Coming Attractions: Bird Flu Testing

The bird flu people in the US Government don't read Scott's Spot. But they should, because if they had, they would have cancelled their plan to increase the monitoring of wild migratory birds for the deadly disease. That's right - the Interior and Agriculture Departments are expanding their surveillance activities to cover the entire nation and U.S. territories in the Pacific. This despite the fact that government scientists now say that a bird flu, er, deadly bird flu pandemic may not be imminent.

But that word has not made its way to the Interior and Agriculture departments. Congress budgeted $29 million for monitoring for the highly pathogenic strain of bird flu and that money must be spent. Thus, feces or tissue samples from 75,000 to 100,000 migratory birds, along with 50,000 samples of the water and ground that birds come into contact with, will be collected.

If the deadly avian flu virus is found, the Emergency Alert System will be activated and you will be instructed where to buy toilet paper, water, and Imodium AD, which will be rationed. You can read about all the plans at the official pandemic flu website.

And if any of the birds test positive for elevated testosterone levels, their migration rights will be suspended for a minimum of 2 years.