10 ms·

A Michigan farmworker is diagnosed with bird flu in case tied to dairy cows

112 points by geox 2y ago

spywaregorilla 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
COGlory 2y ago
The virologists I know are much more concerned about this than they were about covid. I guess it's presenting neurological symptoms in bears/small mammals. Last fall there was a rash of small mammals showing rabies signs, that were euthenised that wound up negative for rabies, so they're now retesting them for this influenza.
- chaostheory 2y ago
  Which areas? Did they contact news agencies yet? EDIT this is the only thing I've been able to find https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2024/02/17/coyote-captured-after-reportedly-biting-3-children-in-arlington-tests-negative-for-rabies/ https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2024/02/17/coyote-captured-a... https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2019/02/05/colorado-runner-kills-mountain-lion-attack-animal-tests-negative-rabies-no-weapons/2781712002/ https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2019/02/05/colorado-ru...
  - COGlory 2y ago
    This was in Montana. Local FWP. No idea about news agencies. Here's the bit about bears: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-grizzly-bears-tested-positive-for-avian-flu-in-montana-180981492/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-grizzly-bear...
- perihelions 2y ago
  Maybe this is what you're referring to? https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/29/12/23-0464_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/29/12/23-0464_article Also shows neurological symptoms in cats (and high mortality), https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/7/24-0508_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/7/24-0508_article
  - COGlory 2y ago
    I don't think I've ever seen a "wwwnc" TLD prefix before.
    - undersuit 2y ago
      The CDC uses: - www.cdc.gov/ (domain) - cdc.gov (domain) - wwwn.cdc.gov/ (domain) - wwwnc.cdc.gov/ (domain) - www2c.cdc.gov/ (domain) - blogs.cdc.gov/ (domain) - emergency.cdc.gov/ (domain)
      - vel0city 2y ago
        What does the n, nc, and 2c mean?
        appplication 2y ago
        Probably just gov nonsense someone decided to slip in there because it seemed like a good idea at the time/the person in charge of making technical decisions was out of their depth, as often is the case in the government web space.
    - IAmGraydon 2y ago
      It’s not a TLD. It’s a subdomain and can be anything the domain owner wants. The TLD is .gov.
- delfinom 2y ago
  [flagged]
- 9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
  Why? On the list of things to worry about, it would seem to me that there are things far more likely to kill you than a disease that a sum total of 3 people have contracted, all with mild symptoms.
  - NoNotTheDuo 2y ago
    Likely because it’s very deadly, spreads rapidly, and now that the virus has transferred from birds -> cows -> humans, it could start to mutate into something that spreads human to human. > Human infections with HPAI A(H5N1) virus have been reported in 23 countries since 1997, resulting in severe pneumonia and death in about 50% of cases. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/influenza-a-virus-subtypes.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/influenza-a-virus-subtypes....
    - 9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
      > it could start to mutate into something that spreads human to human. The number of things that could mutate into a human pandemic is quite large. I'm still not worried. The current hype is over dairy farm workers being exposed to it, but as someone who used to work in a large poultry operation (100K birds at a time), I can assure you that the viral load (and thus mutation possibilities) of bird flu is far higher in an infected poultry operation than any dairy farmer will ever experience.
      - doubleg72 2y ago
        Just like taking medical advice from a janitor because they work in a hospital, eh?
  - croes 2y ago
    The US are not the world. Over 1000 people got infected worldwide. Mortality rate >50% https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22401-bird-flu https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22401-bird-fl...
  - drewzero1 2y ago
- GeekyBear 2y ago
  Covid was fully airborne and spread very rapidly between people. This is not airborne, nor have we seen it spreading between people. All the cases we've seen so far in the States have been from people who were known to be in contact with infected animals. It certainly warrants further investigation and precautions for those working with livestock, but panic seems like an overreach.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - appplication 2y ago
    For what it’s worth, it took us like two years into the pandemic to recognize Covid was airborne, after years of claiming it wasn’t. I’m not sure if that was denial, suppression, mutations, or it’s legitimately difficult to determine. I would have a hard time putting much stock in any definitive statements on the mechanism of transmission.
    - GeekyBear 2y ago
      If airborne spread between people were a big threat, you would expect to see some infections in people who did not have known contact with infected animals. However, I would agree that dismissing the domain experts who asserted that there was good evidence that Covid was airborne right from the early days of the pandemic was problematic in the extreme. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that airborne spread was a strong possibility as soon as a cruise ship saw Covid continue to spread from cabin to cabin even after locking the passengers down in their cabins. The categorical denial that airborne spread was even possible was the single biggest failure in public health leadership in decades.
