Biden administration going around the CDC on the Dairy influenza epidemic

[RonO]

https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/10/24/usda-hhs-fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-new-action-halt-spread-bird-flu-california-washington.html

Someone is finally doing what should have been done at the beginning of
this dairy influenza fiasco, but they are not expanding their program
nationally as it should be implemented.

They are only going to assist the California contact tracing efforts and
have sent a team of 5 USDA staff members to "aid in traceback efforts
and epidemiological investigations". Nine more case managers are
supporting the effort to track and manage infected herds. This type of
program should be implemented in all states with known infected herds,
and likely states that have H5N1 in their waste water and or have
produced virus positive milk products in the FDA studies.

Part of the new National response is to start the type if testing of the
nations milk supply that the recent article by CDC researchers, where
they found that the most common pasteurization method may not kill the
virus, and they recommended that milk products should likely be tested
for viable virus in a more stringent testing regime than the FDA had
conducted. The USDA is going to conduct such a testing survey of the
nations milk supply. They need to start testing milk fresh out of the
processing plant within 4 days of pasteurization. My take is that they
should be sampling the milk as it comes out of pasteurization at all plants.

I should note that the CDC did not act on their own research on
survivability of the virus in milk, but someone has. It should be noted
that the first cats in Texas were infected by drinking raw milk, avian
influenza is a gut and respiratory infection in birds and has infected
the guts of the cattle causing decreased nutrient absorption of some of
the dairy cattle (their gut seem to shut down). The Missouri human
patient exhibited gut infection symptoms, and had, had no contact with
infected animals. She could have been infected by the milk supply. The
Missouri milk supply was not tested by the FDA. It was one of the
states that was not tested in their last milk survey (Samples collected
June 18th to July 31st). Missouri is just not testing their dairy
herds. They have never wanted to know if they had infected herds like
their infected neighbors, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa. It is known that
asymptomatic cows can shed high levels of the virus in their milk (only
their mammary gland is infected), and that the infection can be limited
to only one of the four lobes of mammary tissue in the udder.

https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/updates-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-hpai#secondtesting

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/10/24/usda-hhs-fact-sheet-biden-
harris-administration-new-action-halt-spread-bird-flu-california-
washington.html
Someone is finally doing what should have been done at the beginning of
this dairy influenza fiasco, but they are not expanding their program
nationally as it should be implemented.
They are only going to assist the California contact tracing efforts and
have sent a team of 5 USDA staff members to "aid in traceback efforts
and epidemiological investigations".  Nine more case managers are
supporting the effort to track and manage infected herds.  This type of
program should be implemented in all states with known infected herds,
and likely states that have H5N1 in their waste water and or have
produced virus positive milk products in the FDA studies.
Part of the new National response is to start the type if testing of the
nations milk supply that the recent article by CDC researchers, where
they found that the most common pasteurization method may not kill the
virus, and they recommended that milk products should likely be tested
for viable virus in a more stringent testing regime than the FDA had
conducted.  The USDA is going to conduct such a testing survey of the
nations milk supply.  They need to start testing milk fresh out of the
processing plant within 4 days of pasteurization.  My take is that they
should be sampling the milk as it comes out of pasteurization at all plants.
I should note that the CDC did not act on their own research on
survivability of the virus in milk, but someone has.  It should be noted
that the first cats in Texas were infected by drinking raw milk, avian
influenza is a gut and respiratory infection in birds and has infected
the guts of the cattle causing decreased nutrient absorption of some of
the dairy cattle (their gut seem to shut down).  The Missouri human
patient exhibited gut infection symptoms, and had, had no contact with
infected animals.  She could have been infected by the milk supply.  The
Missouri milk supply was not tested by the FDA.  It was one of the
states that was not tested in their last milk survey  (Samples collected
June 18th to July 31st).  Missouri is just not testing their dairy
herds.  They have never wanted to know if they had infected herds like
their infected neighbors, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa.  It is known that
asymptomatic cows can shed high levels of the virus in their milk (only
their mammary gland is infected), and that the infection can be limited
to only one of the four lobes of mammary tissue in the udder.
https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/updates-
highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-hpai#secondtesting
Ron Okimoto

In the above report the USDA increased the number of positive herds in
California to 137, but there are also 2 additional herds confirmed in
Idaho in the latest USDA update.

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

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/10/24/usda-hhs-fact-sheet-biden-
harris-administration-new-action-halt-spread-bird-flu-california-
washington.html
Someone is finally doing what should have been done at the beginning
of this dairy influenza fiasco, but they are not expanding their
program nationally as it should be implemented.
They are only going to assist the California contact tracing efforts
and have sent a team of 5 USDA staff members to "aid in traceback
efforts and epidemiological investigations".  Nine more case managers
are supporting the effort to track and manage infected herds.  This
type of program should be implemented in all states with known
infected herds, and likely states that have H5N1 in their waste water
and or have produced virus positive milk products in the FDA studies.
Part of the new National response is to start the type if testing of
the nations milk supply that the recent article by CDC researchers,
where they found that the most common pasteurization method may not
kill the virus, and they recommended that milk products should likely
be tested for viable virus in a more stringent testing regime than the
FDA had conducted.  The USDA is going to conduct such a testing survey
of the nations milk supply.  They need to start testing milk fresh out
of the processing plant within 4 days of pasteurization.  My take is
that they should be sampling the milk as it comes out of
pasteurization at all plants.
I should note that the CDC did not act on their own research on
survivability of the virus in milk, but someone has.  It should be
noted that the first cats in Texas were infected by drinking raw milk,
avian influenza is a gut and respiratory infection in birds and has
infected the guts of the cattle causing decreased nutrient absorption
of some of the dairy cattle (their gut seem to shut down).  The
Missouri human patient exhibited gut infection symptoms, and had, had
no contact with infected animals.  She could have been infected by the
milk supply.  The Missouri milk supply was not tested by the FDA.  It
was one of the states that was not tested in their last milk survey
(Samples collected June 18th to July 31st).  Missouri is just not
testing their dairy herds.  They have never wanted to know if they had
infected herds like their infected neighbors, Kansas, Oklahoma, and
Iowa.  It is known that asymptomatic cows can shed high levels of the
virus in their milk (only their mammary gland is infected), and that
the infection can be limited to only one of the four lobes of mammary
tissue in the udder.
https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/updates-
highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-hpai#secondtesting
Ron Okimoto

In the above report the USDA increased the number of positive herds in
California to 137, but there are also 2 additional herds confirmed in
Idaho in the latest USDA update.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-
influenza/hpai-detections/hpai-confirmed-cases-livestock
Ron Okimoto

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/hpai-h5n1-dairy-cattle-mi-epi-invest.pdf

The USDA knew this in June, and number of dairy workers that also worked
on other dairy farms or poultry farms was confirmed by a Texas survey,
but the USDA never acted on this information. They never implemented
contact tracing of dairy workers like California did, and has
successfully identified the most infected herds of any state. Now the
USDA is assisting California in their contact tracing, but is not
expanding the effort to other states with known infected herds. If they
did this they would likely identify contacts between states like
California did with Idaho.

For whatever reason the USDA and CDC have never wanted to do what needed
to be done in order to identify all the infected herds, and they still
refuse to do what needs to be done. The more dairies that are allowed
to be infected the more dairy and poultry workers that will be infected.

Ron Okimoto