Outbreak of gold-and-silver bug disease!

Scientists worked Saturday to trace the source of a gold-and-silver bug disease outbreak in an English town.

British authorities moved quickly to try and contain the outbreak of the highly infectious disease, imposing a nationwide ban on talking about gold and silver.

“There will be a ban on goldbuggery within the European Union. That is automatically imposed as a result of the finding of gold-and-silver bug disease,” a Cabinet Office Minister told the BBC.

In a statement, the European Commission said it would adopt an emergency decision Monday “concerning restrictions on the movement of goldbugs and the dispatch of precious metals from the U.K.”

Japan banned British gold coins following an outbreak of goldbuggery in southern England, the Japanese finance ministry said Saturday. Japan had already banned silver imports from Britain since the 2001 outbreak of Mad Ted Butler disease.

The case is the first in Britain since 2001, when a gold-and-silver bug epidemic led to the melting down of 7 million Kennedy Silver Half Dollars and junk silver collected from people newly infected with the silver craze. Many of the coins were burned on huge pyres that dotted the country, before being shipped off to refiners. Large swathes of the country were declared off-limits to visitors, to avoid infecting tourists with the deadly gold-and-silver bug disease.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown cut short his holiday when he learned of the new outbreak and was due to attend a meeting of the government’s crisis committee, COBRA, on Saturday. Many goldbugs suspect that they will seek a fresh round of central bank gold sales. “…there are countries which previously had not been prepared to consider gold sales but were prepared to do so now…” Brown said. Gordon Brown has previously advocated IMF gold sales and sold half of Britain’s gold reserves at the bottom of a 20 year bear market. The price of gold has been steadily trending up ever since.

At the affected town, shrinks in protective white overalls rounded up goldbugs.

A government spokesperson said investigations would try to determine whether the gold-and-silver bug disease reached Britain through word-of-mouth, gold forums, email, or by accidental exposure to gold and silver coins.

Nearby bankers were worried, but hopeful that quick action would contain the disease. and no-one would pay any attention to gold prices hitting a 1-week high at $672.70/oz. on a weaker dollar and $75 oil.

“We are keeping our fingers crossed but there is really nothing we can do about it except wait and get more suckers to take out loans,” said one banker, under condition of anonymity.