Willful stupidity at the CDC. Dairy H5N1

[RonO]

https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/php/monitoring-bird-flu/agenda.html#:~:text=Since%20April%202024%2C%20several%20human,Bird%20Flu%3A%20Current%20Situation).

The CDC has issued their public health agenda for the H5N1 situation
comedy that they are currently playing out.

Their primary objective is what it should have been from day one.

QUOTE:
Objective 1
Prevent infection and illness in people exposed to HPAI A(H5N1) viruses.
END QUOTE:

They have known for months what they needed to do in order to meet this
objective, but never initiated an effective program that would
accomplish this objective.

They needed to identify all the infected herds, and quarantine them and
the workers, and close contacts of those workers, on those farms. They
needed to require personal protective equipment for all humans working
with the infected cattle. They never attempted to identify all the
infected herds and only "recommended" personal protective equipment be
used by workers working with infected cattle. They never attempted to
identify all the infected herds so that they could attempt to keep
humans at those farms from being infected.

As sad as it may seem they still refuse to do what they know that they
should have been doing from day one, and claim that continuing to do the
monitoring and work with the virus will meet their #1 objective when it
never will. The longer that the virus is allowed to spread among the
dairy herds the more dairy workers will be infected. If the workers do
not know that the herd is infected they have no reason to use personal
protective gear, and are open to getting infected.

It has to be some type of willful stupidity that they refuse to admit
that they have been wrong for months, and instead of initiate what they
should have done months ago, they want to keep doing what is not working.

All they needed to do was to start testing pooled milk samples from
every dairy and testing them. The FDA had tested milk processing plants
in 34 states by the end of April. At that time only 9 states were known
to have positive herds, but processing plants in 9 new states (not then
known to have positive herds) produced H5N1 positive milk products. The
CDC could have gone to those plants, and gotten a list of all the dairy
herds that could have contributed to the positive samples and tested
those herds, but no one wanted to find any new positive herds. The FDA
released the names of the states producing positive milk products on May
10th, but still no one used the information to identify more herds in
more states. Since then only 3 more states have admitted to having
positive herds and 2 of those states were already known to have produced
the positive FDA samples. Those herds would have been identified much
sooner if anyone had acted on the FDA findings. There are a lot more
dairy workers being exposed to infected herds than they want to admit.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/php/monitoring-bird-flu/agenda.html#:~:text=Since%20April%202024%2C%20several%20human,Bird%20Flu%3A%20Current%20Situation).
The CDC has issued their public health agenda for the H5N1 situation
comedy that they are currently playing out.
Their primary objective is what it should have been from day one.
Objective 1
Prevent infection and illness in people exposed to HPAI A(H5N1) viruses.
They have known for months what they needed to do in order to meet this
objective, but never initiated an effective program that would
accomplish this objective.
They needed to identify all the infected herds, and quarantine them and
the workers, and close contacts of those workers, on those farms.  They
needed to require personal protective equipment for all humans working
with the infected cattle.  They never attempted to identify all the
infected herds and only "recommended" personal protective equipment be
used by workers working with infected cattle.  They never attempted to
identify all the infected herds so that they could attempt to keep
humans at those farms from being infected.
As sad as it may seem they still refuse to do what they know that they
should have been doing from day one, and claim that continuing to do the
monitoring and work with the virus will meet their #1 objective when it
never will.  The longer that the virus is allowed to spread among the
dairy herds the more dairy workers will be infected.  If the workers do
not know that the herd is infected they have no reason to use personal
protective gear, and are open to getting infected.
It has to be some type of willful stupidity that they refuse to admit
that they have been wrong for months, and instead of initiate what they
should have done months ago, they want to keep doing what is not working.
All they needed to do was to start testing pooled milk samples from
every dairy and testing them.  The FDA had tested milk processing plants
in 34 states by the end of April.  At that time only 9 states were known
to have positive herds, but processing plants in 9 new states (not then
known to have positive herds) produced H5N1 positive milk products.  The
CDC could have gone to those plants, and gotten a list of all the dairy
herds that could have contributed to the positive samples and tested
those herds, but no one wanted to find any new positive herds.  The FDA
released the names of the states producing positive milk products on May
10th, but still no one used the information to identify more herds in
more states.  Since then only 3 more states have admitted to having
positive herds and 2 of those states were already known to have produced
the positive FDA samples.  Those herds would have been identified much
sooner if anyone had acted on the FDA findings.  There are a lot more
dairy workers being exposed to infected herds than they want to admit.
Ron Okimoto

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/4th-human-case-bird-flu-linked-dairy-cow/story?id=111654647

Another human infection with the Dairy virus. A Colorado dairy worker
with eye symptoms only was verified to be infected by the H5N1 dairy
influenza. Colorado currently has the most infected herds in the last
30 days, and the reason why is that this worker is likely just the tip
of the iceberg for workers that were infected. Colorado wasn't a state
listed as getting cattle from Texas, so it is likely that an infected
human took the virus to Colorado, and other infected humans have likely
spread the virus around to other herds in the state, but the CDC and
USDA still are displaying willful stupidity and not admitting to how the
virus has been transmitted to so many herds in so many states. The
virus does not remain infective on clothing and skin long enough for the
workers to take it to other states. They obviously have, had to be
infected and shedding virus in order to transfer the infection to so
many states and so many herds within the states. The CDC and USDA still
refuse to start testing herds in order to identify all the infected
cattle, so that the dairy workers can be warned and be protected. Only
12 states have admitted to having infected herds at this time, but
neither the CDC, nor the USDA has bothered to look for infected herds,
and most people that have commented on it seem to think that there are
probably over 20 states with infected herds in the lower 48 (at least
double the number of states verified to have infected herds at this time).

There are a lot more infected herds and a lot more dairy workers exposed
to infected cattle, but willful stupidity reigns at the CDC and USDA and
they refuse to do what has needed to be done for months. As crazy as it
may seem they seem to be waiting and hoping that the virus burns through
the infected herds before it can be transmitted to other herds, but they
know that it takes over 6 weeks for the virus to burn through a herd so
that the herd is no longer infective, and the virus obviously spreads
rapidly to other dairy herds via human activity. The result is that the
number of infected herds in the states that they are "monitoring" have
just kept increasing because they won't identify the infected herds and
start human contact tracing and quarantine procedures in order to stop
the spread.

The more humans allowed to be infected, the more chance the virus has of
further adapting to infecting humans, resulting in the next pandemic.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/php/monitoring-bird-flu/agenda.html#:~:text=Since%20April%202024%2C%20several%20human,Bird%20Flu%3A%20Current%20Situation).
The CDC has issued their public health agenda for the H5N1 situation
comedy that they are currently playing out.
Their primary objective is what it should have been from day one.
Objective 1
Prevent infection and illness in people exposed to HPAI A(H5N1) viruses.
They have known for months what they needed to do in order to meet
this objective, but never initiated an effective program that would
accomplish this objective.
They needed to identify all the infected herds, and quarantine them
and the workers, and close contacts of those workers, on those farms.
They needed to require personal protective equipment for all humans
working with the infected cattle.  They never attempted to identify
all the infected herds and only "recommended" personal protective
equipment be used by workers working with infected cattle.  They never
attempted to identify all the infected herds so that they could
attempt to keep humans at those farms from being infected.
As sad as it may seem they still refuse to do what they know that they
should have been doing from day one, and claim that continuing to do
the monitoring and work with the virus will meet their #1 objective
when it never will.  The longer that the virus is allowed to spread
among the dairy herds the more dairy workers will be infected.  If the
workers do not know that the herd is infected they have no reason to
use personal protective gear, and are open to getting infected.
It has to be some type of willful stupidity that they refuse to admit
that they have been wrong for months, and instead of initiate what
they should have done months ago, they want to keep doing what is not
working.
All they needed to do was to start testing pooled milk samples from
every dairy and testing them.  The FDA had tested milk processing
plants in 34 states by the end of April.  At that time only 9 states
were known to have positive herds, but processing plants in 9 new
states (not then known to have positive herds) produced H5N1 positive
milk products.  The CDC could have gone to those plants, and gotten a
list of all the dairy herds that could have contributed to the
positive samples and tested those herds, but no one wanted to find any
new positive herds.  The FDA released the names of the states
producing positive milk products on May 10th, but still no one used
the information to identify more herds in more states.  Since then
only 3 more states have admitted to having positive herds and 2 of
those states were already known to have produced the positive FDA
samples.  Those herds would have been identified much sooner if anyone
had acted on the FDA findings.  There are a lot more dairy workers
being exposed to infected herds than they want to admit.
Ron Okimoto

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/4th-human-case-bird-flu-linked-dairy-cow/story?id=111654647
Another human infection with the Dairy virus.  A Colorado dairy worker
with eye symptoms only was verified to be infected by the H5N1 dairy
influenza.  Colorado currently has the most infected herds in the last
30 days, and the reason why is that this worker is likely just the tip
of the iceberg for workers that were infected.  Colorado wasn't a state
listed as getting cattle from Texas, so it is likely that an infected
human took the virus to Colorado, and other infected humans have likely
spread the virus around to other herds in the state, but the CDC and
USDA still are displaying willful stupidity and not admitting to how the
virus has been transmitted to so many herds in so many states.  The
virus does not remain infective on clothing and skin long enough for the
workers to take it to other states.  They obviously have, had to be
infected and shedding virus in order to transfer the infection to so
many states and so many herds within the states.  The CDC and USDA still
refuse to start testing herds in order to identify all the infected
cattle, so that the dairy workers can be warned and be protected.  Only
12 states have admitted to having infected herds at this time, but
neither the CDC, nor the USDA has bothered to look for infected herds,
and most people that have commented on it seem to think that there are
probably over 20 states with infected herds in the lower 48 (at least
double the number of states verified to have infected herds at this time).
There are a lot more infected herds and a lot more dairy workers exposed
to infected cattle, but willful stupidity reigns at the CDC and USDA and
they refuse to do what has needed to be done for months.  As crazy as it
may seem they seem to be waiting and hoping that the virus burns through
the infected herds before it can be transmitted to other herds, but they
know that it takes over 6 weeks for the virus to burn through a herd so
that the herd is no longer infective, and the virus obviously spreads
rapidly to other dairy herds via human activity.  The result is that the
number of infected herds in the states that they are "monitoring" have
just kept increasing because they won't identify the infected herds and
start human contact tracing and quarantine procedures in order to stop
the spread.
The more humans allowed to be infected, the more chance the virus has of
further adapting to infecting humans, resulting in the next pandemic.
Ron Okimoto

