A Bird-Flu Pandemic in People? Here’s What It Might Look Like. TLDR: not good. (Reload the page and ctrl-a then ctrl-c to copy the article text before the paywall comes up.) Interesting quote: “The real danger, Dr. Lowen of Emory said, is if a farmworker becomes infected with both H5N1 and a seasonal flu virus. Flu viruses are adept at swapping genes, so a co-infection would give H5N1 opportunity to gain genes that enable it to spread among people as efficiently as seasonal flu does.”
The FDA is making reassuring noises about pasteurized milk, but given that CDC and friends also made reassuring noises early in the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m not fully reassured.
I wonder if drinking a little bit of pasteurized milk every day would be helpful inoculation? You could hedge your bets by buying some milk from every available brand, and consuming a teaspoon from a different brand every day, gradually working up to a tablespoon etc.
Some recent-ish bird flu coverage:
Global health leader critiques ‘ineptitude’ of U.S. response to bird flu outbreak among cows
A Bird-Flu Pandemic in People? Here’s What It Might Look Like. TLDR: not good. (Reload the page and ctrl-a then ctrl-c to copy the article text before the paywall comes up.) Interesting quote: “The real danger, Dr. Lowen of Emory said, is if a farmworker becomes infected with both H5N1 and a seasonal flu virus. Flu viruses are adept at swapping genes, so a co-infection would give H5N1 opportunity to gain genes that enable it to spread among people as efficiently as seasonal flu does.”
Infectious bird flu survived milk pasteurization in lab tests, study finds. Here’s what to know.
1 in 5 milk samples from grocery stores test positive for bird flu. Why the FDA says it’s still safe to drink—see also updates from the FDA here: “Last week we announced preliminary results of a study of 297 retail dairy samples, which were all found to be negative for viable virus.” (May 10)
The FDA is making reassuring noises about pasteurized milk, but given that CDC and friends also made reassuring noises early in the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m not fully reassured.
I wonder if drinking a little bit of pasteurized milk every day would be helpful inoculation? You could hedge your bets by buying some milk from every available brand, and consuming a teaspoon from a different brand every day, gradually working up to a tablespoon etc.