AGRIBUSINESS
BIRD FLU HYPE
Commentary By: Dr. Sherri J. Tenpenny
COMMENT: Actually, the "early warning system" is telling us about the condition of the environment.....NOT about how deadly the virus is. "Killing" 100 people over the past 3 years isn't really much of a threat to humans. The real threat---and the reason for the monitoring---is the threat to Agribusiness' poultry farms.
August 9, 2006: Bird Flu Monitoring Expands Nationally WASHINGTON — The government on Wednesday expanded its monitoring of wild migratory birds for a deadly bird flu virus to cover the entire nation and U.S. territories in the Pacific. Scientists in the lower 48 states, Hawaii and other Pacific islands will begin keeping an eye out for the deadly H5N1 strain of the avian flu that has killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia. Monitoring began just before summer in Alaska, where the first migratory birds from Asia began arriving. "This move to test thousands more wild birds throughout the country will help us to quickly identify, respond and control the virus if it arrives in the United States,"said Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns."Because we cannot control wild birds, our best protection is an early warning system."
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COMMENT: They have it BACKWARD. Exposing people to H5N1 would give them IMMUNITY...not make them sicker....And the real reason for the Sumatra outbreak (like Vietnam) is dioxin, not wild fish and birds. The details of this is in the NEW edition of FOWL! Bird Flu: It's Not What You Think to be released this week!
June 27, 2006: NoNAIS.org » Factory Farms Ferment Flu New research suggests that the source of bird flu may be factory farm chicken feces that are then used as commercial fish food and fertilizer in fields thus exposing humans and other birds to the H5N1 Avian Influenza virus (AI or bird flu). This is thought to explain some of the outbreaks in China as well as the recent cluster of human deaths in Sumatra. Some feel that this may explain the reservoirs of avian flu in the wild - factory farms are infecting wild fish and birds.
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COMMENT: Bird flu coming to the US soon.....Tyson taking it's money and running!
June 16, 2006: The Morning News :: Business Page Don Tyson, former senior chairman of Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc., sold 1.41 million company shares, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission posted late Thursday. To date, the partnership has sold 5.21 million Tyson Foods' shares valued at $101.34 million. Of that, 3.48 million shares at a value of $55.67 million belonged to Don Tyson
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Tyson conducts 15,000 tests a week for avian influenza, about five times the number the company was conducting a year ago. Most of the company-wide testing is done at the Wilkesboro lab already, and the lab will soon do all the company's bird-flu testing for processing operations in 12 states.
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June 16, 2006: Mideast poultry sales rise as bird flu fears ebb - Middle East Business news related to travel, food, hotel, real estate, hea.. Egyptian poultry traders and officials say demand is returning, breathing life back into an industry relied upon by up to 3 million people and worth 18 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.13 billion) in assets. 'Consumption fell before bird flu came to Egypt but now consumption is returning. There is a gradual increase but it's not yet back to the pre-bird flu level,' Ahmed Tawfiq, head of Egypt's veterinary services department told Reuters.
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COMMENTS: The EU is the last bastion of safe food. I hope they can hold off the WTO and CODEX to keep their food safe from agribusinesss.
May 24, 2006: In EU, front lines in food war - Europe - International Herald Tribune In this famously fractious country, there is one thing on which almost all Greeks agree: They do not want genetically modified crops grown, sold or eaten here.In 2004, the Parliament passed a national ban, but the European Union rejected it as an illegal trade barrier. Since then, all 54 Greek prefectures have passed local bans, testing international regulations and patience. "All political parties are opposed to GMOs, which is odd because we disagree on everything else," said Theodore Koliopanos, a legislator and former deputy environment minister.
In much of Europe, genetically modified foods are so unpopular that some main stream supermarket giants will not stock them. In surveys, consumers and many experts - not just organic farmers and environmental groups - emerge unconvinced that GMOs are safe, particularly for the environment.
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COMMENT: So, the 1918 pandemic may NOT have been from a bird virus....we may be culling all those bird for naught.
May 20, 2006: Molecular virologyWas the 1918 pandemic caused by a bird flu? : Nature The authors conclude from these sequences that the virus jumped from birds to humans shortly before the start of the pandemic and that it was not derived from earlier viruses by gene shuffling, a process called reassortment. However, we believe that their evidence does not convincingly support these conclusions
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COMMENT: The global agenda of agribusiness is one of the agendas behind the bird flu contrived crisis. They have the money to "ride out" the storm of the temporary decrease in poultry consumption. Backyard farmers must either give up farming--and starve--or become part of the factory farming.
