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Unethical_Orange OP t1_j4gbtt7 wrote

For whatever reason my comments in this very post aren't showing up after 50 minutes. I'll try to share some of the information without the sources and source it in this other post.

Recent reports suggest that the largest global bird flu outbreak in history continues into 2023. A timely announcement by the WHO described a 56% fatality rate on humans infected by the H5N1 virus. According to the FAO, we bred 119 billion chickens last year alone.

This study, titled: Alarming situation of emerging H5 and H7 avian influenza and effective control strategies, also explains the origin of the viruses causing the current pandemic. But there is an even more interesting point.

An excerpt from this study in question:

>Epidemiology studies have shown that humans become infected mainly through exposure to virus-infected poultry or a contaminated environment ; human-to-human transmission has been very limited. Therefore, before the H5 and H7 viruses acquire the ability to transmit from human to human, control of these viruses in animals is essential and effective to prevent them from infecting humans.

Here is more information, sourced. By u/Plant__Eater:

Perhaps the biggest risk of disease concerning livestock and poultry is influenza A - the only influenza virus known to cause pandemics.[9] It is hypothesized that every influenza virus that causes pandemics in humans is derived from avian influenza in aquatic birds.[10] Normally this wouldn't be an issue for us. The infected wild birds usually don't get sick, and the virus doesn't easily spread amongst humans.[11] But industrialized animal agriculture has changed that. One scientific review writes:

>Hosts such as swine and gallinaceous poultry that are favorable for transmission and efficient replication of both zoonotic and human viruses can serve as mixing vessels and pose the greatest risk for the development of novel reassortments that can replicate competently in humans.[12]

In other words, livestock and poultry are great at making it easier for viruses to spread amongst humans. As to why this is, one author explains:

>...virtually every effort to further industrialize broiler [chicken] biology has resulted in the emergence of new risks and vulnerabilities. Intensive confinement combined with increased genetic uniformity has created new opportunities for the spread of pathogens. Increased breast-meat yield has come at the expense of increased immunodeficiency.[13]

It is likely that animal agriculture enabled the 1957 Asian Flu, 1968 Hong Kong Flu,[14] bird flu,[15] and the 2009 swine flu.[16] Of these, bird flu is the cause for most concern. In past outbreaks, the case-fatality (CF) rate was 60 percent, although one study suggests that if it became a larger pandemic, it would have a median CF rate of approximately 23.5 percent.[17] It is thought that the 1918 Spanish Flu may have infected one-third of the global population and had a CF rate of 2.5 percent.[18] If bird flu were to mutate in such a way that it was anywhere near as contagious as Spanish Flu, with a CF rate almost 10 times higher than Spanish Flu, the results would be apocalyptic. As two authors wrote in a WHO publication:

>We can't scare people enough about H5N1 [bird flu].[19]

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Throwawaysack2 t1_j4giyjf wrote

Yet people ask everyday why eggs are so expensive.

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Lexical3 t1_j4iis5s wrote

the egg thing is mostly price gouging. egg producers made record profits despite avian influenza, which is not something that happens when they experience any kind of real shortage. They just know from covid-19 that you can use a pandemic as an excuse to jack up prices, and apparently it doesn't even have to be a human one.

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DanYHKim t1_j4l4sl1 wrote

I read a NY Times article years ago about the threat of avian flu to humans. There was a researcher at the CDC who was going to China to investigate some human deaths.

Before he left, he instructed his wife to keep abreast of the news. If he died in China, or if the news showed that the virus had made the leap to humans, she was to go to their vacation home in the mountains and stay there. She was to bring guns and ammunition and not let anyone approach the property.

Then he flew to Shanghai.

Such was his apprehension about the virus, and also his commitment to protecting public health

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scrofulous_wolf t1_j4hyw8f wrote

I question practice of exterminating entire populations of agricultural poultry where Avian Influenza is detected instead of saving birds that survive through their own natural immunity and ultimately producing immune poultry populations.

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frodo2you t1_j4ifnyf wrote

I am no epidemiologist but that might just create hosts for the virus to mutate. Typhoid Mary had immunity but she made a lot of other people sick.

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scrofulous_wolf t1_j4inbrp wrote

Hundreds millions of years evolution and we don’t trust it, anymore?

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entropy512 t1_j4ktb3y wrote

>gallinaceous poultry

I had never seen this term before and looked it up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galliformes

Last summer my family visited a puffin breeding ground - we were warned not to go near or feed any of the birds, and especially not go near any dead ones due to the avian flu. Puffins weren't the only bird species that hung out there.

There were bodies of a variety of bird species strewn along the shore below the rocks, and you could smell the stench of the rotting carcasses. Strangely, it didn't seem like the puffins were affected - could this have been due to them being from a different part of the evolutionary tree?

Either way - I've seen people say that this whole avian flu thing is a hoax, but I've seen and smelled the results out in the wild.

Edit: https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/news/are-the-puffins-safe-new-strain-of-avian-influenza-ripping-through-newfoundland-birds-most-devastating-thing-mun-biologist-has-ever-seen-100768864/ indicates that the puffins appearing to be OK may have been an illusion.

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