Yikes, thanks for this. Scary for the birds and other animals and now humans.

It is scary.

The real danger is if the virus gets into pigs. The 1918 flu came out of a pig farm in Kansas, spread to a nearby military base and those soldiers were sent to Europe.

https://www.science.org/content/article/bad-worse-avian-flu-must-change-trigger-human-pandemic

Pig immune system is closer to human, so if the virus mutates to be transmitted among pigs, that would be very concerning.

Swine have been known to be infected with influenza (H1N1 aka ” swine flu” in 2009) and I think there’s been some cases of pigs contracting avian influenza, so it is not completely far-fetched.

The good thing, I suppose, is that the societal memory of dealing with Covid is recent so I’d like to think we could quickly react to another respiratory pandemic if necessary.

And the world discovers the problem with unpasteurized milk and why all our milk is now irradiated, even the organic stuff . . . however, cows and milk can be tested and monitored and unpasteurized milk can be produced safely. But it takes more human time, and brain input, so therefore costs a lot more. BTW, the widespread and growing practice of centralized mega farms with mega confinement and fattening is a recipe for disaster, which is why these animals are so heavily treated with various anti-infection agents. But when disaster strikes, a large portion of the population will call it "unprecedented" or say "Who knew, who would have thunk it?" or blab blame rhetoric incessantly, or else say it isn't even happening. Carry on.

Apparently there is a mini-rush on raw milk among those who think drinking it will immunize them.

Yesterday North Carolina's state senate voted to ban people from wearing masks in public.

Yes, there will be much idiocracy and who knows what the politics will be. But at least individuals who so choose will know some precautions to take - PPE, avoid exposure, work remote when possible - and pharma companies’ technology and production capacity for rapid vaccine development is multiples more advanced now than in 2020.

I’m not alarmist about this. I just decided that, having ignored these developments until now, I’d do some reading and get caught up and have a sense of what to watch for in the coming years. In my industry (stock market), Covid was ultimately very profitable if you made the right decisions, so I need to have “some“ mental preparations laid in.

That’s crazy seagrass. I will still slip on a mask if going into a crowded cafe with people milling around to order coffee, and then have it sent outside. I don’t care what people think and since I’ve been doing this I haven’t had a cold much less the flu nor have I had C19.

I too still wear a mask in large stores. And I recently picked up vistors who changed planes in Charlotte, NS and they wore masks in the airport and on the plane. Would they visit again if they couldn't wear masks? Probably not.

I read a bit about this yesterday, I think ethe headlines are more dramatic than the actual story. NC had laws on the books that made it illegal to wear masks in public for purposes of concealing one's identity. With this, crimes would be charged one degree higher if wearing a mask, and it would discourage unlawful protest, etc. In light of the pandemic exemptions were written into the law for health purposes. These exemptions are being removed in order to go back to a pre-COVID state and the intent isn’t - nor was it ever - to criminalize wearing masks for health reasons. It sounds like language needs to be tweaked a bit before it becomes law and state senate just passed this first iteration, thus stirring up some commotion.

Not sure what to say about the actual topic of this thread, except I hope it doesn’t jump to humans, and that it doesn’t lead to scores of animals being killed and going to waste.

The issue of raw milk hadn't even occurred to me, so thanks for the heads up, John.

Not a consumer of raw milk, but I do occasionally buy some raw milk cheeses.

January-february articles NYTimes posted and stated 200,000 seabirds have died. And have reached the penguin colonies and polar bears north. Entire small farms with multiple animals have been sadly affected.

What we know definitively about immunity is a tiny drop in the bucket. Even in my field, we are discovering how microscopic fugus and other organisms mediate healthy chemical transfer among entire systems of plants through the roots. Root health is plant health is food health is human health. On the human body, there are an estimated 39 trillion micro-organisms. Many of which are benign, good or very beneficial. And they interact. And we often hit them all with a sledge hammer, suffer and then try to patch it up with a Rube Goldberg combination of stuff. It's hard to keep a balance, the hits keep coming and coming, at ever faster rates. It's well known in the field of biology that our victory over microbes is gonna have increasing kickbacks at some point. We ignore the microscopic for logical reasons, but doesn't mean it isn't there and doing that thing that it does, for better or for worse.

Studying and designing systems with microbial interactions in mind is actually a hot topic in science right now, but not for every research dollar . . . We have so many new techniques using genetic markers to figure out what is going on with the unseen and un-see-able world. The survival of tree seedlings was revolutionized, for example, when we discovered that they needed inoculation with certain bacteria at the root level to thrive. But which ones, when and how much to be effective? We don't even realize half the time what we are destroying.

This is the idea behind raw milk being "good for you," it has beneficial bacteria. That's the stuff of fermentation too, that's why folks claim fermented foods are good for you. The problem is, it's a lot like a lot of scientific phenomenon, there is a "it depends" multi-variable slant to it. Not for the impatient or those trying to sell simple easy answers.

I've been seeing news about drug resistant pathogens, and moves to step up more effective antibiotics, along with measures limiting Dr.s prescribing antibiotics inappropriately.

Unfortunately, pathogens will probably always be with us. They adapt, a lot faster than we do:

‘Oh my God’: live worm found in Australian woman’s brain in world-first discovery

Woman complained of forgetfulness and depression before doctors pulled out an 8cm roundworm normally found in pythons

London Guardian U.S.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/28/live-worm-living-womans-brain-australia-depression-forgetfulness

(excerpt)

... According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals.

Senanayake said the world-first case highlighted the danger of diseases and infections passing from animals to humans, especially as people and animals start to live more closely together and habitats overlap more. “There have been about 30 new infections in the world in the last 30 years,” he said.

“Of the emerging infections globally, about 75% are zoonotic, meaning there has been transmission from the animal world to the human world. This includes coronaviruses.

“This Ophidascaris infection does not transmit between people, so this patient’s case won’t cause a pandemic like Covid-19 or Ebola. However, the snake and parasite are found in other parts of the world, so it is likely that other cases will be recognised in coming years in other countries.”

Oh geez - that reminded me of the recent revelation from RFKjr. that a worm had eaten part of his brain and then died 😱

carolb -- that particular worm obviously died of malnutrition/starvation....

Ha 😄

Someone else joked it was poisoned 😉