      - noduerme 2y ago
        Airborne spread is currently nonexistent in humans, because the H5N1 virus circulating in other mammals right now still lacks the exact right protein to bind to human lung cells. However, all this news about cows is a bit of a distraction. They're being infected in their udders, not their lungs, and that's why they're not dying en masse. Yet. Sea lions are dying en masse. That's the big news. Because they are spreading it to each other's lungs through the air. If it adapts to human lung cells it isn't going to be deniable that it's airborne and extremely deadly in that case. The relevant authorities are currently waiting for that strain to emerge -it's called the pandemic strain- before declaring states of emergency and authorizing vaccines. The reason is that it is (A) unknown if or when that will happen, and (B) unknown whether a vaccine against the current strain which doesn't infect human lungs would be effective against the theoretical future mutant strain that does. Therefore from a public health perspective it's better in large bore to save the resources and not start producing a possibly useless vaccine now.
colordrops 2y ago
We still maintain animal agriculture due to it being considered baseline as everyone was born into it. But seen from a clean slate, as if it wasn't yet adopted, it is a strictly negative practice in almost every measure - health outcomes, water usage, environmental impact, suffering of animals, subsidy burden, and disease risk. It should absolutely be banned. I know that knee-jerk reactions will cause a lot of people to respond negatively to my comment, but, just like climate change, all the data and science unequivocally support my statements.
- candiddevmike 2y ago
  I don't believe the US government is capable of making tough decisions like that, or anything that inconveniences anyone really. The next crisis is going to be every person for themselves, either directly or indirectly.
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    While disappointing, I agree based on what's currently possible. The problem of hyperindividualism is getting only more pronounced in the US, and it's possible there will be a hard shift right to deregulation, strip-mining of social welfare, destruction of community commonwealth, austerity, and tax cuts for the rich.
    - freshpretzels 2y ago
      It isn’t disappointing at all. The US government was intentionally designed to prevent fast, large decisions especially if they affect individual rights. Otherwise would-be tyrants and control freaks would try to control other people on everything. If anything we need a return to more celebration and protection of the individual.
      - croes 2y ago
        Sound like the US fear their own government more than foreign ones. Easy to exploit. BTW if you fear control by tyrants maybe the US version of capitalism is a bad idea.
leashless 2y ago
[flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Ariel_Asura 2y ago
Science fiction movies are gradually becoming reality. According to a report by Fox News on the 23rd, the first case of 'zombie deer' disease was found in Yellowstone National Park. Perhaps it could infect humans in the future. Are we really heading towards a zombie apocalypse?
- stevenwoo 2y ago
  This has already infected humans in some places. Deer hunters ate deer meat from infected animals and got what appeared to be Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000204407 https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000204407 The plus side if there is one is that not too many people eat deer meat.
  - drewzero1 2y ago
    A large percentage of people in my area eat venison regularly for at least part of the year. We already have controls on place for CWD so I have to hope that would catch any similar cases before someone eats the meat.
LAC-Tech 2y ago
I used to write software around cattle traceability, mainly for the Australian & New Zealand markets. Both jurisdictions have an official traceability scheme - each animal is legally mandated to have a unique identifier (RFID), and its birth, movement between locations, and death are recorded in a national database - NLIS[0] for Australia and NAIT[1] for New Zealand. In theory - if a disease outbreak happens, you find the animals RFID by scanning the eartag, alert the relevant government agency, and they have a full record of where the animal has been, which other animals it might have been in contact with, etc etc. I say "in theory" because recording an animals movements is not always well practiced or enforced - but this is hearsay, I'm not a farmer. Interestingly, the US has its own scheme, US Cattle Trace [2]. In my estimation it's technically superior as it has provisions for ultra high frequency RFID tags, making it a lot easier to scan animals (AU & NZ are stuck with antiquated low-frequency tags by law). The scheme, however, remains voluntary. [0] https://www.nlis.com.au/ https://www.nlis.com.au/ [1] https://www.mpi.govt.nz/animals/national-animal-identification-tracing-nait-programme/ https://www.mpi.govt.nz/animals/national-animal-identificati... [2] https://www.uscattletrace.org/ https://www.uscattletrace.org/
rickydroll 2y ago
Maybe working from home will stick this time.
moi2388 2y ago
Don’t worry, the milk from infected cows is still being sold but the US government said its completely safe :D