May 5. 2006: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Fowl-Play-in-Bird-Flu.php Fowl Play in Bird Flu Numerous papers, statements and documents issued by the United Nations FAO, WHO, and government agencies have been silent on the role of industrial poultry farming in the bird flu crisis, and indeed, have proposed to compensate them generously for loss profits (see above). Instead, the finger is pointed at backyard farms, calling for tighter controls of their operations and greater 'restructuring' of the poultry sector.
A team of scientists who analysed the H5N1 epidemic in Thailand 2004 found that the risks for HPAI infection were 5.3, 5.1 1.5, 32.4 and 2.3 times higher, respectively in commercial layers, broilers, ducks, quails and geese than in back yard chickens [16]. This is clear evidence corroborating other findings that corporate factory farms are to blame, and not backyard farms. On that basis, we should be calling for closure of factory farms, not family farms.
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WARNING: THE RESULT COULD BE THE SAME WHEN THE BIRD FLU VACCINE IS PRODUCED FOR HUMAN USE!
May 14, 2006: Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Wrong vaccine spread virus The report stated that fowls which have been vaccinated with H5N1 in all of poultry farms have been infected with the deadly avian flu virus instead of being immunized against it. The SNCCBF noticed that immunized birds have contracted the disease during this period. Instead of immunizing poultry, the vaccine spread the virus.
Every farm where birds were vaccinated with the H5N1 vaccine has been infected with the deadly avian flu virus.
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COMMENT: Tyson Foods has a financial interest in educating the public about bird flu. Tyson Foods has 26 percent of the industry's market share, and roughly 15 percent of their U.S. poultry production is exported. Russia buys roughly $252 million of Tyson Foods' chicken exports, with another $49 million sold to China.
May 12, 2006: The Morning News :: Business Page Education is a first line of defense and an integral part of what the industry as a whole is doing to safeguard flocks, according to the company. The company also noted:
-Growers are trained regularly on new biohazard protocol.
- The vertical integration within the American poultry industry gives additional protection against outside contamination.
-Controlled indoor facilities also protects American flocks from possible outside infection from migratory birds.
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The movie was criticized by the poultry industry as irresponsible. Hours before the movie aired, Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat producer, outlined how it will detect and stamp out the flu virus if it makes it to North America. The measures include banning nonessential visitors from poultry farms and testing a sample of every flock before they are sent to slaughter. The company and other producers in the National Chicken Council will run public service announcements, said John Lea, Tyson's chief development officer.
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May 9, 2006: Agriculture integral in nation's bird flu response
"When we find it, we need to jump on it hard and get rid of it - that is going to be the key to it," said Paul Grosdidier, a veterinarian with the Kansas Animal Health Department. "The quicker we get rid of it in the poultry population, the less concern we have with it in the human population."
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COMMENT: Agribusiness and global planners are having their way in Vietnam.
May 7, 2007: Some Vietnam breeders regain after bird flu scourge | Reuters.com KHAI TAY, Vietnam (Reuters) - Chicken breeders such as Huynh Thi Ba are just starting to break even more than two years into the avian flu epidemic that shattered the livelihood of some Vietnamese poultry farmers. Thousands of chickens are now clucking away in wire cages of a large coop behind her village home in central Vietnam avoided the deadly H5N1 virus and are protected by costly measures such as disinfectant, vaccinations and feed to boost immunity. "I ate and I slept with the chickens so I could make certain that none of my chickens had problems," Ba said at her family-run poultry farm in Khai Tay, 15 km from the coastal city of Danang.
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COMMENT: A "cure" for the bird flu? How about washing your hands, and doing away with factory-farmed chickens?
May 6, 2006: Computers Aid in the Development of Bird Flu Vaccine This computer network has the ability to generate the reactions of 300,000 chemical compounds. These compounds were then tested against the virus to find which one is effective in combating the deadly H5N1 strain. Hence scientists from various universities who are working on the same subject can make use of these computers to find out a cure.
