Bird Flu Menace: Saved By Vultures
by Benjamin Roberts, 2006

We have heard of humans in folklore being saved by wolves, saved by dolphins from a watery end, and even saved by a loving pet, usually of the canine sort. But can it be that in one of the worst potential menaces facing the human race, the front-runner for our salvation is none other than the lowly and much disrespected vulture. Yuck! Not so fast. Its true. The much maligned vulture, that we always associate with death, might just turn out to be our deliverer as we humans try to figure our way out of the looming menace of the bird flu virus. The last time this virus ran amok on our planet was at the dawn of the twentieth century, 1918 to be exact, when it took the lives of scores of humans worldwide. The most recent report is that it has touched down in France on a turkey farm, where hundreds of birds have had to be slaughtered.

So far all the human infections with this virus have been in those who rear, or have otherwise been in close contact with the avian species. However, if the virus modifies itself in some small way, then the world is in for a disaster that will make the 1918 run look like a kindergarten play, Tammiflu notwithstanding. This is because our globe now has a far bigger population, a lot of whom live concentrated in enclaves we call cities and metropolitan areas. The other reality not in our favor is that, compared to 1918 and the days of steamships, we live in a much more globally connected world where iron bird air travel can almost instantaneously take us between land masses. The birds and their migratory patterns will in time bring the virus to us. However, if and once it begins to spread among humans, our mode of living and moving will send this virus around the world like a rocket. Enter the ungainly vulture, low on the totem pole of man's most favorite animals. Of what use can such a creature be to us in this crisis?

Vultures are, in reality, one of the most efficient scavengers on our earth. We can say, if you will, that they keep the trash from piling up. Imagine our planet without vultures. Animal remains left to decay indefinitely would spawn so much microbes that the health of the living, humans included, would be greatly jeopardized and compromised. So in essence, vultures keep us in good health. Yes, but what does that have to do with the bird flu virus you say? Here's what:

We have been doing research with vultures for quite sometime now. Given that they clear away dead and diseased animals, seemingly without themselves succumbing to these diseases, tells us they must possess a very robust immune system. This makes them excellent models for research. But we need to look at them even closer, as our scientific minds in the great halls of research contemplate a few questions. Questions such as: Vultures, in their scavenging duties, come in contact with legions of microbes, yet why do they apparently not die from these insults to their bodies? They surely have disposed of remains infected with the AIDS virus. Does it kills them? If not, what do they possess in their immune system that allows them to withstand this microbe that lays waste our immune defenses? This same question for the AIDS virus holds for the bird flu virus since with all the birds found dead globally from this microbe, a lot of them must surely have been fed upon by vultures.

When we think of immune system we think of little white blood cells roaming our body's network of blood vessels, lymph vessels, and tissues, warding off foreign microbial invasion by directly ingesting and destroying bacteria, or making chemicals called antibodies that immobilize these microbes so they can be disposed of. We need to find out what in the vulture's system allows them to do this far better than our system. But we also need to find out the answer to this question. The stomach, in addition to being the first stop in the mammalian body where nourishment from outside begins to be processed, is also the first place in the body to be insulted by foreign entities. No wonder this wonderful mammalian stomach generates its own highly corrosive hydrochloric acid to slow cook the incoming nutrients, and at the same time kill unwanted invaders. Now the decaying and diseased diet of the vulture means its stomach is hit with an explosive payload of these invaders that makes our human intake seem like a little firecracker. We need to ask and find out what chemicals and defenses do the vulture's stomach employ, different from ours, that allows them to withstand this assault without seemingly being affected? Here is where our astute researcher's magnifying glass should be focused. Finding the answers to such questions will go a long way to getting us out of the woods in this microbial threat that seems poised to descend upon us as it did close to a hundred years ago.