A controversial proposal from U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to let bird flu naturally spread through poultry farms is raising alarms among scientists, who say the move could be inhumane and dangerous.Kennedy recently suggested that instead of culling infected birds, farmers should instead allow the virus to run through flocks to identify naturally immune birds."We can identify the birds and preserve the birds that are immune to it," Kennedy recently told Fox News.Though Kennedy has no direct control over farms, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has also expressed interest in testing the idea."There are some farmers that are out there that are willing to really try this on a pilot as we build the safe perimeter around them to see if there is a way forward with immunity," Rollins told CBS News.But veterinary experts say this could backfire."That's a really terrible idea, for any one of a number of reasons," said Dr. Gail Hansen, a former state veterinarian for Kansas, in a report published by The New York Times.Since January 2022, bird flu has affected more than 166 million birds across every U.S. state. Experts warn that allowing the virus to spread could increase the risk of it mutating.>https://phys.org/news/2025-03-secretary-health-human-bird-flu.html
>>1393708 (Cont)If the bird flu were to run through a flock of five million birds, "that's literally five million chances for that virus to replicate or to mutate," Hansen said.It could also put farm workers and other animals at risk.Emily Hilliard, deputy press secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, defended Kennedy's stance."Culling puts people at the highest risk of exposure, which is why Secretary Kennedy and N.I.H. want to limit culling activities," Hilliard explained to The Times, referring to the National Institutes of Health. "Culling is not the solution. Strong biosecurity is."However, experts argue that bird flu spreads too quickly for this to work. Infected poultry can often develop severe respiratory symptoms, tremors and diarrhea, and suddenly die."These infections would cause very painful deaths in nearly 100 percent of the chickens and turkeys," Dr. David Swayne, a poultry veterinarian who worked at the U.S.D.A. for nearly 30 years, told The Times.Kennedy has suggested that some poultry may have natural immunity, but experts disagree."The way we raise birds now, there's not a lot of genetic variability," Hansen said. "They're all the same bird, basically."What's more, allowing the virus to spread could also cause economic turmoil, experts say."There's a huge economic loss immediately," Dr. Keith Poulsen, the director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, told The Times.Despite Kennedy's claim that wild birds appear immune, scientists point out that bird flu has killed many species, including raptors, waterfowl and sandhill cranes....this is so retarded it hurts.OTHER SOURCES:>https://gizmodo.com/rfk-jr-s-strategy-for-the-bird-flu-epidemic-spread-baby-spread-2000577779>https://newrepublic.com/post/192916/rfk-jr-plan-bird-flu>https://www.times-georgian.com/lifestyles/health/rfk-jr-suggests-letting-bird-flu-spread/article_9afcaeaa-1d87-548c-9141-ab0fcede5ed2.html
that's just the brain worm talking. don't worry about it.
>>1393710I like how he's literally 100% wrong. Like, he doesn't even have some study with a vague link, he's just outright making shit up claiming the virus doesn't kill wild birds when it literally does. Or that culling is somehow more human risk than literally getting the whole flock infected.
>>1393708Nobody in the administration has a single fucking clue what they're talking about and we're all going to suffer for it.
>>1393708Oh boy I can't wait to pay $100 for tendies and $10 per egg.
>>1393714>tendiesthis stupid board needs flags.
I'm starting to think the egg prices aren't coming down.
>>1393735In fact this stupid board needs to ban posters who want to make this /pol2/
>>1393745weewoo weewoo weewoo! We got another one boys! Guilty of wrongthink and nonconformism!
>>1393747Go bitch and moan about being oppressed by the imaginary leftists on another board.
>LE BIRB VAIRUS MUTATE IS LE BADmeantime we have 9001 strains of covid and it become shitter and shitter each mutation
>>1393745How about you fuck off to your safe space instead of censoring everyone else
>>1393796You know mutation can also make a virus worse right? It was only through vaccination campaigns that wiped out the worst strains that covid became less of a problem and that shit can still cripple your lungs.
Reminder pumpkin can be an egg substitute. And aquafaba is an egg white substitute.
>>1393805>Just eat pumpkins for breakfastA substitute only works for something that uses the thing you're substituting as an ingredient, not when the thing itself is a whole separate food on its own.
