smell that seems out of place on a stretch of the Lower East Side near a Burger King and a Dunkin' Donuts. Hand-lettered signs advertise in English, Spanish and Chinese: live chickens, ducks, quail, pheasants.

Avian Influenza Response
H5N1 Avian Influenza updates by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) international response to Avian Influenza with a summary of confirmed cases to date, news and actions.

Bird flu virus could spill over to Africa and Europe in springtime
Fighting the disease in animals is crucial to win the battle against the virus.

Neal Barnard: Fight avian flu by boycotting chicken
FATMA OZCAN surely deserved better. Hastily wrapped in a body bag and buried by torchlight, 12-year-old Fatma recently became the fourth Turkish child to die of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or "bird flu." Without a miracle, she will not be the last.

Bird Flu Reports Multiply in Turkey, Faster Than Expected
A flurry of new reports of avian influenza in humans and animals emerged Sunday from various parts of Turkey, and international health officials said they had come to believe that the disease had been simmering in the eastern part of the country for months, even though it was reported there only in late December.

Turkish bird flu 'may be endemic'
"The virus may be spreading despite the control measures already taken," Juan Lubroth, senior FAO animal health office, said....Meanwhile Germany's Agricultural Minister Horst Seehofer said Wednesday that Germany "very likely" will require all birds be kept indoors to prevent bird flu in the country.

Turkey Now Has 15 Human Cases of Bird Flu
Preliminary tests showed five more people in Turkey have been infected with the deadly strain of bird flu that already killed two teenage siblings, officials said Monday as Indonesia and China each reported a new case.

WHO Confirms Deadly Bird Flu in Turkey
Teenage siblings who died of bird flu in Turkey were the first humans outside East Asia to succumb to the deadly H5N1 strain

Scientists look to other species for some human flu answers
People aren't the only ones who can get hit with the flu. The influenza virus can infect a range of animals, including chickens, pigs, whales, dogs, horses, ferrets and seals.

Chicken dung used to feed fish may help spread bird flu
December 28, 2005 Independent News

Pigs also at risk if deadly bird flu reaches U.S
December 23, 2005 Reuters

Legacy of farming methods comes home to roost
December 5, 2005 The Sydney Morning Herald

Who pays for avian influenza?
November 15, 2005 Herald Media

The spreading bird-flu menace reaches Europe
October 20, 2005

Liquid manure spills into Black River
August 12, 2005 News 10