| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| dougal |
Bird Flu: and EggsWe have the EU Food Safety Agency and UK authorities sending out "mixed messages" over the safety of un-(or under-) cooked eggs. (EDIT: With specific respect to Flu only! )As far as I can tell: 1/ There is no bird flu currently in UK poultry. So - for now - the question is academic rather than practical. 2/ No human is known to have caught flu from eating an egg. 3/ Infected birds tend to stop laying eggs. 4/ The virus is killed by cooking to the temperature at which egg coagulates. But 5/ A couple of Vietnamese seem to have been infected not from droppings-dust, but by drinking raw ducks blood. Which indicates that humans *can* catch the bird disease by eating 'contaminated' food. http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2005/01/24/avianflu050124.html 6/ I believe that many flu vaccines are made by growing weakened forms of the virus - in eggs! So, no risk at all for the present, IMHO. Prof Pennington on the BBC just says "no risk". I think maybe possibly some for the future, if eggs are not fully cooked. |
| dougal |
There's a really well-balanced (IMHO) piece in The Scotsman today, which misses only 'familial clusters' in SE Asia to serve as an FAQ.
http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=2150892005 "The advice not to eat under-cooked chickens and not to eat raw eggs is sound advice ... [but] this is long-standing advice which hasn't changed for 15 years. They have reiterated it again, but in the context of bird flu, which is quite inappropriate" - Professor Hugh Pennington |