Re: Willful stupidity at the CDC. Dairy H5N1

On 7/11/2024 5:54 PM, RonO wrote:

On 7/10/2024 9:39 AM, RonO wrote:

On 7/3/2024 4:53 PM, RonO wrote:

On 6/25/2024 8:41 PM, RonO wrote:

https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/php/monitoring-bird-flu/agenda.html#:~:text=Since%20April%202024%2C%20several%20human,Bird%20Flu%3A%20Current%20Situation).
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The CDC has issued their public health agenda for the H5N1 situation comedy that they are currently playing out.
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Their primary objective is what it should have been from day one.
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QUOTE:
Objective 1
Prevent infection and illness in people exposed to HPAI A(H5N1) viruses.
END QUOTE:
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They have known for months what they needed to do in order to meet this objective, but never initiated an effective program that would accomplish this objective.
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They needed to identify all the infected herds, and quarantine them and the workers, and close contacts of those workers, on those farms. They needed to require personal protective equipment for all humans working with the infected cattle.  They never attempted to identify all the infected herds and only "recommended" personal protective equipment be used by workers working with infected cattle.  They never attempted to identify all the infected herds so that they could attempt to keep humans at those farms from being infected.
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As sad as it may seem they still refuse to do what they know that they should have been doing from day one, and claim that continuing to do the monitoring and work with the virus will meet their #1 objective when it never will.  The longer that the virus is allowed to spread among the dairy herds the more dairy workers will be infected.  If the workers do not know that the herd is infected they have no reason to use personal protective gear, and are open to getting infected.
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It has to be some type of willful stupidity that they refuse to admit that they have been wrong for months, and instead of initiate what they should have done months ago, they want to keep doing what is not working.
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All they needed to do was to start testing pooled milk samples from every dairy and testing them.  The FDA had tested milk processing plants in 34 states by the end of April.  At that time only 9 states were known to have positive herds, but processing plants in 9 new states (not then known to have positive herds) produced H5N1 positive milk products.  The CDC could have gone to those plants, and gotten a list of all the dairy herds that could have contributed to the positive samples and tested those herds, but no one wanted to find any new positive herds.  The FDA released the names of the states producing positive milk products on May 10th, but still no one used the information to identify more herds in more states.  Since then only 3 more states have admitted to having positive herds and 2 of those states were already known to have produced the positive FDA samples.  Those herds would have been identified much sooner if anyone had acted on the FDA findings.  There are a lot more dairy workers being exposed to infected herds than they want to admit.
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Ron Okimoto

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https://abcnews.go.com/Health/4th-human-case-bird-flu-linked-dairy-cow/story?id=111654647
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Another human infection with the Dairy virus.  A Colorado dairy worker with eye symptoms only was verified to be infected by the H5N1 dairy influenza.  Colorado currently has the most infected herds in the last 30 days, and the reason why is that this worker is likely just the tip of the iceberg for workers that were infected.  Colorado wasn't a state listed as getting cattle from Texas, so it is likely that an infected human took the virus to Colorado, and other infected humans have likely spread the virus around to other herds in the state, but the CDC and USDA still are displaying willful stupidity and not admitting to how the virus has been transmitted to so many herds in so many states.  The virus does not remain infective on clothing and skin long enough for the workers to take it to other states.  They obviously have, had to be infected and shedding virus in order to transfer the infection to so many states and so many herds within the states.  The CDC and USDA still refuse to start testing herds in order to identify all the infected cattle, so that the dairy workers can be warned and be protected.  Only 12 states have admitted to having infected herds at this time, but neither the CDC, nor the USDA has bothered to look for infected herds, and most people that have commented on it seem to think that there are probably over 20 states with infected herds in the lower 48 (at least double the number of states verified to have infected herds at this time).
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There are a lot more infected herds and a lot more dairy workers exposed to infected cattle, but willful stupidity reigns at the CDC and USDA and they refuse to do what has needed to be done for months. As crazy as it may seem they seem to be waiting and hoping that the virus burns through the infected herds before it can be transmitted to other herds, but they know that it takes over 6 weeks for the virus to burn through a herd so that the herd is no longer infective, and the virus obviously spreads rapidly to other dairy herds via human activity.  The result is that the number of infected herds in the states that they are "monitoring" have just kept increasing because they won't identify the infected herds and start human contact tracing and quarantine procedures in order to stop the spread.
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The more humans allowed to be infected, the more chance the virus has of further adapting to infecting humans, resulting in the next pandemic.
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Ron Okimoto

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The NIH published another paper on the dairy H5N1 virus.  The nature paper is paywalled, but there is an article on it at the NIH web site.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07766-6
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https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/features-h5n1-influenza-viruses-dairy-cows-may-facilitate-infection-transmission-mammals
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They conclude that the dairy virus is not efficiently transmitted as a respiratory virus between ferrets, but they didn't do the experiment that would tell them if it can be transmitted from eye to eye infections as it would most likely be transmitted among dairy workers and their contacts (would require the healthy animals to intermingle with infected animals).
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Previous studies have identified both sialic acid linkages in mammary tissue as a reason that cattle mammary glands were preferentially infected.  Human adapted influenza utilize the alpha2,6 linkage to infect the cells, and Avian influenza utilize the alphp 2,3 linkage to infect cells.  This study indicates that the dairy H5N1 can bind to both linkage types, but for some reason has not evolved into a respiratory infective virus.
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This is just more reason why all the infected dairy herds need to be identified, and dairy workers protected from infection, but the CDC continues it's campaign of willful stupidity, and refuses to identify all the infected herds.  The dairy virus seems very close to becoming the next pandemic, and the more dairy workers infected the more likely the virus will evolve to better infect humans.
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Ron Okimoto
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 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/finland-offering-farmworkers-bird-flu-shots-experts-us/story?id=111821702
 Finland is offering farm workers bird flu shots.  The Dairy virus has not been confirmed to have gotten out of the US, but it is related to a virus circulating in Europe.
 We all know how Covid vaccinations went with many workers quiting their jobs rather than be vaccinated.  The article notes that flu vaccination does hold some risk.  There was the infamous Swine flu vaccine that Gerald Ford urged people to get back in 1976.  It resulted in many deaths due to the vaccine, in mostly elderly people.
 What I have recommended is that we start vaccinating the animals.  If a farm worker is infected and shedding live virus the only way to keep your animals from being infected is to have them vaccinated against that strain of influenza.  This would keep humans from spreading the virus to other herds and poultry flocks.  Fewer infected herds and poultry flocks would result in fewer infected humans in the long run.
 Ron Okimoto

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https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/guidance-help-prevent-spread-flu-agricultural-fairs.html
The CDC is offering updated guidance for the dairy influenza outbreak. They admit that the virus can be transmitted from humans to the animals, and they recommend that anyone with flu like symptoms stay home and not visit the animals at the fair.  What they should have included is people with eye irritation should stay away from livestock, especially if they have been in contact with dairy cattle or poultry.  3 of the 4 known human cases with dairy influenza were only shedding virus from their eyes, and did not show the usual respiratory infection.  The virus seems to infect mammary glands and tear ducts.
As crazy as it may seem, they still refuse to identify all the infected herds even though they acknowledge that the spread is pretty much out of control.  Their recommendations of workers using protective gear only applies to known infected herds, so they need to identify the infected herds for this recommendation to do much good.  Only 12 states have admitted to having infected herds at this time, but the FDA data and researchers that I've seen comment on it claim the number of states is like double that number.  For likely political reasons both the USDA and CDC refuse to identify all the infected herds, but this would be the best way to limit the spread of the disease and keep humans from being infected.
Ron Okimoto