The Biden Administration never had any plan to control the H5N1 outbreak on dairy farms; now, it's spreading widely in a country ill equipped to understand or control airborne disease.
BRAVO for a sad and worrisome, rather complete, and easy to understand review of the US political and epidemiological failure to protect the dairy farms, the cows and us humans.
As a family doc and public health advocate I have been following bird flu closely since June. When you think conservatives are still heated about the possibility of NIH sponsored gain of function research or the Wuhan lab starting the COVID pandemic - here we are boldly, criminally dysfunctional with a domestic influenza A H5N1 outbreak daily edging closer to a human pandemic - with none of the official agencies doing their job to protect us. Should human transmission start we will look worse than the Chinese did in COVID.
With regard to dealing with H5N1, the national and state agricultural and public health authorities have been derelict in response to the point of malpractice. For instance, California with 1.7 million cows, is the largest dairy farming state in the country. In spite of the spreading H5N1 infections around the country, the was no, NONE AT ALL, surveillance or proactive interventions. At the beginning of August there were NO known H5N1 dairy herd infections in California. By December - within 4 months - there over 400 infected dairy herds, more than 63 infected commercial poultry flocks, 30 infected backyard flocks (with 12 million birds culled) and about 40 known infected dairy farm workers. THIS EXPLOSIVE EPIDEMIC AND INCREASING HUMAN RISK WAS 100% PREVENTABLE. This borders on criminal negligence. One would think that, forewarned as the virus continued to spread across the country, the California Departments of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and Public Health (CDPH), rather than waiting for cases to pop up, would have assertively been surveilling the situation and quarantining farms. This was not to be so. Now, long after the proverbial barn door was left open, livestock and veterinary groups and official agencies are beginning to take basic public health steps. We are very close to viral capacity genetic breakout to infect humans. Very sad and very scary.
An excellent summation of a distressingly familiar situation. "Illness normalization and public health vilification" is a perfect description of the US protect-the-profits non-response to the Covid pandemic; it will be a précis used by future historians writing the post mortems of our decline. Violet Blue has said much the same thing in her Covid Safety Handbook.
Exceptional post, thank you
BRAVO for a sad and worrisome, rather complete, and easy to understand review of the US political and epidemiological failure to protect the dairy farms, the cows and us humans.
As a family doc and public health advocate I have been following bird flu closely since June. When you think conservatives are still heated about the possibility of NIH sponsored gain of function research or the Wuhan lab starting the COVID pandemic - here we are boldly, criminally dysfunctional with a domestic influenza A H5N1 outbreak daily edging closer to a human pandemic - with none of the official agencies doing their job to protect us. Should human transmission start we will look worse than the Chinese did in COVID.
With regard to dealing with H5N1, the national and state agricultural and public health authorities have been derelict in response to the point of malpractice. For instance, California with 1.7 million cows, is the largest dairy farming state in the country. In spite of the spreading H5N1 infections around the country, the was no, NONE AT ALL, surveillance or proactive interventions. At the beginning of August there were NO known H5N1 dairy herd infections in California. By December - within 4 months - there over 400 infected dairy herds, more than 63 infected commercial poultry flocks, 30 infected backyard flocks (with 12 million birds culled) and about 40 known infected dairy farm workers. THIS EXPLOSIVE EPIDEMIC AND INCREASING HUMAN RISK WAS 100% PREVENTABLE. This borders on criminal negligence. One would think that, forewarned as the virus continued to spread across the country, the California Departments of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and Public Health (CDPH), rather than waiting for cases to pop up, would have assertively been surveilling the situation and quarantining farms. This was not to be so. Now, long after the proverbial barn door was left open, livestock and veterinary groups and official agencies are beginning to take basic public health steps. We are very close to viral capacity genetic breakout to infect humans. Very sad and very scary.
I know, in detail, Biden’s abysmal record with Covid and H5N1 but I found your article still painful to read. I had to keep averting my eyes.
An excellent summation of a distressingly familiar situation. "Illness normalization and public health vilification" is a perfect description of the US protect-the-profits non-response to the Covid pandemic; it will be a précis used by future historians writing the post mortems of our decline. Violet Blue has said much the same thing in her Covid Safety Handbook.