Hi Martin,
i heard about the thesis that the FLI (Friedrich Loeffler Institute) plays possibly an role on the Ruegen outbreak. However, there are no proves and the FLI was quite a little humorless in case of spreading this thesis.. :whistle:
From my point of view the US got George Bush II to bring ‘freedom and democracy’ over the world (officially, unofficially it is nothing but an imperialistic/economic programme). Here in Germany we got Horst Seehofer – Agriculture Minister – and Thomas Mettenleiter – leader of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute – to save the world of the ‘inevitable’ H5N1 pandemic (officially, unofficially it is, by the way, a good cause to save the profit of the german poultry industry..). In other words: H5N1 as an economic location factor.
And the birds are victims of these economic policy – just a ‘collateral damage’. This explains particulary the misinformation and the H5N1 related tabloid reportings. There are just lobbyists at work.
I am angry and gobsmacked in fact if i see the paradigm shift at the readership caused on these misinformations. Birds, until the H5N1 media hype widely perceived as ‘feathered friends‘ now mutateted in something like ‘feathered foes‘.
Do you remember the movie ‘Atomic Café’ and ‘Bert the turtle’? In 1950, an animated turtle named Bert taught American children to ‘duck and cover’ in case of atomic attack. Both, Horst Seehofer and Thomas Mettenleiter, seems to be modern variants of Bert. They teach the german electorate to ‘duck and cover’ in case of H5N1 attack. In February it seemed to me if Hermann Goering makes an remake of Alfred Hitchcocks “The Birds”. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern were the ‘conservation of the species’ related laws cancelled, hunters with night vision googles were ready to shoot and kill every wild bird. Residents of declared H5N1 restricted areas got the order to keep silence about those governmental taken steps. That’s what happened in Germany, february 2006. Not i.e. in north Vietnam or an other dictatorial country.
At last my own thoughts about H5N1:
Hypothesis: H5N1 is endemic in wide parts of the wild bird population and spreads rapidly over the rest. If this it is so, the actual governmental taken steps are foolish. To kill every bird in 3 Km diameter of every H5N1 suspected case is no acceptable problem solution. The only way would be vaccination of poultry and domestic flocks.
Related to this hypothesis it is irrelevant if H5N1 – i agree with this thesis – was released by the poultry industry or not. I think that the H5N1 problem (like most of the other problems) is entirely man-made. Furthermore i believe that it is foolish to think that i.e. the application of antibiotic, mutagenic substances in the poultry industry stay without any adverse consequences. This may explain why the hpai strain of H5N1 is deadly within short times in case of infect poultry flocks and less deadly in wild birds.
Best regards,
Werner