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COMMENT: They can't have it both ways!! Guess this is a way to shore up the poultry industry....right before the bird flu movie!! Lobbyists for Tyson, et al, have been pounding the pavement!
May 6, 2006: TV ads: Don't sweat bird flu | IndyStar.com An announcer lists four steps for food safety: Clean hands and cooking surfaces. Separate raw and cooked foods. Cook poultry to at least 165 degrees. Chill leftovers promptly.The Agriculture Department on Thursday began sending out a series of commercials, interview excerpts, video footage and photos to television and radio stations with the goal of easing people's minds and clearing up misconceptions about bird flu.
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COMMENT: Market share will pick up later in the year in SE Asia.....
May 5, 2006: ABC News: Tyson Foods posts loss on meat oversupply CHICAGO (Reuters) - Tyson Foods Inc. <TSN.N>, the nation's top meat producer, on Monday posted a loss for its fiscal second quarter due to an oversupply that led to lower prices, but it said the impact of the glut should diminish later in the year.
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COMMENT: One more reason that they need the increase marketshare in SEAsia....
May 3, 2006: Bird flu hurting U.S. chicken firms | Chicago Tribune Tyson Foods Inc., the nation's largest producer of chickens, on Monday reported its largest quarterly loss in more than a decade as concerns about avian flu and mad cow diseases hurt exports. The company reported it lost $127 million, or 37 cents per share, in the first quarter compared with a net profit of $76 million, or 21 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.
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COMMENT: I wonder how many chickens were culled in the region before the TRUE cause of death of the chickens was determined.
No trace of the dreaded bird flu disease has been found at a poultry farm near here where around 5,000 chicken had died, official sources said. The sources said the owner of the poultry farm could not feed the birds properly since past few days following slump in the market due to which the sale of poultry items, including chicken and eggs, had gone down drastically. And as a result, the birds perished due to starvation, according to a report of the testing lab at Jalandhar conveyed to the district administration.
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COMMENT: PRE-emptive strike by KFC, largest purchaser of factory farmed chickens in the world!!
April 26, 2006: At Kentucky Fried Chicken, Colonel Harland Sanders' face remains a staple on company signs and food containers. Now the goateed image of the restaurant chain's founder appears on a sticker meant to head off any concerns about eating chicken if bird flu spreads to the United States. The small stickers are being put on the lid of every bucket of chicken that KFC sells in the U.S. The seal is a pre-emptive campaign assuring customers that the chicken is "rigorously inspected, thoroughly cooked, quality assured."
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COMMENT: All this to protect the industry; what is being done to keep the birds HEALTHY and what is being done to protect the WORKERS??
April 23, 2006: Star-Telegram | 04/23/2006 | Poultry industry bolstering defenses against bird flu "If it gets into our industry, the only way to get it out is to euthanize complete complexes like this," he said during a tour of an egg-laying operation whose 1.5 million hens he valued at nearly $10 million. Today, all trucks entering and exiting Silva's complex are given an automated bath of ammonia-based disinfectant. All employees enter the site through a "dirty door" into a trailer that serves as a changing room. They swap their street clothes for pre-washed boots, hats and coveralls, then enter the henhouses through a "clean door." They reverse the process on the way out.Poultry companies try to avoid one another on the road. They plot routes and stagger deliveries throughout the day for fear that the virus might jump from truck to truck.
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COMMENT: I wonder what form the aid will come? Low interest loans (increasing indebtedness of farmers to the government) or chick replacement from Aviagen (genetically modified chicks)?
April 23, 2006: IOL: EU approves aid for flu-hit poultry farmers Brussels - European Union farm ministers are set to approve Tuesday special aid payments to poultry farmers hit by the collapse of prices due to the bird flu crisis, officials say. Farmers' groups have given a cautious welcome to the moves. "We will never get aid to compensate for all the losses, but it will help us through the crisis," said the Brussels-based European farmers' federation Copa-Cogeca.
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COMMENT: Please read this entire article....Mr Evensen really has it nailed!!
April 23, 2006: deseretnews.com | Top bird flu threat in U.S. may be panic As far as I can tell, the only people who should be worried right now about bird flu are the ones who make money off birds. Maybe I should be more graphic the ones who work in the $29 billion U.S. poultry industry; the ones who produce more chickens.
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COMMENT: More elimination of the independent farmers in the US seems to be on its way...
