This bird flu threat is a complete and total fabrication. Started by the World Health Organisation in a totally unqualified statement and broadcast, it threw the world into a blind panic.

Capitalised on by an unscrupulous press and media catapulting an even more irresponsible officialdom world wide, like some untreatable infectious disease, into inexcusable activity and legislation. And its origin and from whom are shrouded in mystery, there can only be one logical explanation, that it was created purely for financial gain.

So let us therefore look at the evidence.

Unlike human flu viruses, bird flu does not infect ordinary human beings. Although viruses do evolve over time and change in their virulence to their recognised target species, it is extremely rare for them to cross barriers between species.

That is clearly demonstrated by the fact that such a change has not taken place in a vast area where bird flu is known to have been endemic for 100 years or more and where people and birds have co-existed living closely together. Although in recent years some sporadic cases of human illness have been detected in which bird flu virus has been found, they are so few in number and confined in where they occur as to make it clear they result from special susceptibilities of the person or family affected. Therefore historical experience tells us that the chances of a flu epidemic caused by crossover infection from birds to humans is very rare. To claim that such huge global pandemic is not only possible but is imminent is not only entirely irrational but unjustifiable. But these changes are relatively small in comparison with the enormous change necessary for it to become a virus which is contagious and able to infect and endanger human lives, changes which are not only feasible during the course of natural evolution on a geological time scale and certainly not in our lifetime.

The general public have been terrified into believing that if they go anywhere near a bird especially a domestic hen, or eat one, they will get bird flu. The result has been a massive increase in the fortunes of pharmaceutical companies.

Talk of it spreading worldwide is not only groundless but entirely malicious. The disease is not contagious, does not spread through the air and only by direct contact with a diseased bird. Any infected birds, which are the only ones which can carry the deadly form, die within a day or so and therefore don't get anywhere. So the threat of it spreading through that dead swan was a complete rd-heading and any viruses carried by birds, like the isolated outbreaks, are not of a dangerous strain and present no risk to humans.

Like Salmonella in eggs and BSE and meat, I believe that this whole charade is an inexcusable and colossal waste of public money.

Peter Siddons NDD NDA Chris Aston replies...

I must agree with Peter Siddons' sentiments that the general public has been terrified that if they go anywhere near a bird that they will get bird flu. Irresponsible headlines such as "Duck of Death" do nothing to allay people's fears.

However, it seems prudent that the World Health Organization should inform people of the possibility of a mutation of H5N1 which could infect humans more easily. We cannot afford to ignore the huge scale of the modern poultry industry. Not only do humans now demand more animal protein in their diet, they also exist in ever increasing numbers. The opportunities for infection and mutation are therefore greatly increased by the rise in the human and domestic bird populations. This is in comparison with the world population in 1918, for example. To say that there is not a potential problem is unrealistic. More opportunities for disease transmission create more opportunities for random mutations.

The Asian poultry industry has infected many birds which have then passed the virus back to the wild bird population. An estimated 230 million domesticated birds have now been culled to try to get infection under control. Countries such as Vietnam, China and Hong Kong have used vaccination as a mean of control - very successfully it seems in Hong Kong and Vietnam; less so in China for a variety of reasons. The disease has spread very easily in South East Asia and probably continues to do so in Indonesia. Largely through human transportation, rather than wild birds, it also spread as far as West Africa, Egypt and the Middle East. This is certainly not a flu pandemic for people, but it is virtually a pandemic for birds Although the disease does not travel independently through the air, unlike foot and mouth disease, it is obviously very transmissible. This has also proved to be the case with H7N7 in Holland in 2003. Again, a dense population of both birds and people was a key factor in the spread of the disease.

I share Peter Siddons' optimism that, should a case of H5N1 arise in the UK (in all likelihood from an illegal import), the disease would rapidly be brought under control. If DEFRA cannot do this with all our organisation skills and record keeping in the UK, there is little hope for anyone else!

However, we cannot predict the future. We do not know if the further outbreaks in the first half of this year in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Romania,Hungary, Germany etc will have resulted in the continuing infection of wild birds in Western Europe. It is possible that poultry keepers will be required - as they are in Germany at this moment - to 'bring their birds indoors' in the autumn of 2006 This policy is actually a bigger threat to keepers of waterfowl than H5N1 itself! Desperate bird keepers in Germany have been unable to confine their birds in reasonable conditions. Goose keepers are reputed to have declined by half merely from the enforcement of these rules. They have had to cull perfectly healthy birds.

The threat of confinement in the EU is a death threat to pure breeds, especially waterfowl. This is really not understood by commercial people who always keep their birds indoors. They would simply replace any infected, culled birds, a few weeks later, with another batch of the same strain. That is why we think differently; that is why breeders of pure breeds, and birds which cannot be confined, want a dialogue with DEFRA about a vaccination policy. Vaccination for birds may never be needed in the UK, but bird keepers find it prudent to have a policy in place rather than live with their head in the sand.

Chris Ashton