Mink, Mink, Goose

An outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza on a US mink farm that has been raging for months raises serious questions about public health, animal welfare, and the influence of commercial interests on government decisions. If it were a chicken farm, the hens would have been slaughtered within days, if not hours. But, mink are so much more valuable than chickens… ProPublica asks whether this could be ground zero for the next pandemic. Mink are mammals and susceptible to influenza viruses just as we are. Infected with avian influenza they could serve as a springboard host for the emergence of a strain that might more easily infect people. This is not inevitable and thankfully there is no evidence of mink-to-human and then human-to-human transmission of the strain in question…yet. But, this all needs monitoring closely and the mink really should be culled. It has to be a question of double standards, surely? ProPublica points out that in the US, a single confirmed case of bird flu in a…