April 23, 2006: 'Biosecurity' is buzzword vs. bird flu A tradition of raising "backyard chickens" for eggs, meat, cockfighting and bird shows runs deep in some Asian and Hispanic subcultures here in the Central Valley. Industry executives and state officials say these backyard birds number in the millions, and they worry these birds out in the open could be exposed to sick migrating flocks. Then they could pass the disease to their owners - many of whom work at commercial poultry operations.
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COMMENT: After last year's deadly earthquake in which tens of thousands died, this will starve off even more citizens of Pakistan trying to survive.
April 22, 2006: Reuters AlertNet - Pakistan culls 25,000 chickens in bird flu scare ISLAMABAD, April 20 (Reuters) - Pakistan on Thursday culled around 25,000 chickens at two farms near the capital where bird flu was detected, officials said. Pakistan has not reported any cases of humans contracting the disease.
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COMMENT: Tyson needs a new marketshare more than ever....
April 22, 2006: Stock Market News and Investment Information | Reuters.com
Tyson is a low investment-grade credit at risk of being cut to junk by at least one of the three major ratings agencies. "There is a long list of credit concerns with Tyson. The current spread implies the market is braced for it to go to junk," said an analyst at a big investment bank. He advised shorting Tyson in the CDS market based on weakening credit fundamentals and ongoing headline risk. He said spreads could go as wide as 150 to 160 basis points. Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson declined to comment.
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COMMENT: The mock-hysteria is wiping out entire countries. Multinational GROUPS can absorb the losses...and will be poised to move in and take over once the panic passes.
April 16, 2006: INDIA: Bird Flu: Small poultry farmers severely hit - NDTV.com - News on Bird Flu: Small poultry farmers severely hit In the aftermath of bird flu, as the poultry industry faces huge losses, it's the small poultry farmers who have been the worst hit. Over a million farmers across the country have virtually lost their livelihood and have found desperate measures to tide over the crisis as they wait for the government to intervene. The government's financial package involves reduced interest on bank loans, but 1.1 million small farmers across the country do not take loans. Their business runs purely on credit from the feed supplier and the supplier of chicks. With the whole system of credit collapsing, small farmers are now looking towards the government to bail them out.
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April 12, 2006: allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Bird Flu: Govt Axes 76 Poultry Farms The committee also said it has culled about 45,000 chickens discovered to be infected by the flu virus, and had properly disposed them, adding that machinery had been set in motion for the payment of compensation to victims before the end of the month.
According to him, "a total of 236 poultry farms have been taken account of and their birds certified free from the disease," it said, adding that in the zoning arrangement it made for the fumigation of chicken markets in the state, 67 of such markets have been identified and registered in Kafanchan zone, 108 in Chikun, 10 in Saminaka and 57 in Zaria zones. He urged poultry farmers to avail themselves of the current registration exercise, and warned that refusal by anyone would attract penalties.
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COMMENT: This is an amazing map that shows the continued destruction of our soil and contamination of our water by the Chemical-Fertilizer industry.
April 12, 2006: Farm Subsidies Lead to Ocean Pollution, Researchers Say - The NewStandard After using data from the US Geological Survey to trace the pathway of agricultural pollution, the EWG compared the results with farm-subsidy data and found that the counties contributing the highest amounts of pollution were also the ones receiving the most tax-payer-funded subsidies for farming. According to the group, from 1995 to 2002, nearly half of farm subsidies in the Mississippi River Basin “ or $28 billion“ went to farms in the most polluting counties.
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April 12, 2006: IOL: Nine farmers commit suicide in flu-hit India Mumbai - 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. "Most small poultry owners start their business by selling off land and jewelry. And when they can't recover their costs, they are left with no choice," Singh said.
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COMMENT: Tyson et al won't have immigration and human rights problems when they take over the markets SE Asia and China......
April 10, 2006: Immigration rallies begin to take toll on US workplace - MarketWatch Industry giant Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN) said some of its facilities, including a plant in Madison, Neb., will be closed, partly because of the planned rallies and partly because of poor livestock market conditions. "We're telling them if they plan to take part in a rally Monday and their plant is scheduled to operate, we hope they will not take any unauthorized time off but will instead get pre-approval from their supervisor or participate during non-work hours," he said. "We're also encouraging them to consider expressing their views by writing or calling their U.S. senators or representative."