112 points by geox 2y ago

spywaregorilla 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

COGlory 2y ago

The virologists I know are much more concerned about this than they were about covid. I guess it's presenting neurological symptoms in bears/small mammals. Last fall there was a rash of small mammals showing rabies signs, that were euthenised that wound up negative for rabies, so they're now retesting them for this influenza.

chaostheory 2y ago
Which areas? Did they contact news agencies yet? EDIT this is the only thing I've been able to find https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2024/02/17/coyote-captured-after-reportedly-biting-3-children-in-arlington-tests-negative-for-rabies/ https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2024/02/17/coyote-captured-a... https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2019/02/05/colorado-runner-kills-mountain-lion-attack-animal-tests-negative-rabies-no-weapons/2781712002/ https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2019/02/05/colorado-ru...
- COGlory 2y ago
  This was in Montana. Local FWP. No idea about news agencies. Here's the bit about bears: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-grizzly-bears-tested-positive-for-avian-flu-in-montana-180981492/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-grizzly-bear...
perihelions 2y ago
Maybe this is what you're referring to? https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/29/12/23-0464_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/29/12/23-0464_article Also shows neurological symptoms in cats (and high mortality), https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/7/24-0508_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/7/24-0508_article
- COGlory 2y ago
  I don't think I've ever seen a "wwwnc" TLD prefix before.
  - undersuit 2y ago
    The CDC uses: - www.cdc.gov/ (domain) - cdc.gov (domain) - wwwn.cdc.gov/ (domain) - wwwnc.cdc.gov/ (domain) - www2c.cdc.gov/ (domain) - blogs.cdc.gov/ (domain) - emergency.cdc.gov/ (domain)
    - vel0city 2y ago
      What does the n, nc, and 2c mean?
      - appplication 2y ago
        Probably just gov nonsense someone decided to slip in there because it seemed like a good idea at the time/the person in charge of making technical decisions was out of their depth, as often is the case in the government web space.
  - IAmGraydon 2y ago
    It’s not a TLD. It’s a subdomain and can be anything the domain owner wants. The TLD is .gov.
delfinom 2y ago
[flagged]
9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
Why? On the list of things to worry about, it would seem to me that there are things far more likely to kill you than a disease that a sum total of 3 people have contracted, all with mild symptoms.
- NoNotTheDuo 2y ago
  Likely because it’s very deadly, spreads rapidly, and now that the virus has transferred from birds -> cows -> humans, it could start to mutate into something that spreads human to human. > Human infections with HPAI A(H5N1) virus have been reported in 23 countries since 1997, resulting in severe pneumonia and death in about 50% of cases. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/influenza-a-virus-subtypes.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/influenza-a-virus-subtypes....
  - 9cb14c1ec0 2y ago
    > it could start to mutate into something that spreads human to human. The number of things that could mutate into a human pandemic is quite large. I'm still not worried. The current hype is over dairy farm workers being exposed to it, but as someone who used to work in a large poultry operation (100K birds at a time), I can assure you that the viral load (and thus mutation possibilities) of bird flu is far higher in an infected poultry operation than any dairy farmer will ever experience.
    - doubleg72 2y ago
      Just like taking medical advice from a janitor because they work in a hospital, eh?
- croes 2y ago
  The US are not the world. Over 1000 people got infected worldwide. Mortality rate >50% https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22401-bird-flu https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22401-bird-fl...
- drewzero1 2y ago
GeekyBear 2y ago
Covid was fully airborne and spread very rapidly between people. This is not airborne, nor have we seen it spreading between people. All the cases we've seen so far in the States have been from people who were known to be in contact with infected animals. It certainly warrants further investigation and precautions for those working with livestock, but panic seems like an overreach.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- appplication 2y ago
  For what it’s worth, it took us like two years into the pandemic to recognize Covid was airborne, after years of claiming it wasn’t. I’m not sure if that was denial, suppression, mutations, or it’s legitimately difficult to determine. I would have a hard time putting much stock in any definitive statements on the mechanism of transmission.
  - GeekyBear 2y ago
    If airborne spread between people were a big threat, you would expect to see some infections in people who did not have known contact with infected animals. However, I would agree that dismissing the domain experts who asserted that there was good evidence that Covid was airborne right from the early days of the pandemic was problematic in the extreme. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that airborne spread was a strong possibility as soon as a cruise ship saw Covid continue to spread from cabin to cabin even after locking the passengers down in their cabins. The categorical denial that airborne spread was even possible was the single biggest failure in public health leadership in decades.
    - noduerme 2y ago
      Airborne spread is currently nonexistent in humans, because the H5N1 virus circulating in other mammals right now still lacks the exact right protein to bind to human lung cells. However, all this news about cows is a bit of a distraction. They're being infected in their udders, not their lungs, and that's why they're not dying en masse. Yet. Sea lions are dying en masse. That's the big news. Because they are spreading it to each other's lungs through the air. If it adapts to human lung cells it isn't going to be deniable that it's airborne and extremely deadly in that case. The relevant authorities are currently waiting for that strain to emerge -it's called the pandemic strain- before declaring states of emergency and authorizing vaccines. The reason is that it is (A) unknown if or when that will happen, and (B) unknown whether a vaccine against the current strain which doesn't infect human lungs would be effective against the theoretical future mutant strain that does. Therefore from a public health perspective it's better in large bore to save the resources and not start producing a possibly useless vaccine now.