>>1393803>Vaxxxhead copeThere is not one (1) effective or safe vax.
>>1393709>Kennedy has suggested that some poultry may have natural immunity, but experts disagree.>"The way we raise birds now, there's not a lot of genetic variability," Hansen said. "They're all the same bird, basically."So, the real solution would be to fix this first.
>>1393813Says who?
>>1393800That's funny I was trying to say that to the person asking for /pol/ flags
>>1393803i'm from north italy, back in last week of november 2019 i had a weird "influenza" with 40°c fever and difficulty breathing (similar to mild asthma), my uncle had it too, we later guessed that was covidanyway when the vaccines came out my doctor told me dont do it because you have more risk with that that without (i have some allergies, asthma and other shit) so i'm unvaxed while my whole family is vaxed with all the shotsi never got the covid (excluding 2019 that i guess was covid and somehow i got the antibodies) but my family got it more than once, my cousin got it 5 (five) times
>>1393814Genetic variability means inconsistent results. Farmed poultry is hyper optimized to produce as much usable meat in the best quality possible.
>>1393709>"The way we raise birds now, there's not a lot of genetic variability," Hansen said. "They're all the same bird, basically."birb incest intensifies
>>1393817RFK. You should trust the health head.
>>1393709>"There's a huge economic loss immediatelyMore than literally just massacring millions of egg-laying birds every time one of them sneezes?
77 million people voted for this.90 million didn't vote, thinking this wasn't worth voting over.
>>1393853The alternative is having to mass recall infected products when people get sick and then cull anyways you fucking retard. Culling sick livestock is literally a practice in use for millennia because it's the only real option.
>>1393835Maybe I'd trust him if he had literally any experience in what he's talking about. For fucks sake anon he's claiming we should do this because wild birds don't die from bird flu, even though that's objectively false.
>>1393856>The alternative is having to mass recall infected products when people get sick and then cull anyways you fucking retard.That's not the alternate, you faggot. Consumers need to take some responsibility for once and actually research the meat they're buying. If a company ships out tainted meat, then consumers can just not buy it. If they still buy it, then that's on them. It's called FREE markets for a reason.
>>1393861>If a company ships out tainted meat, then consumers can just not buy it.Yeah that's very nice for the people who get poisoned by it before people realize it's tainted. Also, you realize that's exactly why these places cull flocks, right? Because the alternative is that happening? And the price would go up and supply would dwindle in that case?
We need a mRNA vaccine that can be introduced into the chicken feed. Any vaccine that gets into the chicken products can have the additional benefit of immunizing humans
>>1393856I don't think RFK is proposing we just ignore bird flu and let them keep producing as usual though. Quarantine the herd, let them live until they die, the ones that don't die breed them and rebuild the flock from them. It's because I'm NOT retarded that I can tell this is obviously what's being proposed.
>>1393864>that's very nice for the people who get poisoned by it before people realize it's tainted.YOU DO REALIZEof coursethat chickens aren't tested for flu every morning? A typical schedule would be every 3-4 weeks. That's approximately a month during which infected chicken product could be shipped out before detection under the status quo.
>>1393882You do know what a Typhoid Mary is, right? Even if there were chickens that could develop immunity, that doesn't transfer over to humans. The resulting "immune" chickens could then result in tainted eggs and meat anyway.
>>1393893You DO know that COULD doesn't mean WILL, right, and in fact has a very small possibility that it even can? And you ARE, I presume, aware that the main reason for the culling of flocks is to protect other flocks, rather than humans, since only very rare strains of HPAI are human transmissable?
If bird flu starts spreading to people, so be it. Better to rip off the bandaid now. The quicker we get through this and get herd immunity, the better we'll be. Better that everyone come down with the bird coff now than prolong it and suffer all the economic impacts.
>>1393896Why take the risk? Also, yes, HPAI is rarely human transmissible. Hence why giving it literally millions of chances to mutate enough to jump species is a bad idea.
You know something? I'm not sure this guy actually does realise. He only thinks he's a realised when he actually isn't.
