Posted on 03/08/2006 2:14:41 PM PST by pubwvj
One of the big excuses used by the USDA and states to argue for NAIS is bird flu, also known as Avian Influenza (H5N1) or Avian Flu and Exotic New Castle Disease. I have been receiving a lot of email from people about several new reports that Factory Farming is what is behind bird flu.
"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 fertilizer. 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." -The Independent of the UK
I readily believe that factory farms have a harder time with bird flu because they have crowded conditions where they maintain weak mono-genetic cultures. All the individuals in the flock are nearly identical and thus susceptible to the same diseases. Any outbreak of disease runs through them like wildfire. It is most interesting that this new research pins the actual blame for Avian Flu on the crowded conditions within factory farms. Specifically that sometimes the viruses mutate from a relatively harmless, common form into more highly dangerous forms within the huge, densely packed populations of industrial, same age birds at factory farms. All this without any exposure to backyard poultry or wild birds.
This flies in the face of governments in a number of countries blaming small pastured poultry farms and then banning outdoor pastured poultry, claiming it is a risk for Avian Influenza. This report from Dr. Jacques Diouf, of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) suggests that it is the global factory farming of poultry that is the real culprit. You can read the whole thing at the link above or this summary of "Fowl play: The poultry industry's central role in the bird flu crisis". Interesting reading...
"our report shows clearly that industrial poultry operations are the source of the problems, not the solution. We also note that the notion of biosecurity in uniform industrial poultry operations contradicts the FAO's own arguments on the problems with factory farming and the importance of local poultry races and genetic diversity" -Dr. Diouf
According to a report at Grain.org this same sort of situation caused the common and mild form of New Castle's Disease to mutate within factory farms into the deadly disease that wiped out flocks at the large producers. This was then blamed on the small backyard flocks. Dr. Kerry Rood of the Vermont Department of Agriculture used New Castle Disease as an excuse for Premise ID at the March 3rd Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on Animal ID in Montpelier. Yet the reality turns out to be that it may be the big producers who are the problem, not the small backyard flocks who were wiped out by the government in response to the discovery of Exotic New Castle's Disease in 2002. Originally the government said that the path of infection was from the backyard flocks to the commercial flocks (thus disproving the factory farm claims of perfect bio-security) but newer research (see below) suggests the actual path of development of the disease and infection may have been from the factory farms and then out to the backyard flocks.
In California and other places they believed the factory farm corporations claims of perfect bio-security and responded by wiping out the backyard flocks. Australian authorities responded differently. Instead they investigated, found the big producers were the problem, mandated vaccinations for the big flocks and did not slaughter the backyard flocks. This program worked proving that the backyard flocks are not the source reservoir of the disease. Australian officials have this to say when asked if backyard flocks are a problem:
"No. A very mild form of Newcastle disease virus is present in all States. Providing that strain does not mutate into something virulent, it poses no threat to birds. The outbreaks we had on the mainland between 1998 and 2002 were caused by a mutation of the endemic mild strain (known as the V4 virus) into a virulent strain of the virus. All the available evidence indicates that, for such a mutation to occur, it needs a large number of birds in a small area to "generate" the virus mutation process. In simple terms, a small number of birds cannot generate enough virus for the mutation process to occur." -Australian Government Handout about "NEWCASTLE DISEASE IN POULTRY"In other words, the American government unnecessarily killed tens of thousands of hens from citizens backyards while ignoring the real threat of crowded factory farms and are using this as one of their excuses for implementing the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). We get blamed for Big Agri-Biz's industrial sized problems because they don't want to face the liability that they are the source responsible for the deaths of not just their own birds but also other birds outside their facilities. To admit this would be to prove the lie of their "bio-security" programs.
The big producers win by demonizing the small producers and out voting us with their dollars when they lobby lawmakers and rule makers. The solution is we need to vote out the current flawed administration that is taking their bribes and fire the bureaucrats that support Big-Ag and vote in new representatives. Phase two is to change the system. We need protection from big lobbying abuses like the Abramoff scandal that Bush just squashed and will now likely not see the light of day. This used to be a government of the people, by the people, for the people. We need to take down the totalitarian Big Brother state it has become, a Govi-Corp of the people, by the corporations, for the corporations. We can win and regain our rightful liberties.
To read more about the National Animal Identification System and how it will hurt small farmers, homesteaders and ultimately consumers visit: http://NoNAIS.org
Visithttp://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog for tales from our farm in the mountains of northern Vermont.
Corporate Greed and Bush's Fault are to blame for Bird Flu...no doubt.
More people died in Southwest Houston last year due to gun fire...then Bird Flu has killed world wide in two years.
Geeeez....
Ahem, its pretty rare we get this kind of animal rights crap wrapped in a 'health concern' wrapper round here.
NAIS...........ping.......
The last bird flu outbreak on DelMarVa was traced directly to a live bird market in NYC. It was brought back here by the pasture farmer who had been in NYC and cross contaminated 3 commercial growers in Delaware and Maryland.
well , maybe they should complain to the chinese on this one. seems to me thats ground zero. but, i guess they don't have the stones to criticize the chicoms, do they?
See, I don't know what to do here.
I KNOW I have a big problem with 'people ask for the keys to the car...I take them to the hood to show them how to rebuild the engine'.
Imagine homework time in my house?
There are already people posting tin foil to Walter's simplistic explanation of Avian Flu.
Walter isn't here to defend what he wrote.
Do I come in and post the history of Kabushiki Gaisha Midori Jûji? And the later experimentations at Guangdong?
It seems a little lose lose. If I don't post, the thread is dismissed as tin foil. If I do post, people's eyes roll back into their heads and they don't read.
:(
Chickens and other livestock should celebrate diversity..
as they say...don't put all your egss in one basket...
Why the tinfoil pcottraux?
"More people died in Southwest Houston last year due to gun fire...then Bird Flu has killed world wide in two years. "
Perhaps. I'm not interested in checking your numbers. But the "bird flu" is indeed a threat.
Keep in mind that the 1918 "Spanish flu" has since been found to be an avian flu. It had nothing to do with factory farms, but it killed millions.
Don't refuse to consider the risk or deny the danger because of articles like this stupid one. If the current infection begins spreading human-to-human, we won't be thinking about SW Houston crime rates.
The world is no longer in 1918.
The reason why the flu was such a pandemic then is modern medicine wouldnt really be "modern" until 1939...for a myriad of reasons too long to list here.
Remember SARS, exactly how big a Pandemic was that?
Bird Flu is a lot of hype, now if it were "weaponized" and delviered as an aresol contaminate over a large city...sure it would be a problem...but that is just adding to conspiracy theory.
It is good to be prepared but let's all agree to be rational. Again, IMHO, more people will die in SW houston next year, and the year after that, and so, on, on...long after Bird Flu has gone the way of SARS.
OK - it's paranoid to think agri-biz ~enjoys~ the prospect of epidemic disease... I wish that wasn't part of the debate, because it does make those opposed to this NAIS look like moonbats. That said, NAIS is legitimately BAD regardless, because it treats all small home-raised livestock like food stock, requiring that I register and tag even my horse (and potentially your dog) and report to the govt every time we take them down the street.
::resisting urge to post links::
:P
>will stay focused on current issue of NAIS<
Please send me a private copy, even if you don't post it publically. I'll read every word. :-)
Cheers!
We can take that to this thread
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1573646/posts
How do you say No NAIS in Japanese?
It's worth considering.
Mark
I just came down with vegetable flu
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