colordrops 2y ago

We still maintain animal agriculture due to it being considered baseline as everyone was born into it. But seen from a clean slate, as if it wasn't yet adopted, it is a strictly negative practice in almost every measure - health outcomes, water usage, environmental impact, suffering of animals, subsidy burden, and disease risk. It should absolutely be banned. I know that knee-jerk reactions will cause a lot of people to respond negatively to my comment, but, just like climate change, all the data and science unequivocally support my statements.

candiddevmike 2y ago
I don't believe the US government is capable of making tough decisions like that, or anything that inconveniences anyone really. The next crisis is going to be every person for themselves, either directly or indirectly.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  While disappointing, I agree based on what's currently possible. The problem of hyperindividualism is getting only more pronounced in the US, and it's possible there will be a hard shift right to deregulation, strip-mining of social welfare, destruction of community commonwealth, austerity, and tax cuts for the rich.
  - freshpretzels 2y ago
    It isn’t disappointing at all. The US government was intentionally designed to prevent fast, large decisions especially if they affect individual rights. Otherwise would-be tyrants and control freaks would try to control other people on everything. If anything we need a return to more celebration and protection of the individual.
    - croes 2y ago
      Sound like the US fear their own government more than foreign ones. Easy to exploit. BTW if you fear control by tyrants maybe the US version of capitalism is a bad idea.

leashless 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Ariel_Asura 2y ago

Science fiction movies are gradually becoming reality. According to a report by Fox News on the 23rd, the first case of 'zombie deer' disease was found in Yellowstone National Park. Perhaps it could infect humans in the future. Are we really heading towards a zombie apocalypse?

stevenwoo 2y ago
This has already infected humans in some places. Deer hunters ate deer meat from infected animals and got what appeared to be Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000204407 https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000204407 The plus side if there is one is that not too many people eat deer meat.
- drewzero1 2y ago
  A large percentage of people in my area eat venison regularly for at least part of the year. We already have controls on place for CWD so I have to hope that would catch any similar cases before someone eats the meat.

LAC-Tech 2y ago

I used to write software around cattle traceability, mainly for the Australian & New Zealand markets. Both jurisdictions have an official traceability scheme - each animal is legally mandated to have a unique identifier (RFID), and its birth, movement between locations, and death are recorded in a national database - NLIS[0] for Australia and NAIT[1] for New Zealand. In theory - if a disease outbreak happens, you find the animals RFID by scanning the eartag, alert the relevant government agency, and they have a full record of where the animal has been, which other animals it might have been in contact with, etc etc. I say "in theory" because recording an animals movements is not always well practiced or enforced - but this is hearsay, I'm not a farmer. Interestingly, the US has its own scheme, US Cattle Trace [2]. In my estimation it's technically superior as it has provisions for ultra high frequency RFID tags, making it a lot easier to scan animals (AU & NZ are stuck with antiquated low-frequency tags by law). The scheme, however, remains voluntary. [0] https://www.nlis.com.au/ https://www.nlis.com.au/ [1] https://www.mpi.govt.nz/animals/national-animal-identification-tracing-nait-programme/ https://www.mpi.govt.nz/animals/national-animal-identificati... [2] https://www.uscattletrace.org/ https://www.uscattletrace.org/

rickydroll 2y ago

Maybe working from home will stick this time.

moi2388 2y ago

Don’t worry, the milk from infected cows is still being sold but the US government said its completely safe :D