I have been watching the evolution of the latest disease paranoia being foist upon us. I will admit I have been off-line since Friday, so I may have missed any new developments in the saga.
For those of you who haven’t yet read my prolific Substack(and don’t understand sarcasm), I am a practicing veterinarian since 1996. So much has happened since I graduated and became licensed, but a few things have remained pretty constant. One of those constants is that cows do NOT get infected with flu viruses often, if at all. It becomes even rarer for flu strains in the A and B categories. No one is really sure why, but that is undisputed history. H5N1 is an A strain of flu.
When story first broke about H5N1 infecting cattle, I was keenly interested. Not just because I’m a vet and I have opinions about many of the goings on nowadays. I was keenly interested because I raise and keep both chickens and cattle. So, I needed to know.
My practice consists mainly of dogs and cats, but I have working knowledge of cattle and chickens in addition to what I had been taught. Some critics of mine on Twitter(sorry Elon, it’s Twitter) totally discount ANYTHING I have to say on this story because I have political views they don’t like. Because I hold certain political views, my veterinary degree and the over 25 yrs of practice are no longer valid—because of diversity of thought is the MOST important thing to people on the other side of the fence from me. They are totally open to any and all interpretations, even if it disagrees with what they think. I only WISH I could learn to be that open minded. Then, maybe, just maybe, I could ‘follow the science’ down whatever propaganda path is most popular. Alas, I am flawed human being.
Back to H5N1. I’m gonna call it the Moo Flu. The story is that, supposedly, several older dairy cattle were feeling ADR(ain’t doin right—official veterinary jargon—do NOT try this at home) a few weeks ago. So, someone—this part was not clear(will return to that later) decided to test these old cows for the H5N1 flu via nasal swabs. I’m pretty sure it was PCR testing, but in the articles I have read, including from the AVMA(American Veterinary Medical Association), the type of test used was not specified. These old cows tested positive. There were also dead birds on the farm. These were tested as well for H5N1 and were position. Then along comes Frank Farmhand(made up name). Mr Farmhand develops pink eye(conjunctivitis) and they test him for it and he’s positive as well.
When I saw the first headlines about cows being infected, I thought it was EXCEEDINGLY strange, since cattle historically don’t get the flu. No one is sure why they are resistant, but they are. UNTIL NOW. And oh boy, has the media run with this story, in spite of the inconsistencies. I made sure to post about it immediately so my assumptions could be judged later one. Why am I so concerned? Because it’s deja vu all over again…..and an election year again….and Trump seems to be hanging in there like a hair in a biscuit. All too convenient.
Now, let me enumerate all of the weirdness one step at a time.
Cattle historically do not get influenza A and B strains.
The cattle who were supposedly ‘sick’ were all older cattle. Their symptoms were decreased milk production and slightly decreased appetite. They all recovered and none of them became seriously ill.
We are not being told the testing method.
There a hundred things, at least, that can cause these symptoms in cattle. WHY would they invest time and money into testing them for something that typically doesn’t infect cattle?
They have sequenced the virus from the dead birds, cows and Frankie Farmhand. all different sequences. NONE of the sequences should mutations that are typical in flu when it jumps species.
The news media has reported this story thusly: Birds were infected and died. Cows then got infection from the birds(some stations have said infected from chickens), then Frankie got the infection from the cows.
Conjunctivitis is not a common symptom of flu. It IS a common symptom of spring time allergens. Of course an outdoor worker like Frankie could not possibly been exposed to a bunch of hay dust, pollen or even the dead birds on the farm. It HAD to come from the cows.
Around the same time, someone tested a young goat in Minnesota for H5N1. It was a baby goat that died and the same farm had chickens that were positive for the virus. Once again, no method of testing was noted. The article simply stated the virus was found in the goat. The HEADLINE says the goat died of H5N1 but the article merely says they found the presence of the virus in the baby goat. None of the adult goats tested had any indication and they are all healthy. Not sure if they tested any goat herders or not.
Now, the media is breathlessly reporting that H5N1 has a close to 50% mortality rate.
One state reported verbatim “it went from chicken to cow to human.”
So, who cares? Well, the whole thing is riddled with inconsistencies.
First off…WHY test cattle in the first place? Who decided this? Not likely anyone who actually works with cows a lot. Those people would KNOW that MANY things were more likely to cause the ADR symptoms than bird flu. In fact, it’s highly likely that NO ONE who works regularly with cattle would even consider testing the cows. This leaves a regulatory agency….like, oh, I dunno, the USDA.
Why would the USDA suddenly be interested in cattle getting the flu? Well, if someone there KNEW that the H5N1 had been tinkered with to make it more likely to infect cattle. THEN you might want to test these cows. Maybe this virus was manipulated to make it more virulent.
I found one article I read particularly interesting as far as the CYA word salad was concerned. The AVMA sent a bulletin to it’s members about the situation. Instead of saying that the ‘infection’ had been confirmed in the cattle in Texas, the wording was ‘the detection’ has been confirmed. Now what in hell does that mean?
I think it’s all just a little too convenient. I think this is a manufactured crisis, not unlike another recent manufactured crisis.
The REAL kicker was former CDC Director Redfield being interviewed this past week. He said not to worry because they can have an mRNA vaccine ready fairly quickly because we now KNOW that the mRNA platform is safe and effective.
I don’t think there are too many coinky dinks in life to begin with….this one has several coincidental occurrences. Because of this, I choose to reserve judgement on the actual significance of the Moo Flu until things are clarified…..I suggest y’all do the same.