Re: OT? Dairy flu

On 6/4/2024 8:57 AM, RonO wrote:

On 6/3/2024 3:49 PM, RonO wrote:

On 6/2/2024 9:26 AM, RonO wrote:

On 5/27/2024 9:03 AM, RonO wrote:

On 5/27/2024 1:45 AM, vallor wrote:

On Sat, 25 May 2024 12:49:10 -0500, RonO <rokimoto@cox.net> wrote in
<v2t8an$2vo1m$1@dont-email.me>:
>

On 5/25/2024 9:49 AM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

RonO <rokimoto@cox.net> wrote:

The CDC issued an alert yesterday that they were initiating planning
for "possiblity of increased risk to human health" from the dairy flu.
  The CDC has screwed up by the numbers in terms of evolution of the
virus and the threat to humans.  They knew from the first detections
that humans were being infected, but they didn't initiate testing and
contact tracing.  Humans had already likely spread the virus to other
dairy herds for some time.  They knew from the first sequencing
results that many states did not get cattle but ended up with the
virus.  People were the obvious vector for spread of the virus between
herds.  We have known for years that the flu virus only survives for
around 5 hours on the skin and maybe up to 12 hours on clothing, but
we also know that you have to be infected within a few minutes of
getting it on your skin or clothing because the virus doesn't seem to
be infective after a few minutes on those surfaces.  The virus
survives the longest on hard surfaces and is infective off those
surfaces for up to 24 hours, but the poultry farms that were infected
by the dairy virus in the same counties as the infected herds would
have had little reason to exchange equipment.  Infected humans likely
took the virus to those poultry farms.  The two known human cases were
shedding infective virus.  The CDC has understood this from the very
beginning of their involvement, but they failed to act on it.  They
claim that it isn't their policy to force testing onto farm workers,
so they never checked to determine the rate that humans were being
infected even though there was ancedotal evidence of other dairy
workers with red eye (eye infection).  The crazy thing is these red
eye individuals can infect other humans.  They got infected, and they
are shedding virus.  If the CDC had started testing and contact
tracing they would already know how the other herds and poultry flocks
got infected.
>
What they needed to do was identify all the infected herds and
quarantine the herds and farm workers, but the USDA and CDC were not
interested in contact tracing and tracking down additional cases.
They both claimed to rely on farm reporting.  This is stupid. The FDA
tested milk products from 38 states.  They tested products that came
from milk processing plants in those states and found 17 states with
H5N1 positive milk samples, but would not release the names of the
states because they claimed to only be worried about the safety of the
food chain. Pasteurization was found to kill the virus.  When the FDA
finally did release the names of the states a couple weeks later it
was found that 9 new states not yet identified as having positive
dairy herds had produced milk products that were positive for the
dairy virus.  3 of the states already known to have infected herds
were not found to have positive dairy products, so they likely missed
some positive states of the 38 tested.  The CDC could have predicted
the results because they started to monitor waste water and most of
the new states that were found to have positive dairy products had
also shown flu virus in the waste water.
>
The CDC knows that the longer that they allow humans to be infected by
the dairy virus the more likely that it will evolve into a strain that
will start killing people.  Currently the infected humans only have
mild eye irritation (the virus infects mammary glands and apparently
tear ducts).  The initial sequencing results indicated that there were
already variants of the virus with mutations that would make them more
infective in mammals, but they were minor variants at the time of the
sample collections.  As the virus adapts to cattle these variants are
probably the most likely to be selected for.  The virus is infecting a
lot more herds than they are tracking, and it is evolving in all those
herds and the dairy workers are exposed to that evolving virus.  I
should note that the cats that got infected by the dairy virus had
high mortality because the virus infected their brains.  Influenza
virus is normally a respiratory virus, but if this virus adapted to
infecting human brains that would be a real tragedy.
>
So instead of trying to limit the current spread, the CDC has decided
to prepare for human transmission of the next pandemic virus.  It
doesn't sound like they are preparing correctly because you want to
limit the first human cases with severe symptoms.  In order to do that
you have to identify them as soon as you can.  The humans currently
being infected are dairy workers, so you need to identify all the
infected herds and monitor the dairy workers and their human contacts.
  The next pandemic could have already started in one of the states
with unidentified infected dairy herds.  They need to track down the
dairies that contributed to the milk of the processing plants that
produced positive milk samples.  They need to go to the counties with
positive waste water (these include multiple sites in California that
has not yet claimed to have positive herds and several of these sites
are in rural areas surrounding the bay area, the CDC nightmare
scenario) and identify infected herds.  They need to track the
contacts of the dairy workers so that they can identify more infected
herds in states that are already known to have infected herds.  Once
they identify all the possible sources of infection they can monitor
those herds and people and then try to keep any virus from spreading
and becoming a pandemic.
>

