China Agri-Food Mission: “We can’t roll over and play dead”

Opinion

If you saw the 2011 movie Contagion, you know how bird flu can be vilified. Movie goers left the theatre scared senseless that any traveller they encountered could be a ticking time bomb, as a result of a virus that appeared to spread from the close association between poultry and humans on some Asian farms. Being a movie — and being fiction — it was regarded by some observers as a stretch of the imagination (although world health authorities were said to have praised its potential accuracy). But globally, it’s still a touchy time to be laden with a viral…