TECHNOLOGY has always been a double-edged sword. While intensive farming has ended hunger in much of the world, it has downsides, too. One is that crowded livestock are easy prey for infectious diseases. Witness the H5N1 bird flu that evolved in Chinese hen houses, exploded across Asia, took up residence in a few migratory ducks and has now arrived in Europe.
H5N1 is likely to persist for some time in the wild in its present form, so the world will have to learn to live with it. The question is how? First, we must prevent it rampaging through poultry. This…