My hot and possibly wrong takes are that they are dealing with a very
influential and somewhat litigious industry. Ask Oprah. They are also
dealing with a subset of the population induced with reactance. Tell
them not to drink raw milk and its popularity will rise. They should
ramp up H5 based flu shot production but that’s a crap shoot for
matching and effectiveness and this virus is not friendly to eggs.
>
>

The dairy workers were resistant to be tested.  Many were illegal aliens
and didn't want to be interviewed nor go to a doctor.  The Dairy owners
were reluctant to participate because there was no incentive for them to
do so, and the USDA policy was to depopulate poultry flocks and all
poultry within a mile of the infected flock.  The poultry flocks that
were infected with the dairy virus were all depopulated.  6 and a half
million layers in Michigan alone.  Multiple turkey flocks have gone down
in Minnesota and have had to be depopulated, and Minnesota is one of the
states that had positive milk products, but they do not admit to having
infected herds.  Minnesota also has 3 positive waste water locations in
the state.
>
So there is a lot of politics involved, but the end result is that the
virus has been allowed to spread, and there doesn't seem to be any
movement in trying to stop the spread.  Multiple waste water sites
around the bay area in Northern California are claimed to be above
average in influenza content of the waste water (the claim is that they
are orders of magnitude higher) but there isn't any claims that they are
testing dairies in those counties.  The nightmare scenario is that
patient zero is in the bay area and their contacts board an
international flight as the virus takes hold in San Francisco before
anyone notices.
>
One thing of note is the infamous masking requirements and social
distancing required for Covid was found to work extremely well to stop
influenza infections.  30,000 to 70,000 people usually die of influenza
each year in the USA, but only a minimal number of fatalities occurred
during the masking required during Covid.  It tells us that we could
probably save around 40,000 people a year if we masked up during flu
season, and had the surface sanitation policies in action.  My take is
that the biggest advantage of masking is that if an infected person is
required to wear a mask they deposit a lot less virus into the
environment around them by sneezing and coughing.
>
Ron Okimoto

>
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4684694-mice-bird-flu-raw-milk/
>
Mice experienced high levels of bird flu after being given raw milk: Study
>
Is this the flu you are referring to?  (Wish you'd source your info...)
>
(I live in the SF bay area, but I don't drink unpasteurized milk.)
>
ObOrigins:
The _fact_ that diseases evolve is part of the _fact_ of evolution. When
people talk about how evolution is "only a theory", they get it wrong:
the _theory_ of evolution is the scientific theory explaining the
_observed fact_ of evolution.
>