The NIH published another paper on the dairy H5N1 virus. The nature
paper is paywalled, but there is an article on it at the NIH web site.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07766-6

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/features-h5n1-influenza-viruses-dairy-cows-may-facilitate-infection-transmission-mammals

They conclude that the dairy virus is not efficiently transmitted as a
respiratory virus between ferrets, but they didn't do the experiment
that would tell them if it can be transmitted from eye to eye infections
as it would most likely be transmitted among dairy workers and their
contacts (would require the healthy animals to intermingle with infected
animals).

Previous studies have identified both sialic acid linkages in mammary
tissue as a reason that cattle mammary glands were preferentially
infected. Human adapted influenza utilize the alpha2,6 linkage to
infect the cells, and Avian influenza utilize the alphp 2,3 linkage to
infect cells. This study indicates that the dairy H5N1 can bind to both
linkage types, but for some reason has not evolved into a respiratory
infective virus.

This is just more reason why all the infected dairy herds need to be
identified, and dairy workers protected from infection, but the CDC
continues it's campaign of willful stupidity, and refuses to identify
all the infected herds. The dairy virus seems very close to becoming
the next pandemic, and the more dairy workers infected the more likely
the virus will evolve to better infect humans.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/php/monitoring-bird-flu/agenda.html#:~:text=Since%20April%202024%2C%20several%20human,Bird%20Flu%3A%20Current%20Situation).
The CDC has issued their public health agenda for the H5N1 situation
comedy that they are currently playing out.
Their primary objective is what it should have been from day one.
Objective 1
Prevent infection and illness in people exposed to HPAI A(H5N1) viruses.
They have known for months what they needed to do in order to meet
this objective, but never initiated an effective program that would
accomplish this objective.
They needed to identify all the infected herds, and quarantine them
and the workers, and close contacts of those workers, on those farms.
They needed to require personal protective equipment for all humans
working with the infected cattle.  They never attempted to identify
all the infected herds and only "recommended" personal protective
equipment be used by workers working with infected cattle.  They
never attempted to identify all the infected herds so that they could
attempt to keep humans at those farms from being infected.
As sad as it may seem they still refuse to do what they know that
they should have been doing from day one, and claim that continuing
to do the monitoring and work with the virus will meet their #1
objective when it never will.  The longer that the virus is allowed
to spread among the dairy herds the more dairy workers will be
infected.  If the workers do not know that the herd is infected they
have no reason to use personal protective gear, and are open to
getting infected.
It has to be some type of willful stupidity that they refuse to admit
that they have been wrong for months, and instead of initiate what
they should have done months ago, they want to keep doing what is not
working.
All they needed to do was to start testing pooled milk samples from
every dairy and testing them.  The FDA had tested milk processing
plants in 34 states by the end of April.  At that time only 9 states
were known to have positive herds, but processing plants in 9 new
states (not then known to have positive herds) produced H5N1 positive
milk products.  The CDC could have gone to those plants, and gotten a
list of all the dairy herds that could have contributed to the
positive samples and tested those herds, but no one wanted to find
any new positive herds.  The FDA released the names of the states
producing positive milk products on May 10th, but still no one used
the information to identify more herds in more states.  Since then
only 3 more states have admitted to having positive herds and 2 of
those states were already known to have produced the positive FDA
samples.  Those herds would have been identified much sooner if
anyone had acted on the FDA findings.  There are a lot more dairy
workers being exposed to infected herds than they want to admit.
Ron Okimoto

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/4th-human-case-bird-flu-linked-dairy-cow/story?id=111654647
Another human infection with the Dairy virus.  A Colorado dairy worker
with eye symptoms only was verified to be infected by the H5N1 dairy
influenza.  Colorado currently has the most infected herds in the last
30 days, and the reason why is that this worker is likely just the tip
of the iceberg for workers that were infected.  Colorado wasn't a
state listed as getting cattle from Texas, so it is likely that an
infected human took the virus to Colorado, and other infected humans
have likely spread the virus around to other herds in the state, but
the CDC and USDA still are displaying willful stupidity and not
admitting to how the virus has been transmitted to so many herds in so
many states.  The virus does not remain infective on clothing and skin
long enough for the workers to take it to other states.  They
obviously have, had to be infected and shedding virus in order to
transfer the infection to so many states and so many herds within the
states.  The CDC and USDA still refuse to start testing herds in order
to identify all the infected cattle, so that the dairy workers can be
warned and be protected.  Only 12 states have admitted to having
infected herds at this time, but neither the CDC, nor the USDA has
bothered to look for infected herds, and most people that have
commented on it seem to think that there are probably over 20 states
with infected herds in the lower 48 (at least double the number of
states verified to have infected herds at this time).
There are a lot more infected herds and a lot more dairy workers
exposed to infected cattle, but willful stupidity reigns at the CDC
and USDA and they refuse to do what has needed to be done for months.
As crazy as it may seem they seem to be waiting and hoping that the
virus burns through the infected herds before it can be transmitted to
other herds, but they know that it takes over 6 weeks for the virus to
burn through a herd so that the herd is no longer infective, and the
virus obviously spreads rapidly to other dairy herds via human
activity.  The result is that the number of infected herds in the
states that they are "monitoring" have just kept increasing because
they won't identify the infected herds and start human contact tracing
and quarantine procedures in order to stop the spread.
The more humans allowed to be infected, the more chance the virus has
of further adapting to infecting humans, resulting in the next pandemic.
Ron Okimoto

The NIH published another paper on the dairy H5N1 virus.  The nature
paper is paywalled, but there is an article on it at the NIH web site.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07766-6
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/features-h5n1-influenza-viruses-dairy-cows-may-facilitate-infection-transmission-mammals
They conclude that the dairy virus is not efficiently transmitted as a
respiratory virus between ferrets, but they didn't do the experiment
that would tell them if it can be transmitted from eye to eye infections
as it would most likely be transmitted among dairy workers and their
contacts (would require the healthy animals to intermingle with infected
animals).
Previous studies have identified both sialic acid linkages in mammary
tissue as a reason that cattle mammary glands were preferentially
infected.  Human adapted influenza utilize the alpha2,6 linkage to
infect the cells, and Avian influenza utilize the alphp 2,3 linkage to
infect cells.  This study indicates that the dairy H5N1 can bind to both
linkage types, but for some reason has not evolved into a respiratory
infective virus.
This is just more reason why all the infected dairy herds need to be
identified, and dairy workers protected from infection, but the CDC
continues it's campaign of willful stupidity, and refuses to identify
all the infected herds.  The dairy virus seems very close to becoming
the next pandemic, and the more dairy workers infected the more likely
the virus will evolve to better infect humans.
Ron Okimoto

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/finland-offering-farmworkers-bird-flu-shots-experts-us/story?id=111821702

Finland is offering farm workers bird flu shots. The Dairy virus has
not been confirmed to have gotten out of the US, but it is related to a
virus circulating in Europe.

We all know how Covid vaccinations went with many workers quiting their
jobs rather than be vaccinated. The article notes that flu vaccination
does hold some risk. There was the infamous Swine flu vaccine that
Gerald Ford urged people to get back in 1976. It resulted in many
deaths due to the vaccine, in mostly elderly people.

