Why is the UAE Issuing Falcon Passports?
These passports will enable falcons to travel abroad along with their owners. The passports are being issued under a new regulatory system to register all middle eastern captive falcons.
Understandably, trained falcons are valuable and need to be tracked. But these passports also require the birds to undergo a set of vaccinations. There are a couple of concerns that arise with this. Some of these vaccinations the birds receive are modified live viruses.
Viruses and bacteria could be genetically engineered to evade the human immune system, to create a more effective biological weapon, a leading researcher into bio-weapons said yesterday.
In the past 30 years biotechnology has been revolutionised by molecular biology and genetic engineering. These techniques, used to control infectious diseases, can also be used to create more effective biological weapons. Speaking at the conference on the future of weaponry, Professor Kathryn Nixdorff, of the University of Darmstadt, said that dangerous micro-organisms had already been produced inadvertently during attempts to modify vaccines and viruses.
In the veterinary field, there has been a general trend away from the use of modified live vaccines (MLV). Modified live vaccines produce a superior vaccine response compared to a killed vaccine (KV); but, they often create concerns for the animal to revert to virulence. These concerns are magnified when virulence occurs in non-adapted wildlife that people have no control or limited control over.
One of the main concerns is from viral shedding in an immunosuppressed host that is vaccinated with a modified live virus. All falcons that are successfully "infected" (vaccinated) with a modified live virus vaccine can be made to shed the vaccine virus under immunosuppressive conditions. Under normal conditions, vaccinates latently harbor the virus and do not shed. No one can be certain that the shed vaccine virus could not be an introduced pathogen for other wildlife or human hosts.
The modified live viruses that falcons with passports receive to date that are publicly known are:
Several experts in the field have made the modified live virus vaccines an issue and have publicly stated that because of the potential dangers associated with the use of modified live vaccines that the use of killed viruses (KVs) are completely safe. These experts also suggested that the UAE be more judicious in the production and use of vaccines.
~Falcon~
Noted!
Bookmarking for later.
Did anyone see the story on Fox a few days ago regarding the use of gift cards that terrorists use to launder money? Similar to drug money where the cards are bought anonymously [which is easy] and then traded for goods and/or money down the line.
Of course once again the falcon returns to our discussion.
:(
Falcons.
They travel with the owners and could shed any disease.
I am glad you found this report and posted it, as I recall thinking of all the ways it would work in the past.