Last week what the nation witnessed was a countrywide scare of bird flu played up by the entire national media. All major newspapers, television channels and even financial dailies have been competing with each other to fill the front pages with reports of this non existing threat. The intensity of these media reports sounded as if some major national disaster is about to befall on the country. And suddenly towards the weekend, everything turned quiet with a few reports in the inside pages of the newspapers and hardly any reports in television channels. This is after clarification given by the Indian Council of Medical Research stating that bird flu virus has not infected any humans in the country. The first question comes to one's mind, looking at this journalistic frenzy, is whether any particular interest group has been mysteriously behind taking the media for a ride. Role of some pharmaceutical companies cannot be totally ruled out in this whole game considering some of their track records and recent statements. What is shocking is the way the newspapers went about reporting whole episode in a most trivial manner. No newspaper editor or correspondents cared to find out what is bird flu and how serious it could be even if the virus hits humans. Bird flu is not a deadly disease which can kill thousands of human beings on infection. It can kill only birds instantly. That much information should have been obtained by journalists from ICMR or any other scientific research bodies before sensationalizing reports of deaths of a few birds in a poultry farm. By overplaying such reports, media has seriously harmed the interests of lakhs of poultry farmers in the country. Many of the small farmers, particularly in Maharashtra and Gujarat, are pushed into a serious financial crisis. It is possible that many more birds will now die for lack of feed and water as these farmers are struggling to cope with the losses. This could have been avoided if the country's mass media behaved in a responsible manner. Bird flu virus has been active in some of the south east Asian countries for the last three years and there were reports of deaths of a hundred people so far. The most widely prescribed drug for the infection, tamiflu, of Roche is stocked by the affected countries including India. GSK another MNC, is having a second drug for the bird flu. According to latest medical opinion, both the drugs are not very effective as claimed. Probably efficacy of these drugs are still to be studied as the use of the drug has not been widespread yet.