The same low-pathogenic H5N2 strain of avian influenza that caused an outbreak in Virginia in 2002 has been found in Pendleton County, W. Virginia, leading to the untimely culling of 25,000 turkeys (or "depopulation" in the world of USDA doublespeak).
The operation responsible for the conditions that make this disease so dangerous is actually being reimbursed by the USDA for the financial loss. The USDA will also support the "poultry producer" with the "depopulation" process, which I suppose refers to providing personnel, equipment, and corpse disposal. I can hear the taxpayer dollars being drained from government coffers now.
That's my money, too, and I haven't eaten bird flesh in about 20 years. Not fair, right? These costs should instead be passed on to the consumers of turkeys, so they can start getting a better sense of the true cost of their destructive eating habits. We have to stop using taxpayer money to subsidize these intensively-confined conditions that are ideal for mutating H5N2 into the highly lethal H5N1 strain that has spread through Asia, Europe, and Africa before we end up with a true epidemic on our hands. Otherwise, we are simply paying through the nose for our own potential demise.
One way to help avoid this fate is to stop eating birds and their eggs altogether, if you haven't already, and to make sure everyone you know realizes how their dietary habits threaten us all. Here's a video you can link them to. Frankly, as is common with HSUS advocacy, the production is terribly soft on the consumption of animals, suggesting as it does that free range is a better option than standard factory-farmed animals, but its message could open the door for you to have a discussion with your friends and family on the problems inherent in all animal breeding, confinement, and slaughter.
Labels: avian flu, factory farming, poultry, turkeys