What I have recommended is that we start vaccinating the animals. If a
farm worker is infected and shedding live virus the only way to keep
your animals from being infected is to have them vaccinated against that
strain of influenza. This would keep humans from spreading the virus to
other herds and poultry flocks. Fewer infected herds and poultry flocks
would result in fewer infected humans in the long run.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/php/monitoring-bird-flu/agenda.html#:~:text=Since%20April%202024%2C%20several%20human,Bird%20Flu%3A%20Current%20Situation).
The CDC has issued their public health agenda for the H5N1 situation
comedy that they are currently playing out.
Their primary objective is what it should have been from day one.
Objective 1
Prevent infection and illness in people exposed to HPAI A(H5N1) viruses.
They have known for months what they needed to do in order to meet
this objective, but never initiated an effective program that would
accomplish this objective.
They needed to identify all the infected herds, and quarantine them
and the workers, and close contacts of those workers, on those
farms. They needed to require personal protective equipment for all
humans working with the infected cattle.  They never attempted to
identify all the infected herds and only "recommended" personal
protective equipment be used by workers working with infected
cattle.  They never attempted to identify all the infected herds so
that they could attempt to keep humans at those farms from being
infected.
As sad as it may seem they still refuse to do what they know that
they should have been doing from day one, and claim that continuing
to do the monitoring and work with the virus will meet their #1
objective when it never will.  The longer that the virus is allowed
to spread among the dairy herds the more dairy workers will be
infected.  If the workers do not know that the herd is infected they
have no reason to use personal protective gear, and are open to
getting infected.
It has to be some type of willful stupidity that they refuse to
admit that they have been wrong for months, and instead of initiate
what they should have done months ago, they want to keep doing what
is not working.
All they needed to do was to start testing pooled milk samples from
every dairy and testing them.  The FDA had tested milk processing
plants in 34 states by the end of April.  At that time only 9 states
were known to have positive herds, but processing plants in 9 new
states (not then known to have positive herds) produced H5N1
positive milk products.  The CDC could have gone to those plants,
and gotten a list of all the dairy herds that could have contributed
to the positive samples and tested those herds, but no one wanted to
find any new positive herds.  The FDA released the names of the
states producing positive milk products on May 10th, but still no
one used the information to identify more herds in more states.
Since then only 3 more states have admitted to having positive herds
and 2 of those states were already known to have produced the
positive FDA samples.  Those herds would have been identified much
sooner if anyone had acted on the FDA findings.  There are a lot
more dairy workers being exposed to infected herds than they want to
admit.
Ron Okimoto

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/4th-human-case-bird-flu-linked-dairy-cow/story?id=111654647
Another human infection with the Dairy virus.  A Colorado dairy
worker with eye symptoms only was verified to be infected by the H5N1
dairy influenza.  Colorado currently has the most infected herds in
the last 30 days, and the reason why is that this worker is likely
just the tip of the iceberg for workers that were infected.  Colorado
wasn't a state listed as getting cattle from Texas, so it is likely
that an infected human took the virus to Colorado, and other infected
humans have likely spread the virus around to other herds in the
state, but the CDC and USDA still are displaying willful stupidity
and not admitting to how the virus has been transmitted to so many
herds in so many states.  The virus does not remain infective on
clothing and skin long enough for the workers to take it to other
states.  They obviously have, had to be infected and shedding virus
in order to transfer the infection to so many states and so many
herds within the states.  The CDC and USDA still refuse to start
testing herds in order to identify all the infected cattle, so that
the dairy workers can be warned and be protected.  Only 12 states
have admitted to having infected herds at this time, but neither the
CDC, nor the USDA has bothered to look for infected herds, and most
people that have commented on it seem to think that there are
probably over 20 states with infected herds in the lower 48 (at least
double the number of states verified to have infected herds at this time).
There are a lot more infected herds and a lot more dairy workers
exposed to infected cattle, but willful stupidity reigns at the CDC
and USDA and they refuse to do what has needed to be done for months.
As crazy as it may seem they seem to be waiting and hoping that the
virus burns through the infected herds before it can be transmitted
to other herds, but they know that it takes over 6 weeks for the
virus to burn through a herd so that the herd is no longer infective,
and the virus obviously spreads rapidly to other dairy herds via
human activity.  The result is that the number of infected herds in
the states that they are "monitoring" have just kept increasing
because they won't identify the infected herds and start human
contact tracing and quarantine procedures in order to stop the spread.
The more humans allowed to be infected, the more chance the virus has
of further adapting to infecting humans, resulting in the next pandemic.
Ron Okimoto

The NIH published another paper on the dairy H5N1 virus.  The nature
paper is paywalled, but there is an article on it at the NIH web site.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07766-6
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/features-h5n1-influenza-viruses-dairy-cows-may-facilitate-infection-transmission-mammals
They conclude that the dairy virus is not efficiently transmitted as a
respiratory virus between ferrets, but they didn't do the experiment
that would tell them if it can be transmitted from eye to eye
infections as it would most likely be transmitted among dairy workers
and their contacts (would require the healthy animals to intermingle
with infected animals).
Previous studies have identified both sialic acid linkages in mammary
tissue as a reason that cattle mammary glands were preferentially
infected.  Human adapted influenza utilize the alpha2,6 linkage to
infect the cells, and Avian influenza utilize the alphp 2,3 linkage to
infect cells.  This study indicates that the dairy H5N1 can bind to
both linkage types, but for some reason has not evolved into a
respiratory infective virus.
This is just more reason why all the infected dairy herds need to be
identified, and dairy workers protected from infection, but the CDC
continues it's campaign of willful stupidity, and refuses to identify
all the infected herds.  The dairy virus seems very close to becoming
the next pandemic, and the more dairy workers infected the more likely
the virus will evolve to better infect humans.
Ron Okimoto

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/finland-offering-farmworkers-bird-flu-shots-experts-us/story?id=111821702
Finland is offering farm workers bird flu shots.  The Dairy virus has
not been confirmed to have gotten out of the US, but it is related to a
virus circulating in Europe.
We all know how Covid vaccinations went with many workers quiting their
jobs rather than be vaccinated.  The article notes that flu vaccination
does hold some risk.  There was the infamous Swine flu vaccine that
Gerald Ford urged people to get back in 1976.  It resulted in many
deaths due to the vaccine, in mostly elderly people.
What I have recommended is that we start vaccinating the animals.  If a
farm worker is infected and shedding live virus the only way to keep
your animals from being infected is to have them vaccinated against that
strain of influenza.  This would keep humans from spreading the virus to
other herds and poultry flocks.  Fewer infected herds and poultry flocks
would result in fewer infected humans in the long run.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/guidance-help-prevent-spread-flu-agricultural-fairs.html

The CDC is offering updated guidance for the dairy influenza outbreak.
They admit that the virus can be transmitted from humans to the animals,
and they recommend that anyone with flu like symptoms stay home and not
visit the animals at the fair. What they should have included is people
with eye irritation should stay away from livestock, especially if they
have been in contact with dairy cattle or poultry. 3 of the 4 known
human cases with dairy influenza were only shedding virus from their
eyes, and did not show the usual respiratory infection. The virus seems
to infect mammary glands and tear ducts.

As crazy as it may seem, they still refuse to identify all the infected
herds even though they acknowledge that the spread is pretty much out of
control. Their recommendations of workers using protective gear only
applies to known infected herds, so they need to identify the infected
herds for this recommendation to do much good. Only 12 states have
admitted to having infected herds at this time, but the FDA data and
researchers that I've seen comment on it claim the number of states is
like double that number. For likely political reasons both the USDA and
CDC refuse to identify all the infected herds, but this would be the
best way to limit the spread of the disease and keep humans from being
infected.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/three-presumptive-bird-flu-cases-reported-poultry-workers-colorado-rcna161686

3 farm workers cleaning up an infected poultry farm were infected by the
Dairy virus. Where the Dairy virus goes poultry flocks start to go
down. In Michigan they found that some dairy workers at infected farms
also worked at poultry farms, and around twice as many had close
contacts that worked on poultry farms (17%). They have known from Texas
with the first poultry flock to go down with the Dairy virus that humans
likely took the virus onto the poultry farm. They tried to blame
equipment because the virus is not infective off skin and clothing for
more than half an hour, but can remain infective on a solid surface for
24 hours. An infected person shedding virus is obviously the bests
means to infect the poultry flock and other dairy herds that did not get
infected cattle. They already had an example of an infected dairy
worker shedding virus in Texas, so it seemed obvious that infected
humans were taking the virus to poultry farms by the time all the flocks
in Michigan began to go down, but the USDA and CDC have been in willful
denial mode.

Infected humans have been transferring the virus to Dairy herds in
states that did not get cattle, and have been infecting poultry flocks
with the dairy virus. The work determining how many dairy workers have
been infected has never been done at this time, but everyone knows that
more than 4 is not just likely but a given. Only 61 dairy workers have
been tested of those 61 the CDC admits that over half were not tested
correctly (only nasal swabs when most of the positive cases have been
negative for nasal swabs but positive for eye swabs). There has been no
attempt to identify all the infected herds in order to limit the
infection and human contacts.

The willful stupidity is likely politically driven. Instead of trying
to prevent the next pandemic the CDC has decided to monitor all states
for influenza activity, and if there is an increase in influenza cases
they will act. This is so tragically lame. Instead of prevent the
virus from evolving into a pandemic virus they will try to contain the
issue after it becomes an issue in the human population. Colorado
demonstrates how stupid this strategy is. The dairy worker infected in
Colorado had respiratory symptoms. The poultry workers had eye
infections, but some of them also had respiratory symptoms. The virus
can obviously infect humans whether it comes from cows or birds, and in
Colorado it is becoming a respiratory infection. They need to identify
all the infected herds and now poultry flocks in Colorado and quarantine
the herds and farm workers.

