Bird flu has come to France. Holy merde. Just one or two ducks, but since ducks migrate, the country is in a panic. [Read NY Times story.]
When we think about France, we think about wonderful food. And in France, a lot of the food comes from poultry - chickens, ducks, geese, and even turkeys. Foie gras, coq au vin, and oeufs galore... can you imagine French cuisine without poultry? No bird market in Paris now, it's been shut down... 11,000 free-range turkeys killed on one farm near where the dead ducks were found. I don't even eat eggs but I love chicken and turkey, and my brain is reeling at the thought that 11,000 birds had to be destroyed "just in case" the avian flu had infected the birds on that farm. Imagine if this happens to other farms... remember what happened to the beef market because of mad-cow disease? And this is scarier because the birds are air-born... and so is the disease.
Bird flu vaccines -- for the birds themselves, not the humans -- are now becoming available in the E.U. and the foie gras region in France will be among the first to get the vaccine.
I was tempted, at first, to make some wisecracks about the bird flu situation. It wouldn't be difficult to make a few jokes. But when I got down to it, there's nothing funny about something that has the potential to first wipe out entire farming communities, then to destroy one of the primary food sources of an entire nation and its related food export industries -- not to mention the threat of a human pandemic.
Cross your fingers and say a prayer that this thing doesn't continue to spread through France or around the world.
