Free Market News Network
by Steve Trinward

01/10/06

Once again, the Fox News/Web MD headline is ambiguous at best, if not downright misleading: 'Bird Flu May Pass From Poultry to Human Easier Than Expected.' The story begins with accounts of new avian flu cases in humans, now spreading to parts of Turkey, where three children from the same family have died, with two of them so far confirmed with the H5N1 bird flu virus. ... However, deeper into the story, it is revealed that, with regard to the Turkish children, at least: 'According to news reports, a doctor who treated those children speculated that the kids had probably caught the virus by playing with dead chickens.' ... In other words, we are still dealing with a virus that only seems to pass from birds to humans if those humans physically handle dead or diseased birds. So the way to stop the avian flu from spreading is to stop people from picking up dead birds, or playing with diseased chickens, and to develop inoculations (or better yet, aerosol sprays) that can stop the spread of H5N1 among the birds themselves!

http://fmnn.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=5152


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp