Stuff The Chickens
‘BIRD FLU: WILL ALL POULTRY GET JAB? Its the Mails big front-page question. And there is no easy answer.
While we British, a nation of animal lovers, are sensitive to the need to keep our domestic flocks healthy, shouldnt we be worrying more about ourselves?
For weeks the Mail has been reporting on the Governments lack of readiness should the deadly H5N1 virus mutate and be passed from human to human. There arent enough vaccines for us all. What vaccines there are might not work. We are all going to die in some horrible game of chicken.
Now the paper is concerned not about humanity ostensibly, its readers but about the chickens. Good that chicken-kind has a champion. But, like any number of Mail readers, we must clack our marmalade-coated tongue and ask what chickens have ever done for us?
Where were chickens when the Nazis were knocking at our door? Did chickens bring home the Rugby World Cup? Has a chicken and think hard on this one ever won a Brit award?
The answer is a consistent and narrow No to all three posers. But still the Mail presses on. It says there are 150million edible birds alive in the UK. Experts (and who by now is not an authority on avian flu?) say that two cold snaps on the Continent will drive potentially-infected birds over to Blightys warmer climes.
To keep the domestic birds safe they must be protected, and that means vaccinating them. Which brings us back to the Mails opening line: will birds get the jab?
The paper hears the Department for Environment Food And Rural Affairs say that vaccinations are one option for controlling bird flu. It is part of our contingency planning but it would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
And with 150million birds to interview, examine and process this is no small matter.
So go tell the birds to form an orderly queue outside the vets. And dont get too close, and avoid osculation you wouldnt want to catch anything…’
Posted: 17th, February 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
