If the Bird Flu struck the US and Canada, would you consider being a vegetarian?
 

I would. I would not take any chances.

Never. Because then the birds win ;)

Can you catch the avian flu that way? I thought people contracted it from contact with living, infected birds who then spread it to other people.

Maybe AKA Monet can shed some light on this. :)

Why vegetarian? Why not just eat the other white meat, pork, & red meat?

Just wondering.


-Mark

If that were true: that the spread of the avian flu was only linked to human proximity to living fowl... then the market demand for the meat would still mean that there is a risk - a risk heightened by the large populations of fowl raised solely for their meat.

However, biologically speaking viruses do remain active for a time (highly variable depending on strain) even after the death of the carrier - but I'll let a specialist delve into the specifics of that...

Re: If the Bird Flu struck the US and Canada, would you consider being a vegetarian?
 

If being a 'vegetarian' really means 'avoiding close proximity to those infected, whether avian or human, or their refuse/excretions/etc' then yes.

I'm pretty sure that chicken salad will not be the primary avenue of infection for most people.

Good point... in that during the BSE scares a couple of years back how many people switched to vegetarianism because of fear?

I don't know anything about bird flu, but I'm already a vegetarian.

Burn any type of Food, Beef, Pork or Fowl like I do.

Din din is ready, smoke detector is going off! That should take care of all virus. Keeping Chickens or any Birds as Pets can be bad! So are Keeping Misquiteos!

For Veggie eaters, where do they get the shit that goes on to help it grow, Oh, Fertilizar? Brain Fart! :p

Nope. I mean, if there were some sort of outbreak in the US and people suddenly started getting sick from eating chicken or something then I'd probably be wary of eating chicken, but that doesn't mean I'd give up eating any meat whatsoever. Same goes for mad cow disease: if there were an outbreak then I'd probably avoid eating hamburgers/beef, but that would give me no reason not to eat chicken or other meats.

No. We don't eat much chicken as it is, and I know exactly where all the beef we eat comes from and how it's processed.

From a biological perspective, I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't get bird flu just from eating an infected animal... or at least not from the eating the commercially available parts (breast, wing, thigh, leg) that Americans tend to prefer. Things might get a little dicey if you decided to eat the bird's internal organs. I would assume that it's kinda like mad cow disease - even if contaminated beef does get into the U.S., we don't tend to eat the parts of the cow (brain, etc...) where the nasty lil' prion lives.

I don't eat red meat so all that's left is chicken and fish, but I don't think I'd avoid chicken just because of the bird flu...you can't catch it from eating it, can you? On the other hand, if it was transmissible that way, then...maybe.

World: WHO Official Talks About Transmission, Treatment Of Avian Flu
By Golnaz Esfandiari
RFE/RL: How is it transmitted to humans?

Cheng: We don't know exactly how it is transmitted to humans. It is still a very rare occurrence when the strain infects humans, but we believe that it's somehow airborne and that humans will get this disease if they come into very close contact with diseased birds. So if they are handling chickens who have died of H5N1, [if] they're preparing it for food maybe, if they inhale some of the dust in which these chickens have been, then it's possible that they could acquire this disease. But we don't know exactly how.

RFE/RL: Can you catch it by eating chicken or eggs?

Cheng: No, we haven't had any cases that have been linked to consumption of food. Well-cooked chicken and eggs are not a risk factor for contracting H5N1. But the reason that we talk about it is that in these parts of rural Asia, the people who are eating the chicken are also involved in its preparation -- so they are de-feathering the chicken and slaughtering the chicken -- and that can be a risk factor for contracting H5N1.

RFE/RL: The current outbreak is caused by a strain known as H5N1, which can be transmitted to humans. Could you explain why this strain is of particular concern?

Cheng: We've seen that this strain is capable of infecting humans from time to time. It has jumped the species barrier. And also since 2004 we've seen it become essentially established in the Asian poultry populations. So we know that this is a strain that is quite hardy. It can survive in the environment, and it has the capability to infect humans. So that it essentially is meeting two other conditions that we need for a pandemic. This is a new subtype of influenza that has never circulated before in humans, and we know it's capable of causing human infection. So what we're worried about is that if this strain somehow changes to acquire the ability to be transmitted among humans. And if that happens, it's possible that we could have a pandemic.


So, that answers most of the questions.

Note though, that with Mad Cow disease, it can take 10 years to show up after exposure. Therefore, if you don't stop until there's an outbreak of it, it very well could be too late. That said, I'm still eating it. Maybe like the folks who don't evacuate for hurricanes, or those who are hazing severely, we don't tend to take things too seriously until it's too late and someone gets ill/hurt or dies?

Thanks AGDee, I was just about to look up info to post. In one of my courses, we were just discussing how misinformation should be more of a concern in the public health/envrionmental health field.