My daughter's parakeet is in grave danger.

Need you ask why? Because the Bird Flu is coming!

With all this terrifying talk about bird flu, I have a lingering question:
Has anyone thought about protecting the birds? Living near Lake Ontario, I regularly feed entirely too many seagulls. They come inland as well. Just this weekend, I fed a characteristically ravenous flock of them at an interstate highway parking lot. The gulls encircled me like a Hitchcock movie. Another time, I was ungraciously harassed by a renegade herd of emus that I was, perhaps unwisely, attempting to feed. I had to climb up onto some boulders to get out of range.

Nice ol' birds; they just wanted a nosh.

Too bad they are all going to die. And soon, too.

Yes, every one of them. There will not be a gull (or at the lake, a bouy) left standing. Surely, now, if bird flu is truly dangerous, the birds are at terrible risk. All of them. No more starlings. No more pigeons. Goodbye, Mr. Hawk. Goodbye, Mrs. Robin. No more Woody; no more "Beep-Beeps"; Donald is doomed.

And then there's all the gorgeous song birds, all those tiny little dickie birds, like the ones I've held in my hand while they were being banded: they are all dead meat.

What's that you say? That I'm exaggerating? That all the world's bird species are NOT condemned to get Bird Flu? Then I say, Ask yourself how that can be.

After all, no shots means no chance. Or at least that is the gist of our pharmaphilic government's and media's clanging presentations to the public.

Truth be told, this is nothing new. They've tried this before with the colossal Swine Flu panic some thirty years ago. Remember?

The U.S. Government cannot say without qualification that flu shots are either safe or essential.

Here is what the government of the United States said about the infamous Swine Flu vaccine, in a 1976 mass-distributed FDA Consumer Memo on the subject:

"Some minor side effects - tenderness in the arm, low fever, tiredness - will occur in less than 4% of (vaccinated) adults. Serious reactions from flu vaccines are very rare."

So much for blanket claims of safety, for many persons well remember the very numerous and very serious side effects of Swine Flu vaccine that forced the federal immunization program to a halt.

As far as being essential, in the same memo the FDA said this of the same vaccine:

"Question: What can be done to prevent an epidemic? Answer: The only preventive action we can take is to develop a vaccine to immunize the public against the virus. This will prevent the virus from spreading."

This was seen to be totally false; after all; the public immunization program was abruptly halted and still there was no epidemic of Swine Flu. If vaccination were the only defense, literally tens of millions of Americans should have been struck down with the Swine Flu, for a large percentage of the population of the U.S. was not vaccinated.

Surely there are other factors involved in prevention of illness or epidemic. But try telling that to allopathically-oriented health commissioners and doctors. You'd think that monks and nuns who work with the sick would have to get their patients' diseases... but they seldom do. Did the elderly and diminutive Mother Theresa die from leprosy? From AIDS?

If germs or viruses are all around us, why aren't we all dead, or at least deathly ill? And how come crows and vultures regularly eat diseased and decaying road kill, pressing their faces into a maggoty mess, and then fly happily away?

And, as my friends and I used to so energetically search railroad underpasses for sick and injured pigeons to take to our treehouse and nurse back to health, well, I now wonder how we survived at all.

But as for you, you non-bird you, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the medical media say that without a shot, you are a sitting duck for bird flu.

It seems to me, by logical extension, that without vaccinations for all birds, all birds are goners. Ducks included, sitting or otherwise. Without flu shots for birds, there will be no birds. Silent spring.

Birds are seemingly such frail little creatures. Their permanently feverish bodies are already around 104 degrees Fahrenheit every day. A bird with a fever must be one hot little number indeed. Yet, every year, tiny little chickadees spend entire frigid winters in my backyard. Gale force subzero winds and our typical eight to ten feet of snowfall do not stop them. And they do not have vaccinations. Not a one. They don't even have heated socks.  How on earth do they do it?

So: Shall I have my daughter's little green budgie vaccinated? All the more reason, really, since the parakeet is also at risk from all the human flu strains. Yes, Virginia, all those zillions of Human Flu viruses are out there, just waiting to kill your 'keet. And you with it.

Influenza is a serious disease, and historically, has been the Reaper's scythe. About 10 million soldiers were killed in World War I, charging machine guns and getting mowed down month after month. There were nearly a million casualties at the Somme and another million at Verdun. A terrible slaughter went on for four years. Yet, in just the two years following the war, over 20 million people died from influenza. That is more than twice as many deaths from the flu in one-half the time it took the machine guns. That is no way to make light of that.

On the other hand, there is ample reason to now, finally, end our wishful belief that flu shots stop the flu, because generally they don't, not even in the elderly, their target audience.

NBC and the Associated Press (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9438511/) reported on
Sept 22, 2005 that:

"A new analysis of 40 years of research provides more evidence that flu shots are not as effective in the elderly as commonly believed. But health officials said older people should still be vaccinated. . . The findings are similar to those of a study done by U.S. National Institutes of Health that found flu shots for the elderly in the United States had not saved lives."

And then they add: "Flu shots may be required in all nursing homes. Federal officials urging flu shots for all this year."

Will Rogers sure was right: with stuff like this in the papers, who needs a comedy writer? Congress writes farce so very well, and the news obligingly tosses it straight into to our living rooms.

But wait: there's more!

An interesting if not downright revealing article at medicinenet.com (1) says, in part:

"According to a study appearing in the Sept. 22 online issue of  The Lancet, vaccines against influenza are only "modestly effective" in people in long-term care facilities and even less effective for elderly people still living in the community. . . "The vaccine doesn't work very well at all," said study author Dr. Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist with the Cochrane Vaccines Field in Rome. "Vaccines are being used as an ideological weapon. What you see every year as the flu is caused by 200 or 300 different agents with a vaccine against two of them. That is simply nonsense." Dr. Marc Siegel, author of  "False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear," agreed. "We have set up a situation where a fear is created, and then we try to create the treatment for this fear. The public gets the idea that the flu is going to kill them and the vaccine will save them. Neither is true," he said."

For the record, both these critics are medical doctors.

With our century's worth of accumulated scientific hindsight, we must today ask this: Was a lack of vaccinations really the cause of those flu deaths, or was it really wartime stress, and especially war-induced malnutrition, that set the stage in 1918? And now, once again, we have an alarming and rather similar scenario: between nutrient-poor processed convenience foods, McNothing meals and TV news scare stories, we have the basic ingredients for an epidemic.

But we now also have a simple, safe and effective answer. First, the nutrition solution: eat a good, healthy, whole foods natural diet, and take lots and lots of vitamin C. And second: relax! De-stress your life, take it easy, and cheer up. It has been very well said that you are of much more value than any number of birds. You are factory-equipped with a kick-ass mammalian immune system that is a true marvel of nature. To maximize your resistance to any viral disease, including any strain of flu, I think you would do well to stop eating processed junk food, and load up on ascorbate.

You too can be chipper and chirping away, ignoring swine flu hype, SARS scares, bird flu panics, or any other viral bogeymen being used to scare you into a coerced relationship with a flu shot.

Reference:

1. Gardner A. Flu vaccine only mildly effective in elderly. HealthDay
Reporter, Sept 21, 2005. http://www.medicinenet.com