The more herds infected the more humans will be infected, the more
chance that the virus will evolve into a pandemic virus. Willful
stupidity should not be allowed to continue.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/three-presumptive-bird-flu-cases-reported-poultry-workers-colorado-rcna161686
3 farm workers cleaning up an infected poultry farm were infected by the
Dairy virus.  Where the Dairy virus goes poultry flocks start to go
down.  In Michigan they found that some dairy workers at infected farms
also worked at poultry farms, and around twice as many had close
contacts that worked on poultry farms (17%).  They have known from Texas
with the first poultry flock to go down with the Dairy virus that humans
likely took the virus onto the poultry farm.  They tried to blame
equipment because the virus is not infective off skin and clothing for
more than half an hour, but can remain infective on a solid surface for
24 hours.  An infected person shedding virus is obviously the bests
means to infect the poultry flock and other dairy herds that did not get
infected cattle.  They already had an example of an infected dairy
worker shedding virus in Texas, so it seemed obvious that infected
humans were taking the virus to poultry farms by the time all the flocks
in Michigan began to go down, but the USDA and CDC have been in willful
denial mode.
Infected humans have been transferring the virus to Dairy herds in
states that did not get cattle, and have been infecting poultry flocks
with the dairy virus.  The work determining how many dairy workers have
been infected has never been done at this time, but everyone knows that
more than 4 is not just likely but a given.  Only 61 dairy workers have
been tested of those 61 the CDC admits that over half were not tested
correctly (only nasal swabs when most of the positive cases have been
negative for nasal swabs but positive for eye swabs).  There has been no
attempt to identify all the infected herds in order to limit the
infection and human contacts.
The willful stupidity is likely politically driven.  Instead of trying
to prevent the next pandemic the CDC has decided to monitor all states
for influenza activity, and if there is an increase in influenza cases
they will act.  This is so tragically lame.  Instead of prevent the
virus from evolving into a pandemic virus they will try to contain the
issue after it becomes an issue in the human population.  Colorado
demonstrates how stupid this strategy is.  The dairy worker infected in
Colorado had respiratory symptoms.  The poultry workers had eye
infections, but some of them also had respiratory symptoms.  The virus
can obviously infect humans whether it comes from cows or birds, and in
Colorado it is becoming a respiratory infection.  They need to identify
all the infected herds and now poultry flocks in Colorado and quarantine
the herds and farm workers.
The more herds infected the more humans will be infected, the more
chance that the virus will evolve into a pandemic virus.  Willful
stupidity should not be allowed to continue.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/15/health/colorado-bird-flu-humans-confirmed/index.html

Two more Colorado poultry workers from the same farm have tested
positive for H5N1 dairy influenza. All 5 of the infected poultry
workers came from the same farm and were working with the same infected
birds. This likely should tell everyone how many dairy workers have
likely been infected since dairy cows shed virus for over 4 weeks, and
these workers were likely only exposed for a few days cleaning out the
infected flock. They do not say how many had respiratory symptoms, but
the state that some did. The Colorado virus may have mutated to better
infect humans, but still produces mild symptoms. The CDC is waiting for
sequencing results to tell them how bad the situation may be.

These poultry workers could have infected other flocks and herds if they
worked on other farms, but the CDC isn't doing any contact tracing.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/three-presumptive-bird-flu-cases-reported-poultry-workers-colorado-rcna161686
3 farm workers cleaning up an infected poultry farm were infected by
the Dairy virus.  Where the Dairy virus goes poultry flocks start to
go down.  In Michigan they found that some dairy workers at infected
farms also worked at poultry farms, and around twice as many had close
contacts that worked on poultry farms (17%).  They have known from
Texas with the first poultry flock to go down with the Dairy virus
that humans likely took the virus onto the poultry farm.  They tried
to blame equipment because the virus is not infective off skin and
clothing for more than half an hour, but can remain infective on a
solid surface for 24 hours.  An infected person shedding virus is
obviously the bests means to infect the poultry flock and other dairy
herds that did not get infected cattle.  They already had an example
of an infected dairy worker shedding virus in Texas, so it seemed
obvious that infected humans were taking the virus to poultry farms by
the time all the flocks in Michigan began to go down, but the USDA and
CDC have been in willful denial mode.
Infected humans have been transferring the virus to Dairy herds in
states that did not get cattle, and have been infecting poultry flocks
with the dairy virus.  The work determining how many dairy workers
have been infected has never been done at this time, but everyone
knows that more than 4 is not just likely but a given.  Only 61 dairy
workers have been tested of those 61 the CDC admits that over half
were not tested correctly (only nasal swabs when most of the positive
cases have been negative for nasal swabs but positive for eye swabs).
There has been no attempt to identify all the infected herds in order
to limit the infection and human contacts.
The willful stupidity is likely politically driven.  Instead of trying
to prevent the next pandemic the CDC has decided to monitor all states
for influenza activity, and if there is an increase in influenza cases
they will act.  This is so tragically lame.  Instead of prevent the
virus from evolving into a pandemic virus they will try to contain the
issue after it becomes an issue in the human population.  Colorado
demonstrates how stupid this strategy is.  The dairy worker infected
in Colorado had respiratory symptoms.  The poultry workers had eye
infections, but some of them also had respiratory symptoms.  The virus
can obviously infect humans whether it comes from cows or birds, and
in Colorado it is becoming a respiratory infection.  They need to
identify all the infected herds and now poultry flocks in Colorado and
quarantine the herds and farm workers.
The more herds infected the more humans will be infected, the more
chance that the virus will evolve into a pandemic virus.  Willful
stupidity should not be allowed to continue.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/15/health/colorado-bird-flu-humans-confirmed/index.html
Two more Colorado poultry workers from the same farm have tested
positive for H5N1 dairy influenza.  All 5 of the infected poultry
workers came from the same farm and were working with the same infected
birds.  This likely should tell everyone how many dairy workers have
likely been infected since dairy cows shed virus for over 4 weeks, and
these workers were likely only exposed for a few days cleaning out the
infected flock.  They do not say how many had respiratory symptoms, but
the state that some did.  The Colorado virus may have mutated to better
infect humans, but still produces mild symptoms.  The CDC is waiting for
sequencing results to tell them how bad the situation may be.
These poultry workers could have infected other flocks and herds if they
worked on other farms, but the CDC isn't doing any contact tracing.
Ron Okimoto

Oklahoma has finally admitted to having infected dairy herds so the
number of positive states have become 13. Oklahoma is one of the states
identified by the FDA back on May 10th as having H5N1 positive dairy
products, but the USDA and CDC never followed up. The fact that it has
taken this long for the infection to be detected in Oklahoma is due to
the willful stupidity of how the dairy virus has been handled by the
USDA and CDC. It is obvious that the USDA and CDC could have just
started sampling dairy products in the lower 48 states, identified
dairies that contributed milk to those processing plants and identified
most of the infected herds. They could have started contact tracing to
idenify more herds that could have been infected by the known infected
herds.

Oklahoma hasn't been announced by the USDA, you have to go to their web
site and find out that 2 Oklahoma dairy herds were reported positive
July 11th.

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/hpai-confirmed-cases-livestock

There were 9 other states where the FDA idenitfied H5N1 positive dairy
products that were not then known to have infected herds, but no one
followed up. 3 of the last 4 states added to the positive list were
among the 9 identified by the FDA as having positive dairy products back
in May. By now the virus has likely spread to many other states because
no one identified the infected herds, and tried to limit infection by
limiting dairy worker contacts with other farms.

As tragically stupid as it may be Florida was one of the states
identified by the FDA as having postive dairy products and it was very
far from other known positive states (the closest state was North
Carolina) and yet no one bothered to identify the infected herds in that
state (There has been no admission to having positive herds in Florida).
The CDC also knew that one Florida county had absurdly high waste
water readings for influenza and yet they didn't check the dairies in
that county. Florida has a high population and is not where you want
this type of virus to fester and evolve. The Dairy virus has been
allowed to spread in Florida unchecked for months.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/three-presumptive-bird-flu-cases-reported-poultry-workers-colorado-rcna161686
3 farm workers cleaning up an infected poultry farm were infected by
the Dairy virus.  Where the Dairy virus goes poultry flocks start to
go down.  In Michigan they found that some dairy workers at infected
farms also worked at poultry farms, and around twice as many had
close contacts that worked on poultry farms (17%).  They have known
from Texas with the first poultry flock to go down with the Dairy
virus that humans likely took the virus onto the poultry farm.  They
tried to blame equipment because the virus is not infective off skin
and clothing for more than half an hour, but can remain infective on
a solid surface for 24 hours.  An infected person shedding virus is
obviously the bests means to infect the poultry flock and other dairy
herds that did not get infected cattle.  They already had an example
of an infected dairy worker shedding virus in Texas, so it seemed
obvious that infected humans were taking the virus to poultry farms
by the time all the flocks in Michigan began to go down, but the USDA
and CDC have been in willful denial mode.
Infected humans have been transferring the virus to Dairy herds in
states that did not get cattle, and have been infecting poultry
flocks with the dairy virus.  The work determining how many dairy
workers have been infected has never been done at this time, but
everyone knows that more than 4 is not just likely but a given.  Only
61 dairy workers have been tested of those 61 the CDC admits that
over half were not tested correctly (only nasal swabs when most of
the positive cases have been negative for nasal swabs but positive
for eye swabs). There has been no attempt to identify all the
infected herds in order to limit the infection and human contacts.
The willful stupidity is likely politically driven.  Instead of
trying to prevent the next pandemic the CDC has decided to monitor
all states for influenza activity, and if there is an increase in
influenza cases they will act.  This is so tragically lame.  Instead
of prevent the virus from evolving into a pandemic virus they will
try to contain the issue after it becomes an issue in the human
population.  Colorado demonstrates how stupid this strategy is.  The
dairy worker infected in Colorado had respiratory symptoms.  The
poultry workers had eye infections, but some of them also had
respiratory symptoms.  The virus can obviously infect humans whether
it comes from cows or birds, and in Colorado it is becoming a
respiratory infection.  They need to identify all the infected herds
and now poultry flocks in Colorado and quarantine the herds and farm
workers.
The more herds infected the more humans will be infected, the more
chance that the virus will evolve into a pandemic virus.  Willful
stupidity should not be allowed to continue.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/15/health/colorado-bird-flu-humans-confirmed/index.html
Two more Colorado poultry workers from the same farm have tested
positive for H5N1 dairy influenza.  All 5 of the infected poultry
workers came from the same farm and were working with the same
infected birds.  This likely should tell everyone how many dairy
workers have likely been infected since dairy cows shed virus for over
4 weeks, and these workers were likely only exposed for a few days
cleaning out the infected flock.  They do not say how many had
respiratory symptoms, but the state that some did.  The Colorado virus
may have mutated to better infect humans, but still produces mild
symptoms.  The CDC is waiting for sequencing results to tell them how
bad the situation may be.
These poultry workers could have infected other flocks and herds if
they worked on other farms, but the CDC isn't doing any contact tracing.
Ron Okimoto