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April 10, 2006: Rutland Herald: Rutland Vermont News & Information Farmer advocacy groups like Rural Vermont contend the state program is intrusive and damaging to small farmers. And it could open the door to individual animal identification, they argue, pointing out that the state's own plan mentions that animal identification is a possibility in the future....."My livelihood, in fact the survival of my farm, depends on my turkey crop. I don't have other income."
Government reimbursement plans would pay him the per-bird value based on the price of regular commercial turkeys at the time they were destroyed if any of them tested positive for the disease. But that might be a fraction of what he had spent raising them and what he could get come fall. And he raises just one crop of turkeys a year, so his annual income could be wiped out in a single stroke.
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April 10, 2006: BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Bird flu 'not hitting business'
I'm still selling eggs and folk are still buying eggs, but most of the customers are pretty well educated," said Mr Miller, who employs 25 people. He added that the discovery of a dead swan infected with the H5N1 bird flu strain in Fife had been "blown out of proportion", adding: "I'd never have thought one dead swan could cause such a commotion."
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COMMENT: The virus is not "new" and the main concern is the financial viability of Agribusiness.
April 9, 2006: FROM THE UK: Telegraph | News | How to cope with risks of the virus So if the risk to human health is small, why all the fuss? The serious fear is that the disease could spread from wild birds to domestic poultry flocks and cost the industry millions of pounds. When did it last hit the UK? In 1991, avian flu was confirmed in a flock of turkeys in Norfolk.
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COMMENT: One more reason that global poultry companies will be glad to take over production in SE Asia....
April 8, 2006: Cattle Network - Connecting The Beef Industry Worldwide Tyson Foods (TSN) said Friday some of its meat processing plants will be closed Monday due to a combination of factors including planned immigration rallies, which will affect some of the company's employees.
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COMMENT: H5 can be combined with N1 through N9; just finding the (H) antigen does not mean that this is an outbreak of the "deadly" bird flu virus.
April 8, 2006:Reuters AlertNet - Vietnam reports bird flu outbreaks near China Vietnam usually tests for the N component of the strain when a sample comes from a suspected human case. With poultry, the finding of H5 is enough to carry out preventive measures such as slaughter and disinfection of birds.
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COMMENT: This is creating the perfect situation for advancement of global agribusiness and vertically integrated factory farming.
April 7: Bird flu pandemic could lead to global recession - ADB - Forbes.com Estimated costs to the sector range from 10 to 15 bln usd and as backyard farming is a key source of income for many rural families 'avian flu has already contributed to the already high level of rural poverty,' the report said.
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April 5: The Morning News :: News Page Lawyers representing the poultry industry took aim Tuesday at eliminating another expert witness from a pending lawsuit. Rod O'Connor, a chemist and retired professor of environmental studies at Baylor University, is the plaintiffs' star witness in the case. He's expected to testify that the poultry feed additive Roxarsone turns into a toxic form of arsenic as it degrades in chicken litter. The arsenic is then transported through the air to area homes after the litter is spread on fields as fertilizer, he is expected to say.
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April 4, 2006: Bird flu-hit farms to get 4% loan relief- The Economic Times
According to a report by the IMF, an epidemic outbreak of influenza caused by the H5N1 virus will cause economic disruptions on the supply side which will come directly from high absenteeism, as people maybe asked to stay at home, or may choose to do so to care for sick relatives or because of fear of being exposed themselves
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COMMENT: ID tracking and chipping, First the animals, and then the people.....??
March 30, 2006: The Morning News :: Business Page ID Program Needed To Keep State Cattle. However, there soon must be a program to identify cattle by age and farm or "we are going to be locked out of the international market, because the Japanese are going to want to know old they (cattle) are and where they came from," Bell said.
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March 28, 2006: Chron.com | DIGEST High court passes on Tyson verdictThe Supreme Court refused to revive a $1.3 billion jury verdict against Tyson Foods, the nation's largest meat packer, rejecting claims that Tyson used its market dominance to artificially push down cattle prices. The justices without comment in Washington on Monday turned down an appeal from a group of ranchers who accused Tyson of violating the U.S. Packers and Stockyards Act, a 1921 law that governs the meat industry.The rejection probably also means the end of similar suits against Cargill and ConAgra Foods, according to Joe Whatley, a Birmingham, Ala., lawyer representing the ranchers in the three cases.
