SEPRA weekly market report 6th January 2006

The avian flu has turned out to be profitable for the biotechnology firm that developed the drug Tamiflu. The multinational chemical company Roche Pharmaceuticals bought up the rights to make and sell the drug, with about 20 percent of all sales passing back to Gilead who discovered the drug and its stockholders. The repeated warnings of the United Nations and other authorities of an impending global epidemic of avian flu outbreaks have led over 60 countries to order large supplies of Tamiflu despite the fact that it has yet to prove its reliability at curing or stopping the H5N1 bird flu virus.

A Swedish researcher has an unconventional idea for curbing the worldwide spread of the deadly avian flu virus for which no human vaccine currently exists. Jan-Inge Henter of Stockholm's Karolinska Hospital theorizes that the chemotherapy treatment used to target a rare viral immune disorder called HLH could prove effective against the pathogenic H5N1 strain.

Writing in the journal Lancet, Henter and colleagues in Hong Kong report that HLH and H5N1 share similar clinical symptoms and post-mortem features. Patients with HLH produce too many infection fighting white blood cells, which accumulate in healthy tissue and damage various organs. This ‘theory’ was touched upon in Wednesday’s TV channel 4 programme which I found quite a sensibly presented programme. No big scare stories.

The same is true in H5N1 patients. Chemotherapy kills those excess cells and reduces deaths in HLH patients. Henter says the hypothesis is worthy of further investigation. But he says before drawing too many conclusions "one would first want to investigate some more patients with the avian flu to see and to make sure that the HLH picture is consistent [with H5N1] and that it is not only in a few patients."

I wonder after the problem with the six patients in intensive care through testing new drugs, will they will be able to recruit anyone to test this theory?

I am also sure that the animal right activists will make much of this, suggesting that if drug testing can do this to humans, just think what it could be doing to animals who are used first before human trials.

Avian flu

A scare happened on Wednesday when a flock of free-range hens in Orkney suffered some unusual mortality.

As has happened throughout the UK in similar instances, samples were taken and sent to the laboratory for analysis. But like the “ outbreak” in Ayrshire last year, the Press got a whiff about this latest scare, and fortunately the Scottish Executive were prompt in issuing the following to the media.

"We can confirm that a number of birds have died on a poultry premise on Mainland Orkney.

A veterinary officer visited the premises and took samples for laboratory investigation of suspect avian notifiable disease, which could be a strain of Avian Influenza or Newcastle Disease. Suspect cases are investigated as a matter of routine and 39 similar investigations have been carried out in Great Britain to date this year. “

This was a promise made at the last Stakeholder’s meeting I attended at which the S E promised to provide the media with the true facts, in an effort to suppress the scare stories which have occurred in some of the newspapers.

North Today can reveal that investigations are underway at a poultry farm in Orkney into a suspected case of bird flu. The Scottish Executive says a number of birds have died and it’s a routine inquiry. A vet visited the premises yesterday and took samples for examination. They say it could be a strain of avian flu or another disease called Newcastle disease, whether it’s the deadly H5N1 virus remains to be seen.

The Executive are stressing that 39 similar investigations have been carried out across the UK this year. It’s thought a result of these tests will be known either later today or tomorrow. Poultry keepers have been warned to be vigilant for any signs of disease in their birds. There has been widespread concern over this disease, millions of birds have died or been destroyed as a result of outbreaks across the world

David Spackman who looks after the interests of the members of UKEPRA wrote the following and I quote.

As everyone is aware, continued discoveries of dead ducks and swans are occurring in various parts of Europe and today, the report of two further dead cats in Germany. That these cats should succumb ought not to be any great surprise.

The island where they exist in a feral form has been subject to freezing temperatures for several weeks now.

This alone would have lowered their resistance to any infection they may pick up from eating contaminated carcases of waterfowl, let alone the state of near starvation they are currently undergoing.

Given a different scenario of a well-fed domestic moggy, idly investigating a carcase, without eating it, would be less than likely to result in it's death, just like any human in the UK, equally unlikely to have close enough contact with any possibly infected bird to lead to a similar situation, which has shown itself in S.E. Asia, Africa and the poorer areas of Eastern Europe.

