Auctioning Angst Bird Flu Fever Hits eBay
Bird flu fever is spreading on the German version of the online auction site eBay almost as quickly as the disease takes hold in nothern parts of the country. This week, several hundred bird flu-linked items are for sale -- they range from the tacky and tasteless to the blatant fleecing of consumers' pockets. It's a phenomenon that repeats itself every time a major issue erupts in the news that can somehow be linked -- however tenuously -- to some sort of product. Type in the right keywords and they soon pop up, en masse, on the giant Internet flea market. After Joseph Ratzinger became pope, Golfs for sale on the site suddenly became the "Ratzinger car," a reference to the former Volkswagen-owning Catholic cardinal.
For the past few days, the craze on eBay Germany has been anything with even the vaguest link to bird flu, the potentially deadly disease that arrived on German shores a week ago Tuesday. In addition to humorous "H5N1" merchandising -- in reference to the deadly strain of the virus that can kill people -- there are plenty of "I survived Bird Flu" or "Bird Flu on Tour" T-shirts and coffee mugs. It seems every con-man on the Internet is trying to get in on the action. Snake oil peddlers are selling immune-system strengthening potions and some clever marketers are even trying to pass off paper protective suits for painters as anti-infection equipment. Especially popular at the moment are latex gloves and respirators.
Of course, many of these products wouldn't even provide sufficient safety for people doing small car repairs or fixing their canoes. Fine particles have no trouble passing through, the fumes from epoxy resins seep right through the paper membranes and the H5N1 virus wouldn't have any trouble, either.
Indeed, most of the products being auctioned will only be funny until the first person here dies after coming into contact with bird flu. And though the auctions seem like a slightly humorous, macabre joke, bird flu hasn't been a laughing matter for a long time now -- the disease has killed 140 million birds and close to 100 people since 2003.
dsl/spon
