Test Bird Flu Entry

The big thing about this avian flu (H5N1) isn't that we're all gonna die (we all will, regardless), it's what it reveals about us as a species. The phrase "self-obsessed" comes to mind, but I think anthrocentric has a more academic ring to it.

Here's a brief history of bird flu, as I understand it. About ten years ago it cropped up in China, then travelled to Hong Kong, and for that I can hardly blame it. I worked with a guy who'd travel to Hong Kong every chance he could, and it sounds delightful. After taking a few years off and getting fit and tan near the seashore, bird flu packed up and did a whirlwind tour of southeast Asia and ended up on the front pages of Western newspapers.

Now, it's all over Europe, but has yet to cross the Atlantic. Give it time, I say.
What I'm finding incredible is all these health experts going on about the flu evolving or mutating to a strain that can more easily jump from birds to man and, ultimately, from one human to another. This, they say, is what to watch out for.


I'm no scientist, but that doesn't prevent me from asking questions. Why humans? Maybe this flu is real smart and has looked at the web of life pyramid, and set its sights on the top of the chain. Why strike the middle of the chain when you can lop off the head, right?

Still, it disturbs me that all that anyone's concerned about is the flu jumping to humans, as if that's all we have to worry about. What if the disease mutates to be transferred from birds to, say, lizards? Or octopi? Why is no one keeping an eye on the flu to see if it turns into something that attacks prairie dogs, with prairie dog to prairie dog infection? Are these flus something only humans and birds can get, or are we just being selfish here?

Also, I'm not sure if "ironic" is the right word, but it's the one I'm going to use. I find it ironic that after all the west's industrialization and modernization, after turning up our noses on the progress that permits us to feed a planet of six and a half billion humans and hoping to return the genie to the bottle and reward the ancient methods of raising livestock, that the fowl raised in chicken factories may fare much better than the free range birds. How odd.

There may be something to those antisceptic, unnatural environments after all. It's those damn chickens scratching in God's earth, staring at bright blue skies, who are the only ones at risk. Their cyborg cousins in the Tyson mills will be just fine, thank you, since they don't allow visitors.