I am getting mighty sick of all the hype about bird flu. The media coverage seems to me to be adding to the scaremongering rather than informing people of the facts. The TV reports seem to be using bird flu and regular flu in the same sentence. As yet the H5N1 strain of the virus isn't transmitted between people, the 60 fatalities in Asia since 2003 have all been in people who were in close contact with birds (and what is the population in Asia in millions?) and it can't be caught by eating poultry. So why there have been tales of people stock piling food I will never know.
The other piece of irritating news recently was the news that the US stopped the distribution of the UK military ration packs sent out after Katrina because of fears of BSE. The safeguards in place to prevent BSE infected meat entering the food chain have been stringent and as far as I am aware there is still no firm scientific evidence proving that vCJD is caused by eating infected meat. I hope that no one who had already lost everything went hungry because of this stupidity.
Two rants in one day - that should put me in a good mood for the rest of the week!
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1 comment:
I'm totally with you on this bird flu hysteria. It seems after the media got it's feeding frenzy from Katrina it's like it's a junky who has to have that kind of story every day to maintain it's high. It's getting old and tired.
Beth - bethmauldin.com
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