| Top : 2007 : 2007_01_14 |
Buddhists free birds despite flu worriesSat, 13 Jan 2007 18:02:03 GMTBy DIKKY SINN, Associated Press Writer HONG KONG - Something was strange about the little brown bird found dead from bird flu in one of Hong Kong's busiest shopping districts. The scaly breasted munia usually lives in rural areas of the territory. So how did it and five others come to be in a bustling urban district — raising the threat of exposing residents and tourists to the virus? Experts think the birds may have been used in a Buddhist ritual that frees hundreds of birds to improve karma. So, with worries rising in Asia about a new outbreak of bird flu, officials are urging that the religious practice be stopped to protect public health. Hong Kong is hypersensitive about disease outbreaks — especially bird flu. The illness first appeared here in 1997 when it jumped to humans and killed six people. That prompted the government to slaughter the territory's entire poultry population of 1.5 million birds, and the disease has since largely spared this city of 6.9 million people. But authorities remain on alert, particularly with new outbreaks in other parts of Asia. In Japan, agricultural officials announced Saturday that the H5 strain of bird flu had been identified in thousands of chickens that died at a poultry farm in the south. Further tests were under way to determine if it was the H5N1 strain, which has killed 157 people worldwide since 2003. Indonesia said two more of its people died from bird flu, raising the toll this week to four in the latest cases to strike the country worst hit by the virus. Sixty-one Indonesians have died since H5N1 first appeared in the its commercial poultry stocks and backyard chickens in 2004. Indonesian authorities said all four dead were believed to have caught the virus directly from chickens and were not known to have had contact with each other. Bird flu remains hard for humans to catch, but international experts are keeping close watch for signs it has mutated into a form that could spread easily between humans and potentially set off a worldwide pandemic. When Hong Kong officials discovered that a scaly breast munia found dead on New Year's Eve tested positive for the H5 virus, they held a televised news conference to alert the public. A few days later, they said further tests showed the bird had the H5N1 strain. The scaly breasted munia is native to Hong Kong, but is usually found in tussocks in rural areas, said Lew Young, a manager at the Chinese territory's Mai Po bird sanctuary. "Six scaly breasted munia being found dead at the same spot at one time easily leads one to suspect whether they were being released," he said. The birds are commonly used in the Buddhist ceremonies, Young added. "They are usually transported to Hong Kong from the mainland in boxes. If one of the birds is sick, the rest are likely to be sick as well since they are crammed in one box," he said. Aidia Chan, a postgraduate student in ecology who studied the releases for her thesis last year at Hong Kong University, said the frequency of releasing birds in Hong Kong is far more than had been suspected. She contacted 229 religious groups in the city and 48 admitted they released birds to seek blessings. The groups practice the ritual one to 18 times each year, releasing as many as 3,000 birds each time, she said. "Based on the figures they gave me, I estimate they released a range of 400,000 to 600,000 birds in 2006," Chan said. "There are also people who buy and release birds individually, and there's no way for me to quantify them, so there should be more other than these 48 groups," she said. One Buddhist group said many of its followers had stopped releasing birds since the bird flu outbreak was reported in Hong Kong. "Some of the followers do not feel comfortable getting in touch with birds since bird flu cases were reported. They were worried the birds might be infected," said Winnie Lam, a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Buddhist Cultural Association. Lam said the group used to free more than 1,000 birds at one time, but now release hundreds of fish into the sea each month. "We believe releasing life can build up one's benevolence and life belongs to the nature," she said. The Hong Kong government has called on the public not to free birds but it declines to comment whether it has considered a formal ban on releases. Young said while releasing life is a virtuous deed, people should realize the birds are caught somewhere else before they can be released to perform the ritual. "It may take more than 150 to provide 100 birds" for releasing, Young said. "Many might have died before they were delivered in Hong Kong. So are they doing a good cause?" Eldercare choices revive sibling fightsSun, 14 Jan 2007 04:49:31 GMTBy CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer CHICAGO - The tension rose as Richard Aylward and his two sisters sorted their mother's possessions into four piles: to keep, to donate, to throw out and to move with her into an assisted living facility. He was annoyed that his sisters wanted to reminisce about every photo and book. He wanted to hurry up and finish the job. "Because I was the one who had to do the moving, cleaning, selling, closing, etc., I knew I had to play the heavy," he said. Eventually, his oldest sister — fed up with her brother's pressuring — walked out. Big sisters, little brothers, black