Mexico ministry denies bird flu case on US border 5 minutes ago MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's agriculture ministry denied rumors in U.S. commodities markets on Thursday that a case of H5N1 bird flu had been found near the U.S. border. "We are free of highly pathogenic bird flu," Jose Angel del Valle, the ministry's animal health director, told Reuters. U.S. grain prices were lower early on Thursday amid talk of the deadly bird flu in neighboring Mexico, but livestock markets -- which stand to benefit -- were treating it as a hoax, traders said. The rumors apparently began on a Brazilian Web site, which reported that a duck found dead in the town of Nogales, near Arizona, had died of bird flu. The Western Hemisphere so far has had no confirmed cases of the deadly version of bird flu, which has killed more than 100 people in seven countries: Turkey, Iraq, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Cambodia. Mexican authorities killed some 300 birds after detecting low pathogenic bird flu on homesteads in the southern state of Chiapas last December. Del Valle said the agriculture ministry had a strict system of monitoring chicken farms and that other government bodies were closely watching wild bird populations for any sign of the virus.
That's pretty much going to be par for the COurse if this thing breaks. In 1918, the US gov never once uttered the word Flu even though millions were dead. I wouldn't count on any gov telling you to go inside and take cover
Melbo, I completly agree. What good does it to a country to admit they have the bird flu? Loss of revenue from tourism (if any)? BTW, have you checked the birds in you sig to make sure they are "bird flu" free? Ryan
Loss of revenue from Chicken sales too. I've seen reports of many countries rushing poultry to markets before they are told to burn them. Reports of poultry workers that have seen enlarged and liquified organs... the meat still goes out. If you can't get into Barry's book on "The great Influenza", (I struggled a whole lot with the tech stuff), read the Monster at our Door. Scary stuff.
I wouldnt bet one way or the other on if the gov here will let us know when it hits or how bad but it could in truth benifit them quite a bit to let folks know. The explanation may seem quite unplesant but would most likely be acurate I think. Basicly if they anounce that it is a problem and that people should voluntarily quarenteen themselves then it is less likely to spread as much and so save on medical expenses that would be passed on to the gov. also saveing a lot of lives. I dont think the gov would base their decision on this so much on the humanitarian aspect of this though tas the fact that a dead person can no longer pay taxes. Those who could aford to lay in supplies rught away (while they are available) could do this and quarenteen themselves thus being most likely to survive it and return to working and paying taxes. Those on food stamps and gov aid are not allowed to have saveings and so would have to wait untill they got their next check and then could only get about 1 months supplies, so would have to be back out before things would clear and thus be most likely to contract the flu and cease to need to recieve money from the system. The working poor would be in a similar situation as most would not be able to lay in enouph supplies for 2-3 months, so those paying little to no taxes due to their income would also be likely to not benifit from the warning. Basicly what this all boils down to is the fact that without any need for consperacy those who pay the least or take money from the gov would be least able to benifit from any gov warning while those paying the most taxes could far more easily confine themselves if warned and then return in 1-3 months to working. So the tax base could be best preserved by them giving a warning and it would have little effect on the loss of those who are in the neutral or red columns of the accounting for gov finance. The flip side to this being that there would be likely to be an outcry from the public for the gov to take care of them in this kind of situation even though there is little they could do. So to make it look like they were doing something may cost a lot of money, but they could also use it as an excuse to do many things that would not otherwise be tolerated, much as they did after Katrina with house to house searches and gun confiscations and so on. Basicly, while there would be some draw backs for the gov to tell us there would also be plenty of ways it could benifit the gov, I figure it just comes down to how they look at the analisys of the benifits to them.
