Don’t Be Afraid of Bird Flu

It seems that the World Health Organization is once again trying to scare us with stories of “bird flu” and how it has an “extremely high” mortality rate among humans. I’m not falling for it. Let’s take a look at the FACTS.

This year’s bird flu is called H5N1 “avian influenza virus”. According to the CDC website, only two people in the United States have tested positive (as of this writing). One was in Colorado. The second was in my home state of Texas-

“This person had exposure to dairy cattle in Texas presumed to be infected with HPAI A(H5N1) viruses. The patient reported eye redness (consistent with conjunctivitis), as their only symptom, and is recovering.”

Think about the above paragraph from the CDC. I had to read it twice to fully understand what they were saying.  Several things appear strange to me. First, consider the part of the paragraph that states that the person had “exposure to dairy cattle”. Since when do dairy cattle have bird flu? Scientists are saying that other animals can be infected with “bird flu” but others say there is a paucity of data on this. (Go here to see them list DOLFINS as testing positive for bird flu). Cattle have their own diseases and while the information on this is changing DAILY, this goes too far. Cattle that fly and catch bird flu is just not a natural phenomenon. I don’t believe it for a minute.

Next, the dairy cattle in the above paragraph by the CDC, were “presumed” to be infected with bird flu. In other words, they were not tested, just presumed. How can the CDC put this statement out without giving us proof that the cattle had an infection?

And the next part of the paragraph states “The patient reported eye redness (consistent with conjunctivitis), as their only symptom, and is recovering.” The next time I get the flu I only want one symptom such as eye redness! This would be the best flu to have. Never mind the aches, pain, and fever. It makes me wonder if the person really had the flu.

And lastly, only two people in the United States got “bird flu” (as of a week ago). That is TWO people out of 341,610,903 million (which is the current population of our country as of 3 minutes ago). That is a pretty low incidence. I am not going to worry about it coming to a town near me.

This is absurd. The CDC says “It (bird flu) has never passed from human to human, and there have been extremely rare reports of animal-to-human transmission”. However, WHO Chief Scientist Jeremy Farrar said there is “great concern” that the disease will develop “the ability to go from human to human”.

If the virus develops the ability to go from human to human it would be of greater concern but I still wouldn’t worry about it. Most flu viruses do not develop into full-blown pandemics. Yet, the government has to have a fix for everything. Did you know that one of their fixes is to stockpile bird flu vaccines should this problem get worse?  Bird flu vaccines were developed as far back as 2007. The Strategic National Stockpile supposedly has three such vaccines for H5N1. They have enough in the stockpile to vaccinate one-fifth of the US population. But there are two problems with the government’s vaccine strategy.  One is that many people will refuse to be vaccinated (they learned their lesson during Covid). And second, if the bird flu virus mutates as the WHO scientist Jeremy Farrar predicts, then the stockpile of vaccines would be for the wrong virus and likely no good. The government would be stuck with millions of useless doses.

How bad is it?

Historically “bird flu” has been around since the 1880’s according to the CDC website. In my mind, it has probably been around as long as birds have been around. However, putting thousands of birds in one large chicken coop is known to increase the incidence of disease. Smaller coops and letting birds roam free in the sunshine would increase their health as well as well as our own. Small farmers know this.

But the US government and the “big AG” industrial complex would rather continue on the current (unhealthy) path rather than fix the root of the problem.

An example of this strategy occurred recently in my state. One chicken tested positive in a large Texas poultry farm with almost 2 million birds. The operation had to “depopulate” 1.6 million laying hens and 337,000 pullets. Depopulate? Why did they say “depopulate”? Is the word “killed” too extreme? This is ridiculous! Second, why not keep birds in smaller barns (or better yet, outside) so that if one gets sick you only have to “depopulate” a few hundred birds not thousands.

According to regenerative farmer and crop scientist Howard Vlieger, the USDA’s approach to addressing bird flu by culling herds is ill-informed. Diseases periodically circulate through animal populations, he said. The strongest birds will build a good resistance to the disease. And since it has been definitively shown that humans have stronger immune systems if they keep their vitamin D levels high (link) I think we can put our minds to rest about bird flu.

In summary, we have to remember that only one bird tested positive out of 1.6 million (at least on one Texas farm). And we have to remember that only two US citizens tested positive out of 341 million people (as of early June). The odds are in our favor. I’m not worrying about bird flu. I’d be more worried about flying dairy cattle.” 

For an informative article on “bird flu” go to the Children’s Health Defense website. Be aware that you will hear more and more about “bird flu” as this year progresses. The media will rachet up the statistics in an attempt to make it appear as though this is something to worry about. We do not need the government to fix this.

Always talk to your health professional before starting anything new.  This information is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any condition and is intended only for entertainment. I welcome your comments.