Bird Flu
From deep within the bowels of an asbestos floor-tiled building in Downey, one with storage closets full of mimeograph machines and mop handles (I made that up), the County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services Veterinary Public Health – Rabies Control Program (good luck fitting that on a business card… when you visit, they probably have to give you two or three) has issued an edict: “Backyard Bird Owners Beware the Bird Flu” (It’s an alliterative group, that CLADHSVPHRCP).
Dated February 2006, this is a document that explains that the bird flu is a virus that makes birds sick, that there are many types of bird flu, that most types of bird flu don’t infect people, but that because of Asian H5N1 we are all going to die. Wait, it doesn’t say that exactly. It does say, though, that if the virus mutates and becomes contagious between people, “billions (!!) of people could catch this disease around the world.”
And, what does this have to do with backyard bird owners and their families, you may wonder? Well, CLADHSVPHRCP addresses this very question. “Backyard bird owners live close to their birds, and handle them often,” they tell us. “They have more physical contact with the feces, blood, feathers, secretions, and tissues of their birds than do workers at poultry farms” (who actually know what they are doing)… “If their backyard birds get infected with bird flu, the bird owners and their families may also get sick.”
Now, please, if you will, step over to this window and take a look at my backyard. That one right there is named Sophie. She lays greenish blue eggs and seems to be pretty smart and sensitive for a chicken. The other one over there is Peep. She used to live in Santa Monica. We didn’t name her. These are the chickens that will get sneezed on by some house sparrow that is carrying H5N1. Then, they will pass it on to me through their feces, a feather or a secretion (ew, I hope it’s a feather), so it can mutate in my body before I grade your kid’s homework at Clifton Middle School with a contaminated pen, and the next thing we know it’s London 1650.
So, that’s the good news, just in case you didn’t have something to think about at two a.m.
From deep within the bowels of an asbestos floor-tiled building in Downey, one with storage closets full of mimeograph machines and mop handles (I made that up), the County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services Veterinary Public Health – Rabies Control Program (good luck fitting that on a business card… when you visit, they probably have to give you two or three) has issued an edict: “Backyard Bird Owners Beware the Bird Flu” (It’s an alliterative group, that CLADHSVPHRCP).
Dated February 2006, this is a document that explains that the bird flu is a virus that makes birds sick, that there are many types of bird flu, that most types of bird flu don’t infect people, but that because of Asian H5N1 we are all going to die. Wait, it doesn’t say that exactly. It does say, though, that if the virus mutates and becomes contagious between people, “billions (!!) of people could catch this disease around the world.”
And, what does this have to do with backyard bird owners and their families, you may wonder? Well, CLADHSVPHRCP addresses this very question. “Backyard bird owners live close to their birds, and handle them often,” they tell us. “They have more physical contact with the feces, blood, feathers, secretions, and tissues of their birds than do workers at poultry farms” (who actually know what they are doing)… “If their backyard birds get infected with bird flu, the bird owners and their families may also get sick.”
Now, please, if you will, step over to this window and take a look at my backyard. That one right there is named Sophie. She lays greenish blue eggs and seems to be pretty smart and sensitive for a chicken. The other one over there is Peep. She used to live in Santa Monica. We didn’t name her. These are the chickens that will get sneezed on by some house sparrow that is carrying H5N1. Then, they will pass it on to me through their feces, a feather or a secretion (ew, I hope it’s a feather), so it can mutate in my body before I grade your kid’s homework at Clifton Middle School with a contaminated pen, and the next thing we know it’s London 1650.
So, that’s the good news, just in case you didn’t have something to think about at two a.m.
posted by kyle at 10:03 PM
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