>
Look at the CDC waste water data for California.  California has not started testing dairy herds, but multiple waste water sites around the bay area have high levels of influenza in their waste water, as high as counties known to have infected dairy herds.  It looks like the bay area is surrounded by infected dairy herds, but no one wants to check. Several of those counties have issued warnings not to drink raw milk, but they don't want to verify that they have the issue for some stupid reason.
>
https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/wastewater-surveillance/Flu-A-data.html
>
The NIH did the mice study and found that mice could be infected by H5N1 virus in raw milk.  Pretty much from day 1 we have known that the virus in raw milk could infect cats.
>
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/high-h5n1-influenza-levels-found-mice-given-raw-milk-infected-dairy-cows
>
The CDC and USDA have been releasing information even if slowly.
>
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/mammals.htm
>
The FDA released the names of the states with positive milk samples 10 days after they released the fact that they had found the positive samples, but pasteurization was killing the virus, so as long as you didn't drink raw milk you were OK.  They have contributed to the delay in identifying all the infected herds.
>
https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/updates-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-hpai
>
The USDA nor the CDC have claimed to be acting on the FDA findings and testing dairy herds in those states with positive milk samples. Both claim that they are relying on dairy farms to self report, but that obviously is not working.
>
The CDC also knows that more states likely have positive herds because of their waste water surveys, but again they claim to be relying on self reporting and are not actively investigating dairy herds in the positive waste water counties.
>
https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/wastewater-surveillance/Flu-A-data.html
>
They really are actively not trying to identify infected dairy herds even though the FDA has told them 9 new states to check and the waste water data identifies even more, and it identifies some of the counties that they should be checking.  Not only that, but the waste water data and positive milk data overlap and identify the counties that they should check in the positive milk states.
>
They have known from Day 1 that they need to identify all the infected herds because the cattle were infecting humans, and though the symptoms were mild the more cattle and humans infected the more chance of the virus evolving into something much worse.  It looks like the USDA and CDC went into denial due to politics and being burned during Covid.  It is crazy that they have been in denial that humans took the virus to other dairy herds and the poultry farms. How else has the virus spread to states that never got cattle, and then infected poultry farms in those states?  Kansas and South Dakota never got cattle from Texas, but it looks like Kansas was infected and then the infection spread from Kansas to South Dakota even though South Dakota did not get cattle from Texas nor Kansas.  Infected people obviously took the virus to those states.  Influenza is known not to be infective off skin and clothing for more than a few minutes.  It may survive on clothing for up to 12 hours, but is only infective for around 30 minutes once it gets onto clothing.  The infected humans were shedding live virus, and that is obviously how the virus has spread to so many herds.
>
This is an example of what not to do in order to prevent the next pandemic.  Now the CDC has put out an alert that they have given up and are preparing for worse to come.  They can still identify the infected herds and quarantine them and the human workers, but they have decided to try to contain the influenza after it has moved off the dairies as something that is killing people.  The stupid thing is that in order to do this effectively they still need to identify the infected herds in order to have the best chance of identifying patient zero that gets a mutated virus from a cow or dairy worker.
>
Ron Okimoto
>
>
>

>
A third human was found to be infected by dairy cattle in Michigan. There likely is no longer any doubt that many more dairy workers have already been infected, but the CDC and USDA are still actively not trying to identify all the infected herds.
>
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2023-2024/h5n1-response-053124.html
>
The CDC is still claiming that there is nothing to worry about because infections seem to be limited to cow to human, and not human to human, but the CDC has refused to do contact tracing of the dairy workers, nor test them and their contacts.  This fact just means that they have refused to do the work needed to know that they are wrong.  They have known from day one that the other herds and poultry flocks did not get infected from virus on clothing or skin of dairy workers or their contacts, and had even proposed the laughable excuse that the poultry farm could have been infected by an exchange of equipment.  Who would exchange equipment between a dairy farm and a 2 million bird layer facility?  The most likely scenario has always been that people took the virus to the other herds and poultry farms, and they were likely infected and shedding virus.  They knew from day one that Kansas and South Dakota had not gotten cattle, but they refused to do dairy worker contact tracing.  The sequence indicates that someone took the virus to Kansas from Texas, and then from Kansas to South Dakota. Does anyone believe that they were exchanging equipment between those states?  It looks like they have done it on purpose, but it is likely just denial and stupidity related to politics.
>
A news article I read claimed that the Michigan state health department wants to start testing the dairy workers in order to determine how many have been infected.  They should also test the contacts of the positive dairy workers that they will be identifying. They should also do contact tracing so that they can identify more infected herds in Michigan.  More and more herds Michgan herds are being identified every week, and there are probably a lot more that they don't know about since they were in denial of how the virus was spreading between herds.  It is pretty much a fact that the CDC would know how all the other herds and poultry flocks got infected if they had just instituted testing and contact tracing two months ago.  There are obviously a lot more states and a lot more infected herds than we currently have identified, and all of them are infecting dairy workers, and likely the dairy worker contacts.
>
Ron Okimoto
>

