Intensive poultry farming breeds nasty bird flu

[Martin Williams]

Been years n years since the notion that wild birds are responsible for creating pathogenic avian flus was debunked, inc by me and others – see various posts on this site and in this forum.

Yet, the idea has perhaps persisted; too convenient to have wild birds as scapegoats for the industrial poultry industry’s shortcomings, and threats – which have lately resulted in some substantial wild bird kills, including around 5000 Common Cranes in north Israel.

This from the Guardian:

Wild birds are routinely blamed by governments and industry for spreading avian flu along migratory routes, but evidenceis mounting that intensive farms are potential “mixing pots” for new, deadly viruses.

“Blaming migratory waterfowl … is clearly no longer a tenable position,” says Rob Wallace, an American virologist who argues that the new strains of flu emerging are adapting to industrial poultry production. “Influenza’s infiltration into industrial livestock and poultry is so complete that these farms now act as their own reservoirs [of disease],” he says. “They are their own source.”
…
Marius Gilbert, an epidemiologist at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, and others have shown how bird flu is linked to the rapid intensification of poultry farming, which is now making bird flu viruses more dangerous.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/18/factory-farms-of-disease-how-industrial-chicken-production-is-breeding-the-next-pandemic

 

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