H5N1 has been found in commercially available milk – but gaps in testing of cattle and humans are hampering effort to stop virus
Archived version: archive.ph/3fdP3
Well duh that’s american health policy 101
Lack of bird flu testing may be hiding true spread of virus on US farms
Submitted 5 months ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to globalnews@lemmy.zip
Comments
anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months ago
As far as I have been able to read, nobody wants to pay for it.
Fyi, people are mostly safe, for now, so long as the milk drank is pasteurized.
Though its spread everywhere (most recently in Walrus - click “Bird flu” in red at the bottom of the article to see a list of recent developments) indicates that it might start jumping to humans soon. Whatever that means, it doesn’t sound ideal.
Soup@lemmy.world 5 months ago
“We must have a government which protects us from threats and that’s why it’s cool when they buy sick jet planes and stuff.”
“What about diseases?”
“Nah bro that shit’s BOR-ING”
Capitalism: “If it don’t make profit, we ain’t for-it.”
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months ago
It’ll just bring the population down to a more manageable level. You know, get rid of a few more of The Poors. bUt ThE eCoNoMy ThO!
theguardian.com/…/bird-flu-strain-found-in-us-cow… - another one linked to from this article - says:
If bird flu did begin to spread between humans, it would be a cause for significant concern because the H5N1 virus has a high mortality rate. From 2003 to 2024, 889 cases were reported in 23 countries, and more than half of those people died, according to WHO. So pre-pandemic vaccines have already been stockpiled.
Tbf, those people might have been the ones at greatest risk like the elderly and immunocompromised, so the actual fatality rate in the general population would probably be significantly lower… possibly more like a bad flu than anywhere close to COVID, but it’s still not great to have to contemplate no matter what.
So I have a thought: let’s totally ignore it, b/c we all (
the Elitesuh I mean “everyone”, yeah totally that’s what I meant) will be safe forever, whoo-hoo! :-P
protist@mander.xyz 5 months ago
Though its spread everywhere … indicates that it might start jumping to humans soon
While this is certainly a possibility, and we should be prepared for it, there isn’t any indication to think it will suddenly become transmissible between humans this time. There have been over a thousand confirmed cases of H5N1 in humans over the past 20 years, and all were caught directly from an animal and not spread between humans.
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months ago
While this is certainly a possibility, and we should be prepared for it,
This is mostly what I was going for:-). But yeah, you bring up a good perspective: companies aren’t known for paying for things that are not needed, and since the milk is safe after pasteurization…
In my other comment in this thread (I have no idea how to properly make links to comments, without kicking you off your instance to view it), I quoted a linked article describing how the fatality rate was extremely high, as in literally over half - though I did not dig further to see e.g. how many were immunocompromised to begin with.
Thank you for sharing the detail that they all were caught directly from animals. That makes sense:-).
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Ooof.
The Classic American solution of waiting until a bunch of people die before we consider acting because to act now means a lot of companies would lose money.
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months ago
We must always keep the needs of the truest victim in every scenario first and foremost (and exclusively) in our thoughts, and ask ourselves: how will this impact tHe EcOnoMy ThO?
mlg@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Lol this happened in Michigan with Covid-19
There were like 10 reported cases total because hospitals would only send for a test with a solid match up of symptoms and if the patient had recently traveled from China.
Then when they opened up testing for everyone after CA and NY started going up in flames, it went from 10 to like 1000 cases reported every day.
All in a span of like two weeks.
Went from meme to pandemic so fast Whitmer closed public schools faster than the schools themselves could.
Oh and then Trump got mad and refused to send aid or allow harsher restrictions lol.
trslim@pawb.social 5 months ago
Doesnt Bird Flu have like a 10% mortality rate? Thats kind of a big deal.
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
Holy dry goods batman! I’m off to the supermarket to buy 3 pallets of toilet paper to start my new “arbitrage” business because I’m a fucking asshole like that.
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
Well if you don’t test, you’ll have less cases.
crosses a few test results off of a list with a sharpie
And now there’s even less!
SharkEatingBreakfast@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
Well, yeah, and testing would cut into profits and possibly / probably require culling, which would cut into profits even more.
God bless capitalism! 🫠
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 5 months ago
That worked for the pandemic! We got lower numbers of Covid because we stopped testing for it!
Thassodar@lemm.ee 5 months ago
That’s the same logic as racists:
“If everyone would stop talking about shitting on minorities, nobody would know the minorities are being shat on!”