THE British press does love a good panic. It did its best to
stir one up over the weekend after some turkeys on a farm in the
east of the country contracted influenza of the dreaded H5N1
strain, and it transpired that 160,000 birds were going to have
to be killed and cremated in order to stop the disease spreading
(see article). Questions were asked about whether the government
had reacted too slowly in imposing a quarantine zone around the
infected farm (no doubt the opposite questions would have been
asked had such a zone been imposed as the result of a false
alarm). Grave advice was dispensed on whether or not turkey meat
was still safe to eat (it is). But most of all, everyone worried
about the implications for human health of what is—though it has
indeed claimed some human victims—still basically a bird
disease.  Don't panic  That worrying matters—not because there
is no risk to human health (there is, but it is small and
restricted to those who come into close contact with infected
birds), but because s