Dangerous bird flu virus or harmless?

Dangerous bird flu or harmless? Animal rights activists criticize mass killing of animals due to harmless findings.

As already reported, around 17,000 geese and ducks had to be killed on suspicion of bird flu in a poultry farmer in the district of Parchim (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). The mass killing of the animals was ordered by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Schwerin.

However, the detected virus is not the bird flu virus H5N1, but the relatively harmless H5N2 variant. In a routine check, antibodies were detected in individual animals. As a result, the ministry ordered the immediate and widespread closure and killing of the allegedly infected animals to prevent a possible mutation of the dangerous bird flu virus (H5N1), according to official circles. The farm receives compensation for all animals killed from the disease cash register.

Mass killing due „harmless viruses“ triggers strong criticism
Among animal rights activists and veterinary physicians, the mass lobing of animals generally triggers violent criticism. Because in the actually healthy animals only antibodies of a harmless influenza pathogen were found. Animal rights activists contradict the official statement that the virus type can mutate into the dangerous bird flu virus H5N1. According to the critics, mass animal husbandry can lead to the occurrence of disease symptoms due to numerous animal passages of the animals in permanent stress. This circumstance results from the fact that the animals in the stables are not kept according to their species and the conditions in the poultry plants are often unhygienic. If antibodies were found in individual animals, this was just a natural process. Because the animals would suffer from the kind of attitude. Whether a non-species-appropriate attitude actually existed in the company in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern can not be confirmed at present. Rather, this is a fundamental criticism of the Avian Influenza Regulation.

The affected animals were free range poultry. The animal welfare association „Animal and human“ thinks it is „completely ruled out that the harmless influenza type H5N2, which was found in the circle parchim in healthy ducks and geese, mutated to H5N1. Healthy free-range animals with an intact immune system produce protective antibodies against H5N2. By this natural process, the viruses disappear after a short time from the stock.“ as it was called. Very different in factory farming, because these are high in the opinion of the association „explosive breeding grounds for germs, in which even harmless germs can be a problem: The close stabling of thousands of ailing and permanently stressed, overbred animals whose immune system is weakened by the massive housing conditions and even by massive antibiotics, makes the animals extremely receptive to each infection“. Meanwhile, the Central Association of the German poultry industry has called not to relax the avian influenza regulation. However, the animal and human initiative sees this as an attempt by the poultry industry „Help harmless viruses that were found in healthy free-range poultry in the district Parchim to further stall the free range as a competition of mass animal husbandry“.

The veterinarian chairman of the association, Dr. med. Karin Ulich, stressed: „It is urgently necessary to examine the poultry in pure stable housing, so in the factory farms, on highly pathogenic bird flu before each Ausstallation and Einstallung. This also applies explicitly to poultry to be delivered to slaughterhouses. The low-pathogenic avian influenza viruses must not result in any keulactions - in this case, it might be worth considering prescribing a repeat examination after a few days should the location of the affected animals be planned. In free-range husbandry, in my estimation, low-pathogenic germs are meaningless and can be neglected.“

Avian influenza regulation in the sense of the poultry industry for market adjustment?
Animal rights activists suspect that the avian influenza regulation was designed entirely in the spirit of the poultry industry. This regulation allows the so-called killing (ie killing) of whole healthy stocks, if only low-pathogenic viruses were detected in an investigation. This possibility of mass lobes is mainly used to clean up an oversupply on the market at the expense of the disease fund, the critics said. It has often happened that entire livestock have been killed in large numbers, because supposed symptoms were found in animals. According to the animal protection organization "Tier & Menschen e.V." last winter, "610,000 turkeys were gassed and destroyed in mass animal husbandry in the district of Cloppenburg". At that time the authorities had found in 33 stocks a "harmless relative" of the bird flu virus. Here, according to the association, "the supersaturated turkey market at the expense of the disease fund and thus the taxpayer adjusted". Outside the "turkey-mast factories", which were sealed off from the outside, no viruses were found in other animals. (sb, 14.11.2010)

Also read:
Bird flu viruses detected
Facts about the swine flu

Picture: Uschi Dreiucker