How industrial meat and dairy trap us in an infectious disease cycle.
H5N1, or bird flu, has hit dairy farms — but the dairy industry doesn’t want us saying so.
The current, highly virulent strain of avian flu had already been ripping through chicken and turkey farms over the past two years. Since it jumped to US dairy cows for the first time last month, it’s infected more than 20 dairy herds across eight states, raising alarms among public health authorities about possible spread to humans and potential impacts on the food supply.
One Texas dairy worker contracted a mild case of bird flu from one of the impacted farms — the second such case ever recorded in the US (though one of hundreds worldwide over the past two decades, most of them fatal).
Whatever fear-mongering you may have seen on social media, we are not on the cusp of a human bird flu pandemic; the chances of further human spread currently remain low. But that could change. As the virus jumps among new mammal species like cows, the risk that it’ll evolve to be able to spread between humans does increase.
But the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP), an organization of beef and dairy veterinarians, declared in a statement (condemned by public health experts) last week that it doesn’t believe bird flu in cows should be considered bird flu at all.
Moo flu it is.
Ah yes, the good old, “Leave the disease alone and see what happens” tactic. I wonder if it will just go away this time?
yet another reason to be vegan.
Even the powers of veganism cannot protect you from an airborne virus
obviously, the solution is to dismantle the industries that cause these conditions, but I imagine you already knew that.
Yet another vegan telling us they’re vegan when nobody asked.
never really liked milk, but half&half and heavy cream? yes. cheese? very yes. hopefully this gets fixed asap.