>>1393882Instead of bird flu, they should be doing this with marek's disease. Marek's used to be a relatively benign disease in birds, but after mass vaccination efforts chickens have had their immune systems weakened to the point that it has a 100% fatality rate now. What's worse is the vaccine doesn't stop transmission, so if you put a vaccinated bird into a coop with a bunch of unvaxxed ones, the unvaxxed ones will die. Absolutely terrible disease and human attempts to quell it have only made it worse.The only way to stop it would be to do as you say, slowly breed back immunity. I don't know if that would work for bird flu since influenza evolves new strains yearly.
>>1393907>Why take the risk?In order to eugenically breed hens that are resistant to the influenza, and thus avoid culling countless millions of chickens for the rest of time because we never let them evolve a resistance to it
>>1393910The problem with Marek is now that we've hit that near 100% lethality rate it would take literal decades of selective breeding to remedy the issue. Which would effectively absolutely destroy the entire industry because it would mean multiple years where the entire population is wiped out.
>>1393913And if it mutates to the point the birds are immune to it but humans aren't? Hell, even in your own scenario we'd still be taking massive chunks of chickens that wouldn't be usable for eggs or meat (so it'd have the same economic effect as culling them while also requiring the cost of still keeping them alive) just to become immune to one strain of flu... which will last right up until it mutates again.Culling is just a reality of animal husbandry.
>>1393808Why the fuck would you eat eggs? They taste like shit. You should eat pumpkin for breakfast.
>>1393925Do pumpkins provide the same amount of protein?
>>1393916It wouldn't have to be done on such an industrial scale immediately. A laboratory farm could develop a new chicken breed which is resistant to Marek's, and then industrial producers could phase out their existing flocks gradually and bring in the new birds to replace them.It would still be expensive but not as catastrophic. Not the sort of thing that's possible in the current political environment though.
>>1393927Yes, eggs only have 6.5g/protein
>>1393928You can't breed new breeds of animals and then convince farmers to replace them like you can with plants. Not to mention the primary issue that another new disease could come in and force them to cull the flocks anyways. It's so much work and money for effectively the same results as culling. It's just not practical.
>>1393857Trust the """soience""", am I right? Maybe this is what we need. To get some new blood into these positions who can shake things up. I trust RFK far more than any doctor like that """Fauci""".
>>1393931Pumpkins only have 1.2 g/protein.
>>1393936yeah so eat 6 pumpkins
>>1393942>I need to eat six grams of pumpkin to get the same benefit of one eggYeah no I'm not doing that.
>>1393933I believe you.
>>1393932Wasn't that already done with existing so called "improved" breeds? A dairy cow today produces 10x as much milk as one from 200 years ago, and a chicken today is a retarded mutant monster the size of a capon. If you look around, its tough to find heritage breeds that used to be the commercial standard. I'm sure animals that wouldn't be as disease prone would be popular with farmers.
>>1393969Those took a hundred years and didn't carry the risk of causing them to become asymptomatic carriers. It's easy to breed for desired traits. It's hard to breed for immunity to a flu, especially when you could finally get all those resistant chickens in just in time for the virus to mutate and now they aren't immune to it anymore.
Reminder to everyone that antivaxxers are all either trolling, legitimately stupid, or on someone else's payroll. Whatever the case, they must be reported as soon as possible and as much as possible for violating Global Rules 3 and 6 in order to help improve this board.
>>1394009I think antivax has become part of 4chan culture at this point. The default position of most anons is antivax.
>>1393907If it happens it happens. We will all gain herd immunity after it burns through the weak and be better as a species. That's how we used to deal with deseases before leftists started forcing us to take vaxxx and "medicine."
>>1394047>Just let a plague rip through the populationYeah no thanks. You can get sick and die but I'm good.
>>1394047>We will all gain herd immunity after it burns through the weakFlu mutates fast enough that herd immunity is impossible. That's literally fucking why the ancestors of the Spanish Flu are circulating over a century later.
>>1394084I mean shit, the fucking black death has had multiple massive outbreaks and we still, to this day don't have herd immunity to it.
>>1394017They get made fun of on every board except /pol/, so no.
>>1394047Good fucking god you people are so stupid.
>>1393878>We need a mRNA vaccine that can be introduced into the chicken feed.Why not introduce it into feed for wildlife fowl, ducks, geese, sparrows at feeders, etc.