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March 26, 2006: Suicides follow the bird flu Three farmers had committed suicide in the recent weeks...more than 10 farmers in the country have committed suicide since the bird flu scare broke out. Blaming the insensitive attitude, farmers are committing suicide due to mounting losses and inablility to feed the birds due to very low egg prices over 35 days.
National Egg Coordination Committee (in India) said when there is no single case of human to human transmission of Avian Influenza anywhere in the world and not even a single case of human blood sample testing positive for bird flu anywhere in the country, the Central government officials are unnecessarily terrorising the public with their statements on spread of bird flu to human beings.
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March 23, 2006 - Real reason for bird flu - The Citizen - "Avian flu is a disease of the intensive poultry industry. It is as a result of the industrialised and pitiless conditions in which poultry are reared that diseases such as bird flu develop and spread."
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COMMENT: The new "pandemic flu shot" will be developed from cell line technology. This is what the FDA says about using animal cells (cell substrates) to create the flu shot:
"...the use of immortalized, neoplastic human cells to develop [vaccines] raises theoretical concerns with regard to possible contamination with TSE/BSE agents."
BSE is bovine spongiform encephalopathy, "mad cow" disease.
READ IT FOR YOURSELF: Risk of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE)
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March 15: USDA Confirms Third BSE Case - Ark. Business online media paper Arkansas News ebusiness biz in Arkansas The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed Monday that a 10-year-old Alabama cow had tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease. The age of the 10-year old cow would mean it was born before 1997, which is when the Food and Drug Administration implemented its ban on ruminant-to-ruminant feeding practices.
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March 15: IOL: US 'preparing for Bird Flu outbreak' "Government-wide, we have held significant planning sessions, preparation sessions," he said. At the US Department of Agriculture, we know what our response is going to be. So we've invested a lot." Johanns said the US was confident it would be ready if bird flu was identified in the country. "We have a plan in place, we have resources available," he said.
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COMMENT: This is just the beginning......
March 12, 2006: The Times-News Online: Twin Falls, ID The enormity of tagging and electronically tracking every animal in the United States hit home to livestock owner and 4-H Club leader Maria Brown recently when her Cassia County extension office informed her that 4-H steers in the county would be required to have radio frequency identification/electronic identification (RFID/EID) tags this year. Brown's experience is what farm animal and poultry owners across the nation can come to expect in the next few years as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Animal Identification System (NAIS) becomes a reality.
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March 11, 2006: Independent Online Edition > Environment 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.
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COMMENT: this is truly disgusting...
March 7: Patented AGRO-JET Needle Free Injector Medical International Technology Announces Its Malaysian Distributor Continues to Combat Influenza H5N1 The current method of inoculating poultry throughout most of the world is done via the needle/syringe method. This method typically has several hundred birds inoculated with the same needle before it is discarded. The result is a dramatic increase in the cross-contamination risk between injected birds as well as an increase in the risk of infecting the person performing the injections via potential needle stick injury.
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March 6, 2006 - Industry caused the flu; why blame wild birds? - The Financial Express, India "The epicentre of the outbreaks is the factory farms of China and South East Asia. While wild migratory birds can carry the virus, at least for short distances, the viruses are spread by the unhygienic factor farms, global studies said. This situation is very true in case of the recent outbreak of bird flu in India. The epicentre of the outbreak was in 18 factory farms in and around Navapur in Maharashtra, where there are no sanctuary for migratory birds in the vicinity."
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March 3, 2006 - UF poultry veterinarian tries to quell bird flu panic - The Gainesville Sun - "He's meeting with poultry industry leaders and agricultural officials who are trying to quell public concern about bird flu. Butcher, who receives funding from the poultry industry for consulting work, calls the bird flu scare much ado about nothing. "I'm trying to downplay this because it needs to be downplayed," Butcher said. "It's been so beefed up, it turns into a circus. That's what bothers me most. A lot of good people are being hurt by this."
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February 19, 2006 - It is not avian flu, says poultry expert - Times of India - "It is some mistake. I am surprised and shocked athow the government has declared that it is bird flu on the basis on just one report. We are not in agreement with it," said Desai."
