No. of Recommendations: 13
Of course.
Margaret Brennan: “what is the plan? what are you going to do?”
Kevin Hassett: “so again, the Biden plan was to just kill chickens. and they spent billions of dollars just randomly killing chickens within a perimeter where they found a sick chicken. and so you go — I just went to the grocery store. I shop for our family in part because I love to look at prices, and there were no eggs at the store yesterday. just a few. and so that happened because they killed all the chickens. so what we need to do is have better ways. biosecurity and medication and so on, to make sure so that the perimeter doesn’t have to kill the chickens. to have a better, smarter perimeter. and so having a smart perimeter is what we’re working on, and we’re finalizing the ideas about how to do that with the best scientists in government, and that’s the kind of thing that should have happened a year ago, and if it had, the egg prices would be a lot better than they are now. but the avian flu is a real thing, and by the way, it’s spread mostly by ducks and geese. think about it. they’re killing chickens to stop the spread, but chickens don’t really fly.” Oh, duh.
Hassett must have learned his 'weave' from Trump.
Tiedrich: that was so many words, just so say ‘we have no plan. we have no idea what we’re doing.’ this guy Hassett really needs to tighten things up. Donny would have simply said ‘we’re looking at it very strongly and we’ll see what happens’ and then launched into a story about a big, strong poultry farmer who called him ‘sir.’
but the honest answer would have been: “I don’t even know why I’m on your show. I’m a fucking economist, not a scientist.”
everything boils down to “we’re going to the opposite of whatever Joe Biden did, because we’re all spite-fueled grievances babies here, and fuck Joe Biden” — but here’s why you kill an entire flock when one bird gets infected.
--This virus kills chickens FAST. We’re talking 24 hours or less to wipe out an entire backyard flock of ~50 birds. Most of the time the reason the tests are run is because someone wakes up in the morning and finds half the flock dead and the rest dying. The culling is just to speed up the inevitable and contain the virus as quickly as possible.--
No. of Recommendations: 4
reporter: “egg prices have reached an all-time high.”
Donny: “well there’s a flu. before I ever got here it. remember, I’ve been here for three weeks.”
got that? the guy who claimed he would fix everything on his first day in office is now begging off. presidenting is hard.
Donny has no plan. Kevin Hassett has no plan. beyond stealing all the money, none of the Sewer Clowns have plans — or clues. know what we should do? let’s put Donny’s entire administration inside a perimeter, to keep us safe from them.
No. of Recommendations: 5
latest The Lancet on avian flu
H5N1: international failures and uncomfortable truths
If you ask an infectious diseases specialist whether we
should start worrying about influenza A H5N1, they will
probably tell you that we should always be worrying
about it. An influenza pandemic has long topped the
list of global threats to health, and avian influenza
poses a particularly serious concern. H5N1 has infected
over 800 people since its identification in 1996, with a
mortality rate exceeding 50%. Since 2020, it has become
endemic in bird populations, triggering an unparalleled
animal pandemic, affecting at least 26 mammal species.
There is nothing new in influenza strains evolving, shifting
their epidemiological habits, and causing infections in
people, although human-to-human transmission of
H5N1 is rare. Nonetheless, although developments over
the past 3 months may or may not signal the start of a
global pandemic, they are at the very least a pressing and
unwelcome reminder of the caprices of zoonotic influenza
and our continued collective complacency about it.
An unprecedented outbreak of highly pathogenic
avian influenza A(H5N1), the first documented infection
in dairy cows, was reported on March 25, 2024 in Texas,
Kansas, and New Mexico, raising the potential of cow-to
human transmission. Three confirmed human cases in
the USA, all farm workers, have been reported so far, with
the third person presenting with respiratory symptoms.
Genetic analysis shows that the virus lacks changes that
would make it better adapted to transmit between
people and the risk to human health remains low, but
it did detect adaptation to mammalian hosts. Despite
calls for increased surveillance, the US response has been
slow, with many cases likely going undetected. There
has been resistance from the farming industry around
testing and prevention, driven by a lack of awareness
or understanding around changing practice and fear of
trade restrictions and product loss. The US Department
of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention are incentivising dairy producers
to supply personal protective equipment and offer
laundering services for employees, but the USDA has been
accused of being slow in sharing crucial virus sequence
data, complicating our understanding of the outbreak. In
Canada, early warning systems have been implemented
to screen for H5N1 in milk. The UK says it has intensified
its response to the US outbreak, but according to a report
last month, it is not yet testing cows for the virus.
www.thelancet.com Vol 403 June 8, 2024
Action to curb this outbreak is needed urgently,
including improving testing, surveillance, and reporting
of infected animals and food products; vaccinating
animal populations; transparent information sharing;
developing and stockpiling human vaccine; and
promoting protective measures among farm workers.
All countries should build capacities to test, detect, and
report infections, cases, and deaths above expected levels
and share this information. Countries in need of external
assistance to bolster their capacity should receive support.
The need for a robust and coordinated response
to highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1), as
described in a Comment by Kojima and colleagues,
serves to highlight the scale of the failure of countries
to secure an international agreement on the pandemic
accord. The 77th World Health Assembly, which closed
on June 1, was meant to see a finalised draft of an
international instrument on pandemic prevention,
preparedness, and response. As The Lancet has noted,
negotiations have been mired in disagreement and draft
provisions have been unjust and inequitable (although
changes to the International Health Regulations have
been agreed). The process is not over yet—discussions
continue with the hope of securing an agreement by
May, 2025. Until then, the continued absence of a
meaningful and effective accord undermines the ability
to respond appropriately to international health threats,
such as H5N1. Despite COVID-19, most countries are not
prepared for a new pandemic.
Beyond the proximal drivers of outbreaks and potential
interventions though, there is a need to confront
an uncomfortable truth that the US H5N1 outbreak
once again raises. Spillover of zoonoses into human
populations stems ultimately from our ways of life and
how they shape the human–animal interface. Our diets,
our intensive farming practices, our livelihoods, our
behaviours, and our cultures. Our exploitation of the
natural world and our destruction of the environment.
These issues are tractable through interdisciplinary
education, intersectoral collaboration, adequate funding,
and integrated policies. The concept of One Health,
although often acknowledged, is rarely prioritised and
operationalised. The result is a missed opportunity to not
just respond to pandemic threats, but to prevent them
altogether.
n The Lancet
