Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the leading health official of the nation, has an unorthodox idea to deal with the tribes caused by poultry. Let the virus tear.
Instead of flooding the birds when the infection is discovered, farmers “may consider the ability to let it run through the herd so that we can locate the birds and keep the birds that are immunized there,” Mr Kennedy told Fox News.
He has repeated the idea in other interviews on the channel.
Mr Kennedy has no jurisdiction for holdings. But Brooke Rollins, the secretary of Georgia, also expressed support for the idea.
“There are some farmers who are out there who are willing to really try it on a pilot, as we build the safe perimeter around them to see if there is a way forward with immunity,” Rollins told Fox News last month.
However, veterinary scientists have said that letting the virus wipe through the flocks of poultry uncontrollably would be inhumane and dangerous and had huge financial consequences.
“This is a truly awesome idea, for any of many reasons,” said Dr. Gail Hansen, a former state -run veterinarian for Kansas.
Since January 2022, more than 1,600 fireplaces have been reported on farms and herds of rear courtyard, which occur in each state. More than 166 million birds have been affected.
Every infection is another opportunity for the virus, called H5N1, to evolve into a more infectious form. The geneticists have closely watched his mutations. So far, the virus has not developed the ability to spread to humans.
But if H5N1 had to run through a flock of five million birds, “this is literally five million chances for this virus to reproduce or mutate,” Dr. Hansen said.
A large number of infected birds are likely to transmit huge quantities of the virus by putting agricultural workers and other animals at high risk.
“Now, you create yourself for bad things to happen,” Dr. Hansen said. “It’s a recipe for disaster.”
Emily Hilliard, Deputy Secretary of the Press at the Ministry of Health and Human Services, said that Mr Kennedy’s comments were aimed at protecting people “from the most dangerous version of the current bird influenza, which is in chickens”.
“The slaughter puts people with the highest risk of exposure, so Secretary Kennedy and Nih want to limit slaughter activities,” he said, referring to the National Institutes of Health. “Slaughter is not the solution. Strong bio -security is.”
In her plan to combat bird flu, Ms Rollins recommended boosting bio -security in the holdings – preventing the virus from entering their premises or stopping its spread with strict cleaning and use of protective tools.
But this is a long -term solution. USDA begins these efforts in just ten states.
The virus first took root between wild birds, which transmit it to domestic poultry and various mammals. Now a single contaminated duck flying over the head can drop feces on a farm, where a chicken or turkey can swallow it.
Elderly poultry has a weak immune system and are under huge environmental stress, often packed in cages or poorly ventilated barn. Within a day, the H5N1 can get sick of one third of a flock.
Infected birds can develop severe respiratory symptoms, diarrhea, terror and twisting their neck and produce deformed or fragile eggs. Many die for breathing. (Some birds die suddenly without showing any symptoms.)
The speed at which the collapse of infected birds has been mentioned as one reason that officials believe that eggs are safe for consumption. Most sick birds die before they put an egg or are so visible sick that they are easy to filter.
Poultry farmers call the authorities as soon as they identify signs of illness or death. If the tests appear positive for bird flu, they are returned for the murder of the rest of the herd before the virus spreads longer.
If the farmers were instead of letting the virus make its way across the farm, “these infections would cause very painful deaths at almost 100 percent of chicken and turkey,” said Dr. Dr. David Swayne, a USDa veterinarian for almost 30 years.
The result would be “inhumane, resulting in an unacceptable crisis for animal living,” he added. (Methods for birds that can also be tough, but at least they are generally faster.)
Farmers who infect the flocks must also clean the facilities and pass the checks before recovery. They are often willing to quickly resolve the crisis. Simple departure would have serious financial consequences.
The strategy “means bigger quarantine, more stop time, more lost revenue and increased expenses,” said a USDA scientist who was not authorized to speak in the media.
Mr Kennedy suggested that a poultry subset could be of course immune to bird flu. But chickens and turkeys do not have the genes they need to resist the virus, experts said.
“The way we raise birds now, there is not much genetic volatility,” Dr. Hansen said. “It’s all the same bird, basically.”
Public health regulations will prohibit the very few birds that could survive from a sale infection. In any case, these birds could only be protected from the current version of H5N1, not others that emerge as the virus continues to evolve.
“Biology and immunology does not work this way,” said Dr. Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Laboratory.
The release of the not chosen virus, probably in a commercially involved in the United States, added: “There is a huge financial loss immediately.”
In an interview with Fox News, Mr Kennedy also suggested that the virus “does not seem to hurt wild birds – they have some kind of immunity”.
In fact, while ducks and shorebirds may not show symptoms, H5N1 has killed predators, aquatic birds, cranes and snow geese, among many other species.
