# 1718
It has been fairly obvious, even to the casual observer, that we aren't seeing a free-flow of information about bird flu out of Pakistan.
The poultry producer's propaganda machine has been running full out, denying that bird flu posed any health dangers to humans, and calling bird flu concerns a `conspiracy to destroy their industry'.
On February 5th of this year, the Pakistani press carried this report:
‘Poultry safe for use, no threat of bird flu outbreak’
ISLAMABAD: Poultry meat and eggs are safe for use and there are no threats of bird flu outbreak, said World Poultry Science Association, Pakistan Branch President Dr Mohammad Sadiq in a press conference here on Tuesday.
He said that there was not a single case in the world where a person was reported to have died after touching the affected poultry meat.
While the day before, the PPA had this to say:
Bird Flu ‘propaganda’ costs poultry industry billions: Association
According to Geo News chairman PPA Abdul Basit said: “The Bird Flu propaganda is a well thought out conspiracy due to which the poultry industry has been pushed to the verge of collapse.”
He said the livelihood of the people associated with the poultry industry has become insecure as a result of the disease which, he maintained, is found in birds and which can hardly pose any real threat to the people.
So it is hardly surprising that today officials are complaining that they are being pressured by poultry producers to `hide information' about the H5N1 virus.
Officials being ‘pressurised’ to hide information about virus
By By our correspondent
2/26/2008Karachi
Poultry farm owners are allegedly pressurising officials of the poultry industry to hide information about the existence of bird flu as it was causing a huge financial loss to them, official sources said on Monday.
“We are facing hostile attitude from the farm owners,” one official of the poultry industry told The News and added: “We have to follow the prescribed protocol.” The official was of the view that it was in the interest of the farm owners that such information not be hidden.
He said that the existence of bird flu strain was hidden for a considerable period of time when it hit Karachi in 2003. Finally, the information was disclosed by the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) during a press conference when around three million chickens had already died.
“The poultry industry has suffered financial loss up to Rs7.5 billion in the last 25 days due to culling of chickens after the reported presence of bird flu at three poultry farms in the city,” said a spokesman for the PPA,
Abdul Maroof Siddiqui, on Monday. Siddiqui added that the industry was suffering around a Rs300 million loss per day.
He feared that if such a situation continued, hundreds of thousands of people would lose their source of livelihood as over one million people were working in the poultry industry. He said that the international media was not giving importance to news about presence of bird flu anymore.
He said that bird flu was detected in the country for the first time in 1997 and fears about it being a pandemic have not been proved so far. He said that when the virus is mutated, it may die or become weak. Siddiqui said that bird flu also hit India but it was not getting importance in the media there.While the PPA has reservations about the reporting in the media, he said, they have no complaint against the poultry officials.
