Why we are handling avian flu as badly as Covid (Do Not Resuscitate This System #347)

Every week I review the mainstream and specialty healthcare news media about how we spend trillions of dollars making intermediaries rich instead of making ourselves healthier. This week I look at bird flu (H5N1), which is exposing how little we learned from Covid and how discredited and debased our public sector is. I cite one op-ed writer: “It’s entirely possible that we’ll get lucky with H5N1 and it will never manage to spread among humans. But when dangerous novel pathogens emerge among humans, there is only a small window of time in which to stop them before they spiral out of control.” I propose to look at whether we are acting on that principle and why or why not.

All the article cited are linked below. If you want to get my written digest direct to your inbox, write me at tfrasca@yahoo.com

 

India Bourke, “‘Unprecedented’: How bird flu became an animal pandemic,” BBC, Apr 26, 2024 https://bbc.in/3UEwYbE

Lambert Strether, “H5N1 happily mutates away while public health establishment plods along, treating the virus as a food supply issue and not as a potential pandemic,” Naked Capitalism, Apr 30, 2024 https://bit.ly/4bxvk1b

Ed Cara, “Florida dolphin dies of bird flu as alarm grows over species spread,” Gizmodo, Apr 26, 2024 https://bit.ly/3UDQZ12

Melissa Rudy, “Texas cats die on dairy farm after drinking raw milk contaminated with bird flu, CDC warns,” Fox News, May 3, 2024 https://fxn.ws/3whbVmt

Berkeley Lovelace Jr., “Bird flu: 1 in 5 samples of pasteurized milk had bird flu virus fragments, FDA says,” NBC News, Apr 25, 2024 https://nbcnews.to/4bkOqro and Julie Steenhuysen & Tom Polansek, “Bird flu: US tests show pasteurized milk is safe,” Reuters, Apr 26, 2024 https://reut.rs/3USusyA

Emily Cadei, Marcia Brown & David Lim, “The ‘milk supply is safe’: Biden administration scrambles to reassure Americans as bird flu spreads,” Politico, Apr 25, 2024 https://politi.co/44uQZoF

Will Stone, “The U.S. may be missing human cases of bird flu, scientists say,” NPR, May 2, 2024 https://n.pr/3US6OCn

Megan Molteni, “Cattle testing for H5N1 bird flu will be more limited than USDA initially announced,” STAT, Apr 26, 2024 https://bit.ly/44GqQ6f

Erika Edwards, “Bird flu cases are likely being missed in dairy workers, experts say,” NBC News, Apr 27, 2024 https://nbcnews.to/4dxg5Hs

F.D. Flam, “Start mass testing dairy workers for bird flu,” Bloomberg, Apr 26, 2024 https://bloom.bg/44B0ceY

Zeynep Tufekci, “This may be our last chance to halt bird flu in humans, and we are blowing it,” New York Times, Apr 24, 2024 https://nyti.ms/3ww31l1

Jessica Wildfire, “Worried about bird flu? Welcome to the party, pal. You’re late,” OK Doomer, Apr 28, 2024 www.okdoomer.io/worried-about-bird-flu-welcome-to-the-party-pal-youre-late

“How did bird flu virus fragments get into milk sold in stores?” Morning AgClips/The Conversation, Apr 28, 2024 https://bit.ly/4bwtgXh and Meredith Lee Hill, David Lim & Marcia Brown, “‘They need to back off’: Farm states push back on Biden’s bird flu response,” Politico, May 6, 2024 https://politi.co/3ycEYYR

Joe Hernandez, “What consumers should know about the milk testing positive for bird flu,” NPR, Apr 24, 2024 https://n.pr/3KdqsTz and Julian Nowogrodzki, “Bird flu in US cows: is the milk supply safe?” Nature, Apr 25, 2024 https://go.nature.com/3y6RUPM

Kristina Fiore, “Are we testing enough for H5N1?” MedPage Today, Apr 25, 2024 Are We Testing Enough for H5N1?