email received March 1 2006

I heard on the local radio today that Ben Bradshaw has given permission for the Stafford Bird Show to go ahead this weekend. This is a trade fair selling exotic birds and 100 dealers will attend, including some from Germany and Holland. He says it is ok to hold it provided the names of all the sellers and buyers are recorded.

Clifford Warwick, an expert in zoonotic diseases, was refreshingly forthright in his opinion of this decision giving as it does the opportunity to disseminate AI through Britain if any of these birds are infected. As he said, 'when you are in a sinking ship you don't go drilling holes in it.'

An attempt to get a High Court injunction banning the show failed today as Defra and Stafford Borough Council have no objection to it going ahead. The judge said 'the evidence relating to avian flu was based on press speculation, and no doubt, the public interest in the spread of avian flu across the European continent.'

Yes, the public do have an interest in the progress of avian flu, which is apparently not shared by the judge who gives the impression he thinks it is happening in another universe.

J