A Chinese agriculture ministry official said this week that a paper about the deaths from avian flu of geese in the country, published in the July 6 online issue of
The paper, by University of Hong Kong researcher Guan Yi and colleagues, including Robert G. Webster and Malik Peiris, concluded that an H5N1 outbreak among bar-headed geese and gulls at Qinghai Lake Nature Reserve was triggered by the introduction of a strain from southern China.
But last weekend, China's Ministry of Agriculture spokesman made strong statements carried by China's state-controlled Xinhua news service, dismissing the research.
"An article on bird flu carried in the renowned journal
"The writers' laboratory lacks...