Stop Eating Birds!

PETA, the animal rights wackos, are always looking for ways to spread their idiotic agenda, and the more outrageous the better. Now they're suggesting that if you want to avoid the bird flu, stop eating birds (or other animals, for that matter):

Scared about getting bird flu? Then the only really safe way to protect yourself is to go vegetarian, an animal rights group said on Tuesday.

Headlining a new Chinese and English language Web site (www.avianflu.cn) "Avian flu: it's your fault," the Asia Pacific branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says it is drawing attention to unsavory factory farming practices.

The cramming together of thousands of chickens in buildings where the birds are never allowed outside and live in their own filth was an ideal breeding ground for disease, the group said in a statement.

"Avian flu is just one symptom of a very sick and cruel industry," it quoted PETA Asia-Pacific director Jason Baker as saying.

"With diseases running rampant in crowded, filthy factory farms and the significant health risks posed by the 'backyard'-type farms common in Asia, the safest thing to do with chicken flesh is to avoid it like the plague," he said.

That, of course, is nonsense. Now I will grant that most of the bird flu cases that have appeared so far were the result of contact (though not necessarily eating) infected birds. In fact, if the birds were cooked, the virus probably wouldn't survive.

If bird flu makes the jump into the human population, it won't matter what you eat because the spread won't be caused by eating birds, but by contact with infected humans (don't eat them, either).

This is little more than another cheap publicity stunt by the PETA nutballs.