Bad ducks. Bad!

I find unsettling that no one has been able to trace the origins of the H5N1 (bird flu) virus. All officials have said is that domestic ducks had a "central role in the generation and maintenance of this virus." (Story here.)

Seriously, ducks? That's the best you can come up with?
Why don't you just say the bloody thing was genetically engineered and be done with it?

"Uh, yes, we've traced to origins of this particular virus to... uh... er, ducks. Yeah. Ducks. Domestic ones."

This is what comes of reading up on the Black Death and all its subsequent economic benefits. Only with things like the bird flu, they avoid anything that involves postules full of blood and pus, and blackened skin. Airborne flus are ever so much nicer-looking.