sheep, dad's favorite — all the old roles, battles and rivalries resurface when a parent's health is failing and decisions must be made. With about 20 million Americans providing care for a parent or in-law, such family dramas — often with financial questions lurking unsaid — are playing out across the country, said Bonnie Lawrence, spokeswoman for the Family Caregiver Alliance. Eighty percent of long-term care is provided by families, not institutions, Lawrence said. Even families that don't provide care, though, are choosing a nursing home or making medical decisions about a dying parent. But getting stuck in an old squabble can sabotage wise decisions, said researchers who study family dynamics. To help, some states offer free consulting to families making decisions about elders, and a new school of professional mediation has sprung up to help baby boomers stop fighting with their siblings and refocus on what's best for Mom or Dad. Such services still are rare, though, leaving most families to cope on their own. ___ Old family dynamics come back like a boomerang during anxiety-producing conversations about aging or ailing parents, said Brian Carpenter of Washington University in St. Louis who has studied sibling issues. "One person takes charge, the other is more submissive; one sibling is the joker, smoothing over disagreements with humor, while another sibling is the serious one, all efficiency and business," Carpenter said. Sometimes the roles help, because the family originally may have developed them to take advantage of individual strengths, he said. "In other cases, however, when those roles have never been really helpful, they get in the way of making parent-care decisions, just as they probably got in the way of lots of family decisions throughout life," Carpenter said. Sisters tend to criticize their brothers for not doing enough, while brothers don't take enough credit for what they do, said Sarah Matthews, a professor of sociology at Cleveland State University, who has conducted research on siblings with aging parents. Her interviews with 149 pairs of siblings found women and men have different expectations. Sisters saw their siblings as a team. They expected cooperation. They wanted communication about what each sibling was doing for the aging parent. Sisters also felt they knew more about what needed to be done. Brothers, on the other hand, acted independently and expected to negotiate directly with their parent without keeping their sisters informed. "That tended to annoy the sisters," Matthews said, and the brothers didn't understand their sisters' irritation. When asked generally what they were doing for their parents, the men said, "Not much." But then they gave specific examples that revealed they did a lot more than their sisters knew, Matthews said. The eldest son holds sway in families from some cultural backgrounds, said Dr. Gail Gazelle of Palliative Care Associates in Brookline, Mass. "No matter how bad the parent's relationship has been with that son and how derelict he has been in his caregiving duties, he will be deferred to in decision-making in those families," Gazelle said, "much to the chagrin of the daughters who've been giving care for years." Gazelle advises siblings to stay focused on what their parents would want, and to remember that their relationships with siblings will endure long after their parents' deaths. "That is what is going to live on and that relationship is very important," she said. ___ After the tension died down, Aylward and his sisters successfully refocused on their mother's needs and agreed on a plan to share responsibilities. Aylward handles the bills, insurance and legal issues. His younger sister takes their mother to hair appointments and shopping. His older sister, who has a nursing background, acts as an advocate for their mother's medical needs. "It's really turned out better than we could have ever imagined. We have a happy ending," Aylward said. Although Aylward's family worked out their differences on their own, some families need outside help to defuse old time bombs. Some turn to professional mediators, a specialty that's still in its infancy. A network of elder mediators formed last year to address training and policy issues, said Penny Hommel, co-director of the Center for Social Gerontology in Ann Arbor, Mich., who knows of several hundred mediators trained in issues of the elderly. One company, Elder Decisions in Lexington, Mass., has offered such mediation for four years. This year, they worked with about 25 families involved in decisions about aging parents, charging $350 an hour. Among the company's clients were Sarah Burrows and her five siblings. Two years ago, the siblings couldn't agree on whether their octogenarian parents, both suffering from dementia, should continue living at home or move to an assisted-living facility. Some of the siblings also felt unappreciated, which clouded their decision-making. Burrows sometimes felt she didn't get enough credit for sorting out her parents' chaotic finances or looking at 20 different care facilities, she said. One of her sisters felt stranded with the household responsibilities, including the bathing and personal care of her parents. The siblings met for mediation — one brother in http://www.tcsg.org/ Elder Decisions: http://www.elderdecisions.com/ Family Caregiver Alliance: http://www.caregiver.org Eldercare Locator: http://www.eldercare.gov |
