24 Feb 2006
In the Land of Coq au Vin, Soul-Searching Over Bird Flu

Am I getting paranoid in my old age? Because the more I read about this, the more suspicious I get of the whole deal. I'm even starting to wonder if I've been a bit too credulous in my prior reporting on this issue. Ian Fleming, in his James Bond novels, put an interesting thought in the head of his protagonist: "One time is happenstance, two times is coincidence, three times is enemy action." So let's count...

First off, despite nearly hysterical reports all over the mass media, there's been no human outbreak of bird flu. There's happenstance.

Despite it's initial appearance in the Orient, where the vast majority of birds are raised free range in folks backyards, it has not utterly devastated the national poultry flocks. China has made some quixotic efforts at vaccination, but basically, after the initial wave, there's been nothing - it's moved on west - to Europe and Africa. Coincidence?

Now here we are in Europe - and H5N1 will be in the US before summer, I guarantee it. What's the reaction in the West? Why, confine all birds, of course, since now the transmission vector is perceived to be migratory waterfowl. Which are the only birds, upon review, that've been found with the virus in Europe.

Most free range producers can't lock their birds up: we don't have the space or the equipment. Most of us don't want to in any event: we've become convinced, like the gentlemen in the referenced article, that "Un bon poulet est un poulet libre!" ("A Good Chicken is a Free Chicken!"). But unless we confine our birds per government health order, they'll cull our flocks as a preventative measure:

Underscoring those concerns, French officials cordoned off the suspicious turkey farm and ordered the slaughter of all 11,000 birds on Thursday, even though definitive results from laboratory testing for the virus were not expected before Friday.

Qui bono?

Meanwhile, Duc, a French mass-production poultry company, is taking a different tack, touting the fact that its chickens are raised in confinement. The company has begun distributing pictures of its birds in cages.

I'm not saying that corporate commercial poultry producers caused this outbreak - but I'm getting damn suspicious that they're manipulating it to quash their competition - if I got a "confine or cull" order from the USDA my flock would be dead by nightfall, and I'd be out of business.

And that qualifies, in my book anyway, as "enemy action".

The fowl is part of the national heritage of France, and fears of avian flu have set off a national panic as well as an identity crisis.

(link) [New York Times]

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