Oklahoma has finally admitted to having infected dairy herds so the
number of positive states have become 13.  Oklahoma is one of the states
identified by the FDA back on May 10th as having H5N1 positive dairy
products, but the USDA and CDC never followed up.  The fact that it has
taken this long for the infection to be detected in Oklahoma is due to
the willful stupidity of how the dairy virus has been handled by the
USDA and CDC.  It is obvious that the USDA and CDC could have just
started sampling dairy products in the lower 48 states, identified
dairies that contributed milk to those processing plants and identified
most of the infected herds.  They could have started contact tracing to
idenify more herds that could have been infected by the known infected
herds.
Oklahoma hasn't been announced by the USDA, you have to go to their web
site and find out that 2 Oklahoma dairy herds were reported positive
July 11th.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/hpai-confirmed-cases-livestock
There were 9 other states where the FDA idenitfied H5N1 positive dairy
products that were not then known to have infected herds, but no one
followed up.  3 of the last 4 states added to the positive list were
among the 9 identified by the FDA as having positive dairy products back
in May.  By now the virus has likely spread to many other states because
no one identified the infected herds, and tried to limit infection by
limiting dairy worker contacts with other farms.
As tragically stupid as it may be Florida was one of the states
identified by the FDA as having postive dairy products and it was very
far from other known positive states (the closest state was North
Carolina) and yet no one bothered to identify the infected herds in that
state (There has been no admission to having positive herds in Florida).
 The CDC also knew that one Florida county had absurdly high waste
water readings for influenza and yet they didn't check the dairies in
that county.  Florida has a high population and is not where you want
this type of virus to fester and evolve.  The Dairy virus has been
allowed to spread in Florida unchecked for months.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/15/bird-flu-snapshot-h5n1-infected-herds/

Reality is worse than I depicted. STATnews has an article on it. The
Oklahoma samples were collected by the dairy farmer in April, but he
didn't submit them for testing until the USDA offered compensation. So
his positive dairy herds may have contributed to the positive FDA
results in May, and his herds have been allowed to spread the virus for
months. The recommendation to protect dairy workers did not apply to
this farmer because his herds were not known to be infected, so his
dairy workers were likely exposed for months as the virus burned through
his herd.

The STAT article also has something from the Norwegian Institute of
Public Health "gave voice to a rising pessimism about the prospects of
containing the H5N1 outbreak in cows in a recent report." The CDC and
USDA haven't even tried to identify all the infected herds, and
definitely haven't tried to restrict the spread of the virus among the
herds and poultry flocks. They have recommendations that only are for
known infected herds, and so they obviously are not working due to the
fact that they refuse to identify all the infected herds.

The USDA already has a milk testing program in place for things like
taking cell counts to identify mastitis, but they refuse to test milk
samples for H5N1. They could just test milk products produced in every
state, and identify herds that contribute to positive samples. They
could obviously be pooling samples and not testing every cow. The
willful stupidity has just allowed the virus to spread out of control.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/three-presumptive-bird-flu-cases-reported-poultry-workers-colorado-rcna161686
3 farm workers cleaning up an infected poultry farm were infected by
the Dairy virus.  Where the Dairy virus goes poultry flocks start to
go down.  In Michigan they found that some dairy workers at infected
farms also worked at poultry farms, and around twice as many had
close contacts that worked on poultry farms (17%).  They have known
from Texas with the first poultry flock to go down with the Dairy
virus that humans likely took the virus onto the poultry farm.  They
tried to blame equipment because the virus is not infective off skin
and clothing for more than half an hour, but can remain infective on
a solid surface for 24 hours.  An infected person shedding virus is
obviously the bests means to infect the poultry flock and other
dairy herds that did not get infected cattle.  They already had an
example of an infected dairy worker shedding virus in Texas, so it
seemed obvious that infected humans were taking the virus to poultry
farms by the time all the flocks in Michigan began to go down, but
the USDA and CDC have been in willful denial mode.
Infected humans have been transferring the virus to Dairy herds in
states that did not get cattle, and have been infecting poultry
flocks with the dairy virus.  The work determining how many dairy
workers have been infected has never been done at this time, but
everyone knows that more than 4 is not just likely but a given.
Only 61 dairy workers have been tested of those 61 the CDC admits
that over half were not tested correctly (only nasal swabs when most
of the positive cases have been negative for nasal swabs but
positive for eye swabs). There has been no attempt to identify all
the infected herds in order to limit the infection and human contacts.
The willful stupidity is likely politically driven.  Instead of
trying to prevent the next pandemic the CDC has decided to monitor
all states for influenza activity, and if there is an increase in
influenza cases they will act.  This is so tragically lame.  Instead
of prevent the virus from evolving into a pandemic virus they will
try to contain the issue after it becomes an issue in the human
population.  Colorado demonstrates how stupid this strategy is.  The
dairy worker infected in Colorado had respiratory symptoms.  The
poultry workers had eye infections, but some of them also had
respiratory symptoms.  The virus can obviously infect humans whether
it comes from cows or birds, and in Colorado it is becoming a
respiratory infection.  They need to identify all the infected herds
and now poultry flocks in Colorado and quarantine the herds and farm
workers.
The more herds infected the more humans will be infected, the more
chance that the virus will evolve into a pandemic virus.  Willful
stupidity should not be allowed to continue.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/15/health/colorado-bird-flu-humans-confirmed/index.html
Two more Colorado poultry workers from the same farm have tested
positive for H5N1 dairy influenza.  All 5 of the infected poultry
workers came from the same farm and were working with the same
infected birds.  This likely should tell everyone how many dairy
workers have likely been infected since dairy cows shed virus for
over 4 weeks, and these workers were likely only exposed for a few
days cleaning out the infected flock.  They do not say how many had
respiratory symptoms, but the state that some did.  The Colorado
virus may have mutated to better infect humans, but still produces
mild symptoms.  The CDC is waiting for sequencing results to tell
them how bad the situation may be.
These poultry workers could have infected other flocks and herds if
they worked on other farms, but the CDC isn't doing any contact tracing.
Ron Okimoto

Oklahoma has finally admitted to having infected dairy herds so the
number of positive states have become 13.  Oklahoma is one of the
states identified by the FDA back on May 10th as having H5N1 positive
dairy products, but the USDA and CDC never followed up.  The fact that
it has taken this long for the infection to be detected in Oklahoma is
due to the willful stupidity of how the dairy virus has been handled
by the USDA and CDC.  It is obvious that the USDA and CDC could have
just started sampling dairy products in the lower 48 states,
identified dairies that contributed milk to those processing plants
and identified most of the infected herds.  They could have started
contact tracing to idenify more herds that could have been infected by
the known infected herds.
Oklahoma hasn't been announced by the USDA, you have to go to their
web site and find out that 2 Oklahoma dairy herds were reported
positive July 11th.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/hpai-confirmed-cases-livestock
There were 9 other states where the FDA idenitfied H5N1 positive dairy
products that were not then known to have infected herds, but no one
followed up.  3 of the last 4 states added to the positive list were
among the 9 identified by the FDA as having positive dairy products
back in May.  By now the virus has likely spread to many other states
because no one identified the infected herds, and tried to limit
infection by limiting dairy worker contacts with other farms.
As tragically stupid as it may be Florida was one of the states
identified by the FDA as having postive dairy products and it was very
far from other known positive states (the closest state was North
Carolina) and yet no one bothered to identify the infected herds in
that state (There has been no admission to having positive herds in
Florida).   The CDC also knew that one Florida county had absurdly
high waste water readings for influenza and yet they didn't check the
dairies in that county.  Florida has a high population and is not
where you want this type of virus to fester and evolve.  The Dairy
virus has been allowed to spread in Florida unchecked for months.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/15/bird-flu-snapshot-h5n1-infected-herds/
Reality is worse than I depicted.  STATnews has an article on it.  The
Oklahoma samples were collected by the dairy farmer in April, but he
didn't submit them for testing until the USDA offered compensation.  So
his positive dairy herds may have contributed to the positive FDA
results in May, and his herds have been allowed to spread the virus for
months.  The recommendation to protect dairy workers did not apply to
this farmer because his herds were not known to be infected, so his
dairy workers were likely exposed for months as the virus burned through
his herd.
The STAT article also has something from the Norwegian Institute of
Public Health "gave voice to a rising pessimism about the prospects of
containing the H5N1 outbreak in cows in a recent report."  The CDC and
USDA haven't even tried to identify all the infected herds, and
definitely haven't tried to restrict the spread of the virus among the
herds and poultry flocks.  They have recommendations that only are for
known infected herds, and so they obviously are not working due to the
fact that they refuse to identify all the infected herds.
The USDA already has a milk testing program in place for things like
taking cell counts to identify mastitis, but they refuse to test milk
samples for H5N1.  They could just test milk products produced in every
state, and identify herds that contribute to positive samples.  They
could obviously be pooling samples and not testing every cow.  The
willful stupidity has just allowed the virus to spread out of control.
Ron Okimoto

OSHA has issued a work hazard alert for farm workers. For political
reasons they do not openly state that just recommending protective gear
for farm workers working with sick animals is based on fictional beliefs
about how widespread the virus is. Everyone knows by now that it is
simply fiction to claim that anyone has a handle on the dairy infection
and that the number of herds just keep increasing where they are
looking, and the vast majority of states just do not want to look, so
they are recommending that "People who work in operations with cattle
and other livestock (dairy, meatpackiong, etc.) and their byproducts
(viscera, raw milk, etc.) should take extra precautions to reduce the
risk of H5N1 exposure and illness." The CDC is still recommending
precautions for known infected herds while never trying to identify all
the infected herds. It has been a lame and stupid strategy for too
long. If they had acted on the FDA data released May 10th the Oklahoma
herds would have been identified back then (The positive samples were
collected in April, but never submitted). 9 more states were identified
as producing positive milk samples as had been confirmed at that time,
but neither the CDC, nor the USDA acted on the information. We just see
them monitoring the known positive herds, so you know that the virus has
just been spreading in other states unchecked.

https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA4442.pdf

OSHA recognizes that is just willful stupidity to depend on the CDC
recommendations to protect farm workers, and have just issued the alert
to all farm workers working with dairy and poultry.

