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A French mayor banning chicken from school
\n canteens, Germans abandoning cats by the hundreds, Greeks and Italians
\n virtually axing poultry from their diets are all signs that a worried
\n Europe is inching toward what some have called a bird flu psychosis.<\/p>\n
In Austria, a provincial hospital in Burgenland has even reserved 20 percent
\n of its beds for possible bird flu patients, even though no human infections
\n have been reported anywhere in Europe.<\/p>\n
Indeed, despite assurances from officials that health risks are negligible,
\n an edgy public is taking its own, not always rational, precautions against
\n the deadly virus.<\/p>\n
In Greece, consumption has plummeted by 75 percent in three weeks, according
\n to the country’s largest poultry farmers’ association. "If sales
\n continue falling at this rate, poultry farms may have to close," association
\n head Spyros Nonikas told AFP on Friday.<\/p>\n
In Italy, where poultry meat sales have dropped off by 70 percent since
\n an H5N1 outbreak among wild, migratory birds, many butchers have simply
\n stopped selling chicken and duck altogether.<\/p>\n
In Germany itself, hundreds of cat owners have abandoned their pets,
\n and some have sought to have them put down, the German animal welfare
\n society said.<\/p>\n
"Nationwide, several hundred cats have been left with us. People
\n are scared their cats have bird flu," a spokesman for the group
\n told AFP.<\/p>\n
from AFP<\/a><\/p>\n Now wait one cotton-picking minute! One cat gets But putting down or turning in a single cat because of some ridiculous A French mayor banning chicken from school canteens, Germans abandoning cats by the hundreds, Greeks and Italians virtually axing poultry from their diets are all signs that a worried Europe is inching toward what some have called a bird flu … Continue reading
\n sick from killing a bird and people are putting down their pet cats?
\n What is it about some
\n people? We can sympathize with mass executions of fowl, having worked
\n on a chicken farm in our misspent youth. Chickens are the closest
\n things to vegetables we have encountered in the animal kingdom.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n and unfounded fears should be severely punished. Interestingly, as our son Gabe reminded us, the devestating scourge of the Black Plague, the last super-pandemic in Europe, was primarily caused by wholesale slaughter of domestic cats, which were suspected of being witches familiars. In fact, without the cat the rats ran wild, and with them the fleas which carried the plague.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"