RFK prescription Jr. On the bird flu on the farms: let it spread

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the best health clerk in the country, has an unconventional idea to fight bird flu, which has made American poultry farms. Let the virus run away.

Instead of struggling birds after discovering the infection, farmers “should consider the possibility that he let him escape through the herd so that we could identify birds and keep birds that are resistant to this,” Kennedy recently said at Fox News.

He repeated this idea Other interviews on the channel.

Mr. Kennedy has no jurisdiction over farms. But Brooke Rollins, secretary of agriculture, also expressed support for this concept.

“There are some farmers who are ready to really try it on the remote control because we are building a protected circuit around them to see if there is a way forward with immunity,” said Fox News last month.

However, veterinary scientists said that permission to sweep the virus by poultry is not reached and perilous, and also had enormous economic consequences.

“This is a really terrible idea for one of many reasons,” said Dr. Gail Hansen, a former state vet for Kansas.

From January 2022, over 1,600 explosions were reported in farms and herds of the yard, occurring in each state. This concerned over 166 million birds.

Each infection is another opportunity for a virus, called H5N1, to evolve into a more virulent form. Geneticists carefully follow their mutations; So far, the virus has not developed the ability to spread between people.

But if the H5N1 were to run through a herd of five million birds, “these are literally five million opportunities to repeat or mutate a virus,” said Dr. Hansen.

A gigantic number of infected birds probably transmits huge amounts of virus, exposing agricultural workers and other animals.

“So now you are preparing for bad things,” said Dr. Hansen. “It’s a recipe for a disaster.”

Emily Hilliard, deputy press secretary in the Health and Social Welfare Department, said that Mr. Kennedy’s comments were aimed at protecting people “against the most perilous version of the current bird flu, which is in chicken”.

“Culling exposes people to the highest risk of exposure, which is why the secretary Kennedy and Nih want to limit Culling’s activity,” she said, referring to the National Institutes of Health. “Culling is not a solution. Robust biological security is.”

In her plan to combat bird flu, Mrs. Rollins recommended strengthening biological safety on farms – Prevention of the virus input Their rooms or stopping the spread of strict cleaning and the utilize of protective equipment.

But it’s a long -term solution. USDA begins these efforts in just ten states.

The virus for the first time rooted among wild birds, which donated it to homemade poultry and various species of mammals. Now a single infected duck flying over the head can fall on a farm, where chicken or turkey can consume them.

Breeding poultry has destitute immune systems and is under huge environmental stress, often packed together in wire cages or poorly ventilated barns. In one day, H5N1 may disgust even a third of herds.

Infected birds can develop severe respiratory symptoms, diarrhea, tremor and twisting of the neck, and produce distorted or frail eggs. Many die with difficulty catching their breath. (Some birds die suddenly without showing any symptoms.)

The speed at which the fall of infected birds is mentioned as one of the reasons why officials believe that eggs are protected to eat. Most patients of birds die before they can lay an egg or are so clear that they are uncomplicated to filter.

Poultry farmers call the authorities as soon as they notice signs of illness or death. If the tests are positive in terms of bird flu, they are Return for killing the rest of the herd Before the virus spreads further.

If instead, farmers allowed the virus to go through the farm, “these infections would cause very painful deaths in almost 100 percent of chickens and turkeys,” said Dr. David Swayne, a poultry vet who worked at USDA for almost 30 years.

As a result, it would be “inhuman, which caused an unacceptable crisis in the field of animal welfare,” he added. (Methods of killing birds can also be cruel, but at least they are generally faster.)

Farmers who demolish infected herds must also immaculate the rooms and pass audits before supplementing. They often gladly quickly solve the crisis. Simply withdrawing would have stern financial consequences.

The strategy “means a longer quarantine, more downtime, more lost revenues and increased expenses,” said USDA scientist who was not authorized to talk to the media.

Mr. Kennedy suggested that the subset of poultry could be naturally resistant to bird flu. But chickens and turkeys do not have the genes needed to rely on the virus, experts said.

“The way we collect birds now do not have many genetic variability,” said Dr. Hansen. “Basically, they are all the same bird.”

Public health provisions would forbid very few birds that could survive the infection sold. In any case, these birds can only be protected from the current version of H5N1, and not others that appear as the virus evolutions.

“Biology and immunology do not work in this way,” said Dr. Keith Poulsen, director of Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

The permission for the virus to spread unchecked, would probably also lead to trade in poultry embargo from the United States, he added: “There is a huge economic loss immediately.”

In one interview with Fox News, Mr. Kennedy also suggested that the virus “does not seem to hurt wild birds – they have some immunity.”

In fact, while ducks and coastal birds may not show symptoms, H5N1 killed predators, water birds, sandy crane and snow geese, among many other species.