Avian Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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Avian Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060410/vonhoffman

' Is it Mother Nature or Father Human Greed whom we have to blame for avian flu?

A few days ago the Union of Concerned Scientists sent out an e-mail saying, "A study by the international non-governmental organization GRAIN suggests that avian influenza is spread primarily by the global poultry trade, not migratory birds or free-range poultry operations as has been suggested, and that confined factory farm production contributed to its mutation into its current deadly form. The organization tracked the movements of the disease over time and found that they were correlated, not with migratory bird routes or the locations of free-range farms, but with integrated trade networks involving poultry, eggs, meat, feathers, manure and animal feed. US Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns warned that bird flu will almost certainly come to the United States." ...'