May 10th there were only 39 known infected herds in 9 states, but the
FDA identified 9 more states producing H5N1 positive milk samples (297
milk products tested from 38 state). Now there are 163 confirmed herds
in 13 states and 3 of the 4 new states were identified as producing
positive milk samples back in May.

The situation really is that stupid and sad in terms of the inaction of
the USDA and CDC.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/three-presumptive-bird-flu-cases-reported-poultry-workers-colorado-rcna161686
3 farm workers cleaning up an infected poultry farm were infected by
the Dairy virus.  Where the Dairy virus goes poultry flocks start to
go down.  In Michigan they found that some dairy workers at infected
farms also worked at poultry farms, and around twice as many had
close contacts that worked on poultry farms (17%).  They have known
from Texas with the first poultry flock to go down with the Dairy
virus that humans likely took the virus onto the poultry farm.  They
tried to blame equipment because the virus is not infective off skin
and clothing for more than half an hour, but can remain infective on
a solid surface for 24 hours.  An infected person shedding virus is
obviously the bests means to infect the poultry flock and other
dairy herds that did not get infected cattle.  They already had an
example of an infected dairy worker shedding virus in Texas, so it
seemed obvious that infected humans were taking the virus to poultry
farms by the time all the flocks in Michigan began to go down, but
the USDA and CDC have been in willful denial mode.
Infected humans have been transferring the virus to Dairy herds in
states that did not get cattle, and have been infecting poultry
flocks with the dairy virus.  The work determining how many dairy
workers have been infected has never been done at this time, but
everyone knows that more than 4 is not just likely but a given.
Only 61 dairy workers have been tested of those 61 the CDC admits
that over half were not tested correctly (only nasal swabs when most
of the positive cases have been negative for nasal swabs but
positive for eye swabs). There has been no attempt to identify all
the infected herds in order to limit the infection and human contacts.
The willful stupidity is likely politically driven.  Instead of
trying to prevent the next pandemic the CDC has decided to monitor
all states for influenza activity, and if there is an increase in
influenza cases they will act.  This is so tragically lame.  Instead
of prevent the virus from evolving into a pandemic virus they will
try to contain the issue after it becomes an issue in the human
population.  Colorado demonstrates how stupid this strategy is.  The
dairy worker infected in Colorado had respiratory symptoms.  The
poultry workers had eye infections, but some of them also had
respiratory symptoms.  The virus can obviously infect humans whether
it comes from cows or birds, and in Colorado it is becoming a
respiratory infection.  They need to identify all the infected herds
and now poultry flocks in Colorado and quarantine the herds and farm
workers.
The more herds infected the more humans will be infected, the more
chance that the virus will evolve into a pandemic virus.  Willful
stupidity should not be allowed to continue.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/15/health/colorado-bird-flu-humans-confirmed/index.html
Two more Colorado poultry workers from the same farm have tested
positive for H5N1 dairy influenza.  All 5 of the infected poultry
workers came from the same farm and were working with the same
infected birds.  This likely should tell everyone how many dairy
workers have likely been infected since dairy cows shed virus for
over 4 weeks, and these workers were likely only exposed for a few
days cleaning out the infected flock.  They do not say how many had
respiratory symptoms, but the state that some did.  The Colorado
virus may have mutated to better infect humans, but still produces
mild symptoms.  The CDC is waiting for sequencing results to tell
them how bad the situation may be.
These poultry workers could have infected other flocks and herds if
they worked on other farms, but the CDC isn't doing any contact tracing.
Ron Okimoto

Oklahoma has finally admitted to having infected dairy herds so the
number of positive states have become 13.  Oklahoma is one of the
states identified by the FDA back on May 10th as having H5N1 positive
dairy products, but the USDA and CDC never followed up.  The fact that
it has taken this long for the infection to be detected in Oklahoma is
due to the willful stupidity of how the dairy virus has been handled
by the USDA and CDC.  It is obvious that the USDA and CDC could have
just started sampling dairy products in the lower 48 states,
identified dairies that contributed milk to those processing plants
and identified most of the infected herds.  They could have started
contact tracing to idenify more herds that could have been infected by
the known infected herds.
Oklahoma hasn't been announced by the USDA, you have to go to their
web site and find out that 2 Oklahoma dairy herds were reported
positive July 11th.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/hpai-confirmed-cases-livestock
There were 9 other states where the FDA idenitfied H5N1 positive dairy
products that were not then known to have infected herds, but no one
followed up.  3 of the last 4 states added to the positive list were
among the 9 identified by the FDA as having positive dairy products
back in May.  By now the virus has likely spread to many other states
because no one identified the infected herds, and tried to limit
infection by limiting dairy worker contacts with other farms.
As tragically stupid as it may be Florida was one of the states
identified by the FDA as having postive dairy products and it was very
far from other known positive states (the closest state was North
Carolina) and yet no one bothered to identify the infected herds in
that state (There has been no admission to having positive herds in
Florida).   The CDC also knew that one Florida county had absurdly
high waste water readings for influenza and yet they didn't check the
dairies in that county.  Florida has a high population and is not
where you want this type of virus to fester and evolve.  The Dairy
virus has been allowed to spread in Florida unchecked for months.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/15/bird-flu-snapshot-h5n1-infected-herds/
Reality is worse than I depicted.  STATnews has an article on it.  The
Oklahoma samples were collected by the dairy farmer in April, but he
didn't submit them for testing until the USDA offered compensation.  So
his positive dairy herds may have contributed to the positive FDA
results in May, and his herds have been allowed to spread the virus for
months.  The recommendation to protect dairy workers did not apply to
this farmer because his herds were not known to be infected, so his
dairy workers were likely exposed for months as the virus burned through
his herd.
The STAT article also has something from the Norwegian Institute of
Public Health "gave voice to a rising pessimism about the prospects of
containing the H5N1 outbreak in cows in a recent report."  The CDC and
USDA haven't even tried to identify all the infected herds, and
definitely haven't tried to restrict the spread of the virus among the
herds and poultry flocks.  They have recommendations that only are for
known infected herds, and so they obviously are not working due to the
fact that they refuse to identify all the infected herds.
The USDA already has a milk testing program in place for things like
taking cell counts to identify mastitis, but they refuse to test milk
samples for H5N1.  They could just test milk products produced in every
state, and identify herds that contribute to positive samples.  They
could obviously be pooling samples and not testing every cow.  The
willful stupidity has just allowed the virus to spread out of control.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/spotlights/h5n1-response-07192024.html

2 more poultry workers (6 total for the same infected flock) have been
confirmed to be positive for H5N1 by the CDC. This should tell anyone
that the virus can easily infect humans at this time. Some of the
workers are experiencing respiratory symptoms, and the CDC should be at
an all out alert, but they are still passing out the fictional beliefs
that the danger remains low. It has been that way because they simply
have refused to identify all the infected workers. They have tried as
hard as they can to not identify infected herds and all the farm workers
being exposed to the virus.

This virus is obviously easily infecting humans at this time, but the
major conclusion from the sequence data is that it does not show the
mutations that would make it resistant to the current antiviral
medications. This is only reassuring that if it does start killing
people that some people might be saved if they are given antivirals soon
enough to matter. What they should be worried about is the fact that
the more humans infected, the more chance the virus has of mutating into
a more pathogenic form among humans. They have done pretty much nothing
to reduce the number of humans being infected.

The poultry farm got infected from the dairy cattle, and it is obvious
that farm workers took the virus to that poultry farm. They would
likely have had to be infected with the virus and shedding. The
Colorado virus infecting the poultry workers is closely related to the
virus that infected the Michigan dairy worker. No one has to guess how
the virus infected the Colorado herds with a virus known to infect
humans in Michigan.