>
A vaccine manufaturer has announced that it has been tasked to produce 5 million H5 antigen flu vaccines for this summer.  They likely need them now.
>
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-06-03/u-s-will-make-millions-of-bird-flu-vaccines-this-summer
>
There have already been recommendations that they start to vaccinate dairy workers.  It is obvious that they are getting infected, and the last case had respiratory symptoms and was more easily spreading the virus into the environment than the previous eye infections.  The CDC is still in denial even though they are only monitoring some of the infected herds in Texas and Michigan.  The dairy workers are likely getting infected in all the states that have infected herds, but there is still no movement by the USDA and CDC to identify all the infected herds and dairy workers.  Both are continuing to rely on "self reporting", and there is no doubt that, that is not working.  This is really not the way to prevent the next pandemic.
>
The Michigan health department wants to do antibody testing for the H5 antigen among the dairy workers so that they can get a handle on how many have been infected and no longer are showing symptoms.  That should likely be done in both states (Texas and Michigan) that the CDC has bothered to monitor.  9 states currently are known to have infected herds, and the  actual number is likely twice that if not more.
>
Ron Okimoto
>

 It should be noted that this is a recombinant virus.  When the Eurasian strain of H5N1 got into North America it recombined with a North American strain of avian influenza.  It isn't fully the Eurasian virus that has a 50% mortality rate among infected humans.  At least 4 humans have been infected by the dairy H5N1 (the first before it was a dairy virus) and they have all had mild symptoms.  The fear is that it will mutate or recombine again with a human influenza A and become more infective with more severe symptoms.
 They really want to keep this virus off of pig farms because a swine influenza recombinant could be more deadly to humans.  The sad fact is that by not identifying and quarantining the infected dairy herds they are just making it more possible to transfer the virus to pig farms. They already know that humans are likely taking it to poultry farms, so they need to identify all the infected dairies and make sure that the workers and their contacts do not go to other farms.  At this time the CDC and USDA are still only "recommending" that dairy workers at infected farms and their contacts do not go to other farms.  They should make it more than a recommendation.
 The dairy virus has the HA and NA (H5N1) antigen genes of the Eurasian virus.  It also has the PA and M gene segments (sort of RNA chromosomes) of the Eurasian H5N1.  The PB1, PB2, NP and NS gene segments are from another wild bird influenza virus.  In the news the HA clade 2.3.4.4b HPAI A(H5N1) name is used.  This is it's H5 gene clade designation, but it is genotype (full genome) B3.13 of that clade.
 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2023-2024/h5n1-analysis-texas.htm
 Ron Okimoto
 

Deborah Birx is claiming that we are making the same mistakes with the dairy flu as we did with Covid.  She claims that we should be testing every cow and every dairy worker.  I agree with her.  They know that there are a lot more states with positive herds than have come forward, and they know that there are a lot more postive herds in the states that already know they have positive herds because we keep identifying more every week, and we aren't even trying to find them.  They likely understand by now that it was infected humans that took the virus to these other states and herds, so they really do need to start testing all the dairy workers if they want to have a chance at limiting the spread, but they should have started doing it 2 months ago.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/04/health/video/dr-deborah-birx-interview-pandemic-preparedness-transparent-communication-digvid
Ron Okimoto