Headlines in the last day: South Korea records seventh outbreak; Bird Flu Strikes Hanoi, Over 1,000 Chickens Culled; Bird flu erupts in Vietnam south; total 5 provinces infected; Bird flu found in 6 more areas of Afghanistan; Laos teenager dies from bird flu; Indonesian Villagers Hide Birds And Spread Flu; Myanmar takes preventive measures against bird flu; Southern China is epicenter of bird flu, U.S. researchers find; Suspicious bird flu deaths in Tehran's Pardisan Park; World experts in Kuwait as more bird flu cases detected; Dubai plans bird flu blood tests at airport -- Report: plan to make 80,000 passengers arriving daily pass through temperature scanners; Ulster tourist tested for killer flu.
The tourist industry can read, too. The are using the .travel internet domain for its Emergency Management System to keep the industry in touch with the latest via the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). UNWTO's somewhat bizarre 2007 "strategic message" is: "INCREASE TOURISM TO FIGHT POVERTY". If you've experienced the US Dollar/Euro exchange rate recently you know firsthand the relationship between poverty and tourism. Here's how UNWTO describes the SOS.travel site:
"We decided to use SOS.travel as the signature domain of our global system because it describes exactly our goal - the place on the internet for industry stakeholders and tourists themselves to go for essential information in emergency situations', UNWTO Assistant Secretary-General Geoffrey Lipman said. 'SOS is the international call sign for help and the .travel domain clearly identifies the sectoral focus."[snip]
All .travel domain holders worldwide will receive an electronic version of the UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism which is the basic framework for responsible and sustainable tourism and the organization's link to the UN Millennium Development Goals. (Travel Industry Wire)
UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism? That sounded interesting. So I went to the UNWTO site, and after some exploring did find a set of principles for a Global Code of Ethics for tourism and travel:
The Code includes nine articles outlining the "rules of the game" for destinations, governments, tour operators, developers, travel agents, workers and travellers themselves. . .
Article 6 has six sub-parts, several of which seemed relevant to obligations to inform the traveling public accurately and honestly about bird flu dangers:
1. Tourism professionals have an obligation to provide tourists with objective and honest information on their places of destination and on the conditions of travel, hospitality and stays;
[snip]
2. Tourism professionals, insofar as it depends on them, should show concern, in co-operation with the public authorities, for the security and safety, accident prevention, health protection and food safety of those who seek their services;
[snip]
5. Governments have the right - and the duty - especially in a crisis, to inform their nationals of the difficult circumstances, or even the dangers they may encounter during their travels abroad; it is their responsibility however to issue such information without prejudicing in an unjustified or exaggerated manner the tourism industry of the host countries and the interests of their own operators; the contents of travel advisories should therefore be discussed beforehand with the authorities of the host countries and the professionals concerned; recommendations formulated should be strictly proportionate to the gravity of the situations encountered and confined to the geographical areas where the insecurity has arisen; such advisories should be qualified or cancelled as soon as a return to normality permits;
6. The press, and particularly the specialized travel press and the other media, including modern means of electronic communication, should issue honest and balanced information on events and situations that could influence the flow of tourists; they should also provide accurate and reliable information to the consumers of tourism services; the new communication and electronic commerce technologies should also be developed and used for this purpose;
Sounds great. But this Code is not legally binding. Nor is it likely to make much difference if the bird flu balloon goes up. Sub-section 5, above, makes it clear that commercial considerations are an important part of warning the traveling public and I think we know what this means. With the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, I am not sanguine about the free and unfettered flow of information out of that country. Or many other countries, for that matter. Tourism might not be the most potent weapon in the fight against poverty for most of the world's poverty stricken, but it certainly is a money maker for many with influence in their national governments.
But maybe I'm too cynical.
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US State Dept (but likely the same for other nations/nationals):
http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/health/health_1181.html
"The Department of State emphasizes that, in the event of a pandemic,
its ability to assist Americans traveling and residing abroad may be severely limited by restrictions on local and international movement imposed for public health reasons, either by foreign governments and/or the United States. Furthermore, American citizens should take note that the Department of State
cannot provide Americans traveling or living abroad
with medications or supplies even in the event of a pandemic." ...