The newspapers are the same. No amount of discussion with them will result in a balanced view being put forward, and I have tried frequently over the past weeks.

They will only follow the "official" line and investigative journalism, examining the flaws in the human pandemic/avian flu argument, seems to have gone out of the window.

HPAI in the UK remains a low possibility, it becoming a national epidemic in poultry even more remote and human transfer almost science fiction, given the social environment we live in.

This has not stopped certain sections of the public panicking, to the extent in one situation of raising a village watch, almost a vigilante group, to intimidate anyone keeping even a few hens.

Sales of useless face masks has reached fever pitch of some 6,000/week and one company is marketing an all-in-one suit with attached wellington boots and a mask similar to those worn in World War II. Cost for a family of 4 is over £400 and they have forward orders of over 50 units.

What is happening to the sanity of our citizens? A disease more sinister than flu is sweeping the land.

None of the "experts" can adequately explain why they believe the H5N1 strain of Avian flu is more likely to result in a human pandemic than other strains, particularly H3 strains, which are far more prevalent in humans.

Deaths from influenza are normally about 8% of all UK weekly mortality with over 500 each week in winter. These strains can also increase in virulence and could cause a pandemic.

At the same time there are strains of the H5N1 Avian virus around which are less virulent, even to birds, but seldom get a mention.

As long as all egg producers keep up the intense degree of biosecurity for their units, which they should be exercising all the time anyway for normal disease prevention and strictly follow Defra guidelines, all should be well, as long as the media can be kept in check.

Shrink wrapping of eggs

LYNDALE poultry, an egg producer in USA, has solved a longstanding industry problem by wrapping its pallet loads of eggs in 3M Scotch stretchable tape using a Safetech Stretch Tape Wrapper.

Transportation of palletised eggs has long been a significant problem for egg producers. Eggs have a water permeable shell and "sweat" after they have been packaged. If pallets are wrapped in stretch film then this moisture is trapped and the cartons and boxes become soggy - leading to product damage and loss. Ventilation of palletised eggs is therefore essential but until the advent of stretch tape all other products had been difficult to apply and expensive. Netting is hard to apply and remove and is unpopular in factories and warehouses because of its tendency to foul machinery. Corner boards were used with netting, which further increased costs and created an extra waste disposal issue. These problems are now a thing of the past for Lyndale Poultry. The trial and subsequent purchase of a Safetech Stretch tape Wrapper to apply 3M Scotch stretchable tape has been a very popular innovation.

Egg Quiz

Here’s something for the kids….and maybe you as well ? Why not copy it out and hand it to the kids around your market stall ? Or hand a few to the shopkeeper ?

Find these words inside the egg below. They are written backwards, forwards, horizontally, vertically and diagonally. Good Luck!

Those of you who signed up for the free regular updates regarding various aspects of business from MacRoberts will have now received the first two news items . This week’s item shows you have to careful all the time. Though I can’t imagine a SEPRA member with all his data on a computer disc, it just shows how anybody can slip up sometimes. For those of you who did not return the MacRobert’s form, the latest update concerns McAfee a world leader in anti-virus technology and was headed :-

With identity theft at an all time high, data security should be paramount in the minds of all businesses but, despite this, an unencrypted CD containing oodles of highly sensitive personal information about employees of leading security software firm McAfee was left lying in the pocket of an airline seat by their auditors in the USA.

The CD, containing the names, social security numbers and stock holding information of over 9,000 McAfee's employees, was left on an aeroplane on 15th December 2005 and was not reported to McAfee until more than one month later.

The data loss leaves thousands of McAfee's employees at risk from identity theft.

While at present there is no reason to believe that there has been any unauthorised access to the information, this is clearly possible should the information find its way into the wrong hands. The irony of the situation is that McAfee are a security software firm. The fact that it is some of their own data that has been lost, albeit through a third party, makes it all the more hard to swallow.

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SEPRA News

One man’s meat is another man’s poison...

Avian flu

Shrink wrapping of eggs

Egg Quiz