I follow a lot of people. 1,878 as of this morning. I also don't engage in any other social media. Never have, never intend to. Pretty much every other social media domain is blocked at our firewall level. I only looked at twitter(as it was called at the time) in December of 2019, for the first time in my life, to try to get fast breaking COVID news, and have access to scientists who would be ahead of the knowledge curve.

I'm only really here for one reason. To get good info, synthesize it, and redistribute it, often in different words, when I think it'll be helpful. Despite some truly "delightful" DMs I've received recently, I have no ulterior motive. No one's forcing you to believe that, and I take it as a badge of honor to be blocked, so, knock yourself out if you're so inclined.

I'm asking everyone, particularly scientists, to be careful with your words. There's been palatable rising tensions here in 2024. Some of it has to do with science(H5N1, WHO airborne) some of it doesn't(politics), but it's real.

I have seen some truly awful H5N1 takes as things ramp up. Particularly this morning. Nuance matters. If you want to be a prognosticator, be clear. "I think" or "I believe" instead of launching into what you want to say.

Here's a few things I've seen that should be discussed carefully:

- Pasteurization is completely effective against H5N1.

Here's what the FDA says about that:

The FDA believes the pasteurization process is “very likely” to inactivate H5N1, though they acknowledged that no studies have been done to test that.

Here's someone who knows better:

“Daniel Perez, an influenza researcher at the University of Georgia, is doing his own test tube study of pasteurization of milk spiked with a different avian influenza virus. The fragile lipid envelope surrounding influenza viruses should make them vulnerable, he says. Still, he wonders whether the commonly used “high temperature, short time” pasteurization, which heats milk to about 72°C for 15 or 20 seconds, is enough to inactivate all the virus in a sample.”

- It's already spreading person to person across the US.

The only reference I can find that would lead to that conclusion would be this:

"Only one human case linked to cattle has been confirmed to date, and symptoms were limited to conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye. But Russo and many other vets have heard anecdotes about workers who have pink eye and other symptoms—including fever, cough, and lethargy—and do not want to be tested or seen by doctors. James Lowe, a researcher who specializes in pig influenza viruses, says policies for monitoring exposed people vary greatly between states. “I believe there are probably lots of human cases,” he says, noting that most likely are asymptomatic."

Or, perhaps in conjunction with this:

"The genetic sequence from the human case, which occurred on an unidentified farm in Texas, is sufficiently different from the cattle sequences that it can’t be easily linked to them, he said. The differences suggest that the individual was either infected in a separate event — maybe not via a cow, but through contact with infected wild birds — or that there might have been another line of viruses in cattle early on and it has since died out."

I don't want to belabor the point, and I don't want to call out anyone. I just felt the need, after scrolling through my timeline this morning, to point out that language matters. Be careful. Don't spread misinformation. If you want to prognosticate, go ahead, but be clear it's your opinion. Your magic internet points don't matter.

New H5N1 info today from stat, although not from Helen Branswell this time.

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/25/h5n1-bird-flu-cows-outbreak-likely-widespread/

I think this paints a pretty good picture of where we're at, in terms of the extent of the outbreak in dairy herds.

"They collected 150 commercial milk products from around the Midwest, representing dairy processing plants in 10 different states, including some where herds have tested positive for H5N1. Genetic testing found viral RNA in 58 samples, he told STAT."

For me, personally, this is both good and bad news.

On the one hand, the continuing drip of information saying that this has been going on longer than we knew, and is pretty widespread, means that the milk is almost certainly safe. At least, not acutely bad. If, for instance, as I have seen speculated(not on Mastodon), 50% of people would die from drinking contaminated milk we'd know. Agreed? Let's put that idea away.

Small sample size, but:

"The team that produced that data — the St. Jude and OSU groups — told STAT that it has so far analyzed four samples of store-bought milk that had tested positive via PCR for H5N1 genetic material. “We’ve done the viral growth assays to see if we can recover any virus from them and we can’t,” Webby said."

On the other hand, every mammal infection is another chance for a dangerous mutation. Just 5 amino acids, right? We've, hopefully, learned this lesson from COVID variants.

Now, what does 39% of samples testing positive in this case mean? I don't know! My first thought was that there's 64,155 dairy farms in the US, so near 25,000 must have infections, but, I realized I was making two big assumptions. One, milk from the Midwest is representative of the whole supply. Two, 150 was a significant sample size.

The FDA is now saying their testing found ~20% positive, but no information on where those samples came from, or how many they tested. Come on FDA!

I think it does suggest it's a lot more widespread than we previously knew. If this is the case, I think it's important that we now have genetic evidence of bird to cow, and then back to bird. Beyond the movement of cattle, this would be a way that you could see rapid spread across the nation.

I think the fact that early cases were said to have yellowed, viscous milk perhaps slowed the response. It's time(past time) to move to more mandatory testing given the newer information of asymptomatic infections.