..."Although there is evidence to suggest very limited, human-to-human transmission in family groups involving close exposure to a critically ill member, there is no evidence that the virus can be easily or sustainably transmitted from human-to-human. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(DHHS/CDC), the WHO, and the Department of State are nonetheless concerned about the potential for the virus to adapt or mutate into a strain that can be easily transmitted in a sustained manner among humans, a characteristic that could result in a human influenza pandemic"...
..."Take Charge of Your Plans
A vaccine for humans that is effective in preventing infection with the avian influenza A (H5N1) virus is not yet available"...
"Americans should also be aware of the potential health risk posed by counterfeit drugs, including those represented as Tamiflu, by scam artists who sell products on the internet or in countries with lax regulations governing the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals"...
..."the Department of State has asked its embassies and consulates to consider preparedness measures that take into consideration
the fact that travel into or out of a country may not be possible, safe, or medically advisable during a pandemic.
Guidance on how private citizens can prepare to shelter in place, including stocking food, water, and medical supplies, is available at the www.pandemicflu.gov website.
Embassy stocks cannot be made available to private American citizens abroad and we encourage people living in an area with outbreaks of H5N1 to prepare appropriately.
It is also likely that governments will respond to a pandemic by imposing public health measures that restrict domestic and international movement, further limiting the U.S. government's ability to assist Americans in these countries.
These measures can be implemented very quickly.
Areas of known H5N1 outbreaks in poultry have been quarantined by governments
within 24 hours, restricting (if not preventing) movement into and out of the affected area."...
The press ... should issue honest and balanced information on events
Oh, Revere, stop. You kill me. This is priceless.
Satire really is genuinely dead. Too much competition from reality.
I was talking to an older member of my extended family last week. I said, "You remember the political climate of the late 1970s, yes?"
An affirmative nod.
I said, "What would have been the reaction if someone had written a piece of speculative futurology in which it was suggested that, thirty years later, books would be being written which accused in detail an incumbent Republican administration of gross abuses of power, and that those books were to be written by, among others, John Dean?"
He said that it would have been taken as wildly parodic and unrealistic, on par with the most outrageous things penned by Jonathan Swift.
QED.
--
I attended the UN sponsored International Disaster Reduction Conference (IDRC) in Davos last year. There I witnessed the Chinese delegates present the most open and complete discussion of bird flu problems and strategies, even considering that we now know that their government had witheld some data on earliest cases. Perhaps the quality of their work is attributable to the lesser influence of the poultry industry there, not to say leasser presence. This year, the IDRC will be held in China. Most of those whom I spoke with speculated that China is working towards greater sharing of info in prep for that conference and the Olympics.
There is currently a government sponsored blackout of info from Indonesia, which is evident from the almost complete lack of reporting on outbreaks among poultry there or follow-up on human infections reported before the gag. This change followed on the heels of reports in the Jakarta Post that tourism in Indonesia was hurt by bird flu, and preceded by days the announcement by central banks that Indonesia's credit rating was lowered partly because of bird flu. Indonesia's economy is the largest in southeast Asia, and the bank announcement was followed immediately by the announcement of H5N1 in Myanmar, the regions largest country, and then by a downturn in Asian markets that then spread around the world.
If the poultry industry succeeeds in slowing H5N1 by continued culling of all birds outside of the warehouses, H5N1 will continue within the factory farms, with hazmat suits becoming the new face of terror, as seen with the Bernard Matthews outbreak. Say goodbye to tourism if you have a factory farm in your region.
You want fries with that?
Tourism enriches tourist communities and their banks and tax collectors, but contributes to poverty and unsustainable practices overall by supporting the worst of the global marketplace model: products are sold to people who cannot trace the production chain, and the merchants cannot trace the money they are paid. But in a world full of "scientists" who eat chicken, what do we expect?
HERE is a link to a brief Humane Society video showing why UN, WHO, and leading experts describe Factory Farms (concentrated production) as the culprit re H5N1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcYRm0wxgOw
AND here's a link to a March 7 thread critical of the editors of this blog's position re bird flu. For some reason it isn't indexed as a bird flu thread. Well, it is their sandbox, init?
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2007/03/a_paper_about_spread_of_b…