Goose? Or propaganda?

Malcolm Tait

1st December, 2005

When Governments try to reassure the public with announcements about how much they are doing to solve problems like bird flu or global warming, it just avoids the real question - how did we get into this in the first place?

Christmas is a-coming
The geese are getting flu
Please to have a jab
Or it’s the end of you

At the beginning of November, US President George Bush unveiled his plan to protect the people of his country against the possible threat of bird flu. It was a simple plan: he called for $7.1 billion to be set aside to stockpile drugs, vaccines, and develop new technology
to combat the disease. That’s an awful lot of money to combat a viral form that, as far as we know, doesn’t even exist yet. In her article on page 14, Pat Thomas discusses at length the likelihood of the virus mutating into a form that can be transmitted by the human
population. So if we don’t yet have anything to cure, shouldn’t much of the effort go towards preventing an outbreak in the first place? Towards finding ways of containing the virus before it mutates? Towards compensating those many farmers around the world whose livelihoods will be lost...

 

To view the rest of this article - you must be a paying subscriber and Login