Ron Okimoto

[erik simpson]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/three-presumptive-bird-flu-cases-reported-poultry-workers-colorado-rcna161686
3 farm workers cleaning up an infected poultry farm were infected
by the Dairy virus.  Where the Dairy virus goes poultry flocks
start to go down.  In Michigan they found that some dairy workers
at infected farms also worked at poultry farms, and around twice as
many had close contacts that worked on poultry farms (17%).  They
have known from Texas with the first poultry flock to go down with
the Dairy virus that humans likely took the virus onto the poultry
farm.  They tried to blame equipment because the virus is not
infective off skin and clothing for more than half an hour, but can
remain infective on a solid surface for 24 hours.  An infected
person shedding virus is obviously the bests means to infect the
poultry flock and other dairy herds that did not get infected
cattle.  They already had an example of an infected dairy worker
shedding virus in Texas, so it seemed obvious that infected humans
were taking the virus to poultry farms by the time all the flocks
in Michigan began to go down, but the USDA and CDC have been in
willful denial mode.
Infected humans have been transferring the virus to Dairy herds in
states that did not get cattle, and have been infecting poultry
flocks with the dairy virus.  The work determining how many dairy
workers have been infected has never been done at this time, but
everyone knows that more than 4 is not just likely but a given.
Only 61 dairy workers have been tested of those 61 the CDC admits
that over half were not tested correctly (only nasal swabs when
most of the positive cases have been negative for nasal swabs but
positive for eye swabs). There has been no attempt to identify all
the infected herds in order to limit the infection and human contacts.
The willful stupidity is likely politically driven.  Instead of
trying to prevent the next pandemic the CDC has decided to monitor
all states for influenza activity, and if there is an increase in
influenza cases they will act.  This is so tragically lame.
Instead of prevent the virus from evolving into a pandemic virus
they will try to contain the issue after it becomes an issue in the
human population.  Colorado demonstrates how stupid this strategy
is.  The dairy worker infected in Colorado had respiratory
symptoms.  The poultry workers had eye infections, but some of them
also had respiratory symptoms.  The virus can obviously infect
humans whether it comes from cows or birds, and in Colorado it is
becoming a respiratory infection.  They need to identify all the
infected herds and now poultry flocks in Colorado and quarantine
the herds and farm workers.
The more herds infected the more humans will be infected, the more
chance that the virus will evolve into a pandemic virus.  Willful
stupidity should not be allowed to continue.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/15/health/colorado-bird-flu-humans-confirmed/index.html
Two more Colorado poultry workers from the same farm have tested
positive for H5N1 dairy influenza.  All 5 of the infected poultry
workers came from the same farm and were working with the same
infected birds.  This likely should tell everyone how many dairy
workers have likely been infected since dairy cows shed virus for
over 4 weeks, and these workers were likely only exposed for a few
days cleaning out the infected flock.  They do not say how many had
respiratory symptoms, but the state that some did.  The Colorado
virus may have mutated to better infect humans, but still produces
mild symptoms.  The CDC is waiting for sequencing results to tell
them how bad the situation may be.
These poultry workers could have infected other flocks and herds if
they worked on other farms, but the CDC isn't doing any contact tracing.
Ron Okimoto

Oklahoma has finally admitted to having infected dairy herds so the
number of positive states have become 13.  Oklahoma is one of the
states identified by the FDA back on May 10th as having H5N1 positive
dairy products, but the USDA and CDC never followed up.  The fact
that it has taken this long for the infection to be detected in
Oklahoma is due to the willful stupidity of how the dairy virus has
been handled by the USDA and CDC.  It is obvious that the USDA and
CDC could have just started sampling dairy products in the lower 48
states, identified dairies that contributed milk to those processing
plants and identified most of the infected herds.  They could have
started contact tracing to idenify more herds that could have been
infected by the known infected herds.
Oklahoma hasn't been announced by the USDA, you have to go to their
web site and find out that 2 Oklahoma dairy herds were reported
positive July 11th.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/hpai-confirmed-cases-livestock
There were 9 other states where the FDA idenitfied H5N1 positive
dairy products that were not then known to have infected herds, but
no one followed up.  3 of the last 4 states added to the positive
list were among the 9 identified by the FDA as having positive dairy
products back in May.  By now the virus has likely spread to many
other states because no one identified the infected herds, and tried
to limit infection by limiting dairy worker contacts with other farms.
As tragically stupid as it may be Florida was one of the states
identified by the FDA as having postive dairy products and it was
very far from other known positive states (the closest state was
North Carolina) and yet no one bothered to identify the infected
herds in that state (There has been no admission to having positive
herds in Florida).   The CDC also knew that one Florida county had
absurdly high waste water readings for influenza and yet they didn't
check the dairies in that county.  Florida has a high population and
is not where you want this type of virus to fester and evolve.  The
Dairy virus has been allowed to spread in Florida unchecked for months.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/15/bird-flu-snapshot-h5n1-infected-herds/
Reality is worse than I depicted.  STATnews has an article on it.  The
Oklahoma samples were collected by the dairy farmer in April, but he
didn't submit them for testing until the USDA offered compensation.
So his positive dairy herds may have contributed to the positive FDA
results in May, and his herds have been allowed to spread the virus
for months.  The recommendation to protect dairy workers did not apply
to this farmer because his herds were not known to be infected, so his
dairy workers were likely exposed for months as the virus burned
through his herd.
The STAT article also has something from the Norwegian Institute of
Public Health "gave voice to a rising pessimism about the prospects of
containing the H5N1 outbreak in cows in a recent report."  The CDC and
USDA haven't even tried to identify all the infected herds, and
definitely haven't tried to restrict the spread of the virus among the
herds and poultry flocks.  They have recommendations that only are for
known infected herds, and so they obviously are not working due to the
fact that they refuse to identify all the infected herds.
The USDA already has a milk testing program in place for things like
taking cell counts to identify mastitis, but they refuse to test milk
samples for H5N1.  They could just test milk products produced in
every state, and identify herds that contribute to positive samples.
They could obviously be pooling samples and not testing every cow.
The willful stupidity has just allowed the virus to spread out of
control.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/spotlights/h5n1-response-07192024.html
2 more poultry workers (6 total for the same infected flock) have been
confirmed to be positive for H5N1 by the CDC.  This should tell anyone
that the virus can easily infect humans at this time.  Some of the
workers are experiencing respiratory symptoms, and the CDC should be at
an all out alert, but they are still passing out the fictional beliefs
that the danger remains low.  It has been that way because they simply
have refused to identify all the infected workers.  They have tried as
hard as they can to not identify infected herds and all the farm workers
being exposed to the virus.
This virus is obviously easily infecting humans at this time, but the
major conclusion from the sequence data is that it does not show the
mutations that would make it resistant to the current antiviral
medications.  This is only reassuring that if it does start killing
people that some people might be saved if they are given antivirals soon
enough to matter.  What they should be worried about is the fact that
the more humans infected, the more chance the virus has of mutating into
a more pathogenic form among humans.  They have done pretty much nothing
to reduce the number of humans being infected.
The poultry farm got infected from the dairy cattle, and it is obvious
that farm workers took the virus to that poultry farm.  They would
likely have had to be infected with the virus and shedding.  The
Colorado virus infecting the poultry workers is closely related to the
virus that infected the Michigan dairy worker.  No one has to guess how
the virus infected the Colorado herds with a virus known to infect
humans in Michigan.
Ron Okimoto

It would appear from the 12Jul24 issue of Science that world attention
is being directed at this problem. Our world seems to be pretty
disfunctional.

[RonO]

Test

[Kestrel Clayton]

Test

Looks like it worked.

[RonO]

Post by erik simpson

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/three-presumptive-bird-flu-cases-reported-poultry-workers-colorado-rcna161686
3 farm workers cleaning up an infected poultry farm were infected
by the Dairy virus.  Where the Dairy virus goes poultry flocks
start to go down.  In Michigan they found that some dairy workers
at infected farms also worked at poultry farms, and around twice
as many had close contacts that worked on poultry farms (17%).
They have known from Texas with the first poultry flock to go down
with the Dairy virus that humans likely took the virus onto the
poultry farm.  They tried to blame equipment because the virus is
not infective off skin and clothing for more than half an hour,
but can remain infective on a solid surface for 24 hours.  An
infected person shedding virus is obviously the bests means to
infect the poultry flock and other dairy herds that did not get
infected cattle.  They already had an example of an infected dairy
worker shedding virus in Texas, so it seemed obvious that infected
humans were taking the virus to poultry farms by the time all the
flocks in Michigan began to go down, but the USDA and CDC have
been in willful denial mode.
Infected humans have been transferring the virus to Dairy herds in
states that did not get cattle, and have been infecting poultry
flocks with the dairy virus.  The work determining how many dairy
workers have been infected has never been done at this time, but
everyone knows that more than 4 is not just likely but a given.
Only 61 dairy workers have been tested of those 61 the CDC admits
that over half were not tested correctly (only nasal swabs when
most of the positive cases have been negative for nasal swabs but
positive for eye swabs). There has been no attempt to identify all
the infected herds in order to limit the infection and human contacts.
The willful stupidity is likely politically driven.  Instead of
trying to prevent the next pandemic the CDC has decided to monitor
all states for influenza activity, and if there is an increase in
influenza cases they will act.  This is so tragically lame.
Instead of prevent the virus from evolving into a pandemic virus
they will try to contain the issue after it becomes an issue in
the human population.  Colorado demonstrates how stupid this
strategy is.  The dairy worker infected in Colorado had
respiratory symptoms.  The poultry workers had eye infections, but
some of them also had respiratory symptoms.  The virus can
obviously infect humans whether it comes from cows or birds, and
in Colorado it is becoming a respiratory infection.  They need to
identify all the infected herds and now poultry flocks in Colorado
and quarantine the herds and farm workers.
The more herds infected the more humans will be infected, the more
chance that the virus will evolve into a pandemic virus.  Willful
stupidity should not be allowed to continue.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/15/health/colorado-bird-flu-humans-confirmed/index.html
Two more Colorado poultry workers from the same farm have tested
positive for H5N1 dairy influenza.  All 5 of the infected poultry
workers came from the same farm and were working with the same
infected birds.  This likely should tell everyone how many dairy
workers have likely been infected since dairy cows shed virus for
over 4 weeks, and these workers were likely only exposed for a few
days cleaning out the infected flock.  They do not say how many had
respiratory symptoms, but the state that some did.  The Colorado
virus may have mutated to better infect humans, but still produces
mild symptoms.  The CDC is waiting for sequencing results to tell
them how bad the situation may be.
These poultry workers could have infected other flocks and herds if
they worked on other farms, but the CDC isn't doing any contact tracing.
Ron Okimoto

Oklahoma has finally admitted to having infected dairy herds so the
number of positive states have become 13.  Oklahoma is one of the
states identified by the FDA back on May 10th as having H5N1
positive dairy products, but the USDA and CDC never followed up.
The fact that it has taken this long for the infection to be
detected in Oklahoma is due to the willful stupidity of how the
dairy virus has been handled by the USDA and CDC.  It is obvious
that the USDA and CDC could have just started sampling dairy
products in the lower 48 states, identified dairies that contributed
milk to those processing plants and identified most of the infected
herds.  They could have started contact tracing to idenify more
herds that could have been infected by the known infected herds.
Oklahoma hasn't been announced by the USDA, you have to go to their
web site and find out that 2 Oklahoma dairy herds were reported
positive July 11th.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/hpai-confirmed-cases-livestock
There were 9 other states where the FDA idenitfied H5N1 positive
dairy products that were not then known to have infected herds, but
no one followed up.  3 of the last 4 states added to the positive
list were among the 9 identified by the FDA as having positive dairy
products back in May.  By now the virus has likely spread to many
other states because no one identified the infected herds, and tried
to limit infection by limiting dairy worker contacts with other farms.
As tragically stupid as it may be Florida was one of the states
identified by the FDA as having postive dairy products and it was
very far from other known positive states (the closest state was
North Carolina) and yet no one bothered to identify the infected
herds in that state (There has been no admission to having positive
herds in Florida).   The CDC also knew that one Florida county had
absurdly high waste water readings for influenza and yet they didn't
check the dairies in that county.  Florida has a high population and
is not where you want this type of virus to fester and evolve.  The
Dairy virus has been allowed to spread in Florida unchecked for months.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/15/bird-flu-snapshot-h5n1-infected-herds/
Reality is worse than I depicted.  STATnews has an article on it.
The Oklahoma samples were collected by the dairy farmer in April, but
he didn't submit them for testing until the USDA offered
compensation. So his positive dairy herds may have contributed to the
positive FDA results in May, and his herds have been allowed to
spread the virus for months.  The recommendation to protect dairy
workers did not apply to this farmer because his herds were not known
to be infected, so his dairy workers were likely exposed for months
as the virus burned through his herd.
The STAT article also has something from the Norwegian Institute of
Public Health "gave voice to a rising pessimism about the prospects
of containing the H5N1 outbreak in cows in a recent report."  The CDC
and USDA haven't even tried to identify all the infected herds, and
definitely haven't tried to restrict the spread of the virus among
the herds and poultry flocks.  They have recommendations that only
are for known infected herds, and so they obviously are not working
due to the fact that they refuse to identify all the infected herds.
The USDA already has a milk testing program in place for things like
taking cell counts to identify mastitis, but they refuse to test milk
samples for H5N1.  They could just test milk products produced in
every state, and identify herds that contribute to positive samples.
They could obviously be pooling samples and not testing every cow.
The willful stupidity has just allowed the virus to spread out of
control.
Ron Okimoto

https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/spotlights/h5n1-response-07192024.html
2 more poultry workers (6 total for the same infected flock) have been
confirmed to be positive for H5N1 by the CDC.  This should tell anyone
that the virus can easily infect humans at this time.  Some of the
workers are experiencing respiratory symptoms, and the CDC should be
at an all out alert, but they are still passing out the fictional
beliefs that the danger remains low.  It has been that way because
they simply have refused to identify all the infected workers.  They
have tried as hard as they can to not identify infected herds and all
the farm workers being exposed to the virus.
This virus is obviously easily infecting humans at this time, but the
major conclusion from the sequence data is that it does not show the
mutations that would make it resistant to the current antiviral
medications.  This is only reassuring that if it does start killing
people that some people might be saved if they are given antivirals
soon enough to matter.  What they should be worried about is the fact
that the more humans infected, the more chance the virus has of
mutating into a more pathogenic form among humans.  They have done
pretty much nothing to reduce the number of humans being infected.
The poultry farm got infected from the dairy cattle, and it is obvious
that farm workers took the virus to that poultry farm.  They would
likely have had to be infected with the virus and shedding.  The
Colorado virus infecting the poultry workers is closely related to the
virus that infected the Michigan dairy worker.  No one has to guess
how the virus infected the Colorado herds with a virus known to infect
humans in Michigan.
Ron Okimoto

It would appear from the 12Jul24 issue of Science that world attention
is being directed at this problem.  Our world seems to be pretty
disfunctional.

The FDA, CDC and USDA are dysfunctional. The FDA was not going to
release the locations that produced the H5N1 positive milk samples, but
pretty much everyone told them that, that was stupid, so they eventually
released the states that had positive milk samples, all the time
claiming that the dairy products were safe to consume while disregarding
the danger to dairy workers working at the positive dairy farms, and the
real danger of initiating the next pandemic. The CDC and USDA have done
everything that they can do to avoid identifying the infected herds.
They refused to identify the infected herds contributing to the FDA
data. Their recommendations apply to infected herds, but since they
refuse to identify all the infected herds they are letting the virus
spread unchecked in the dairy herds and it has spilled over onto poultry
farms in those states with infected herds. If you find poultry flocks
with H5N1, you should check the dairy farms because everyone knows where
the virus is coming from at this time. The USDA and the FDA refuse to
act on the affected poultry farms, and the FDA data to identify more
positive herds. The CDC refuses to act on their own waste water data
that they know is correlated with infected herds in those counties.

When the FDA data came out identifying 9 new states with positive dairy
products there were 9 known positive states. The USDA and CDC have
refused to act on that data and other data indicating more positive
states. Since the FDA release their data only 4 more states have
admitted to having positive dairy herds and 3 of them were already known
to have positive milk products in the FDA data. The situation really is
that sad.

The Colorado dairy virus is most closely related to the virus that was
in an infected dairy worker in Michigan. It has been likely that the
virus has been spread by humans to other herds from the beginning of
detection in Texas, and is likely how Colorado herds were infected by
the Michigan strain. We have known that the virus does not survive long
on skin and clothing (less than 30 minutes in an infectious form). They
tried to claim that equipment exchange was the cause, but it was pretty
obvious that infected workers were taking the virus to other states and
other farms. Human workers shed the virus and infect the animals. How
else are the poultry farms being infected by the dairy workers? Michigan
found that some dairy workers at infected farms also worked on poultry
farms, and double that number (17%) of the dairy workers had close
contacts that worked on poultry farms. The dairy workers were the
obvious vector for transmission of the virus to poultry. That is the
most likely mode of transmission at this time, but the CDC and USDA
refuse to deal with reality. The CDC and USDA have the delusion that
equipment transfer is the cause, but humans have to take that equipment
between farms. The virus is infectious off solid surfaces for up to 24
hours. It is infectious off clothing and skin for less than 30 minutes.
For humans to take the virus onto another farm or to another state (as
happened in Kansas and South Dakota that were states that did not get
cattle from Texas but were infected by the Texas strains) the human has
to be infected and shedding virus. How did the virus get from an
infected herd involving a dairy worker in Michigan to Colorado without
the transfer of cattle?

Ron Okimoto

Previously sent this morning.

[RonO]

https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/spotlights/h5n1-response-07192024.html#:~:text=Pasteurization%20kills%20avian%20influenza%20A,and%20should%20take%20proper%20precautions.

The CDC has released results of an initial screen in Michigan of 35
dairy workers for antibodies to H5N1. Something seems to be screwy.
They want to conclude there is no evidence of prior infection with H5N1
among these 35, but for some stupid reason they did not test the two
known positives that were identified in Michigan. The positive controls
may not have been included, so they do not know if their neutralizing
test is telling them anything about the dairy infections. If the two
positives were included in the 35 and were not found to have
neutralizing antibodies, that would negate their conclusions. The
previous studies that they cite that screened poultry workers for H5N1
were also negative for neutralizing antibodies, but some of those
studies found that even though the poultry workers did not pass the
neutralizing test some workers were detected to have antibodies against
H5N1. I do not know why they would not have the known positives in such
a study. The CDC claims that the study is being written up for peer review.


QUOTE:
Reporting the preliminary results of the Michigan-led seroprevalence
investigation. CDC analyzed sera (blood) collected from people who were
exposed to dairy cattle infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza
(HPAI) A(H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b viruses causing outbreaks among animals in
the United States. These blood samples were collected as part of a type
of study called a seroprevalence study. Seroprevalence studies test
people’s blood for antibodies (an immune response) specific to a
pathogen of interest, in this case HPAI A(H5N1). These studies can tell
us whether someone has been previously infected.

Blood samples were collected in June 2024 from 35 people who work on
dairies in Michigan with herds that were confirmed positive for HPAI
A(H5N1) virus.

Study participants were from multiple counties and had different roles
on affected farms, but most worked with sick cows directly and fewer
than half reported using masks or goggles.

These samples were tested for antibodies against an avian influenza
A(H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b virus and a seasonal influenza virus (control
virus) to measure antibodies.

Specimens were tested by two methods: microneutralization and
hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assays.

None of these 35 people showed neutralizing or HI antibodies (a sign of
prior infection) specific to avian influenza A(H5N1) virus.

Many of the people had neutralizing antibodies to seasonal flu.

The detection of antibodies to seasonal flu suggests that, not
unexpectedly, participants in the study had been previously infected or
vaccinated with seasonal influenza viruses and were able to generate an
immune response.
END QUOTE:

Ron Okimoto