A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org

I don't know how to say this politely. If you take Leana Wen seriously, you're not serious and should probably keep your opinions to yourself.

@MelodyWainscott

We kicked around a bunch of non-dairy options last night. We haven't ever done it, but it's an option for sure.

My kids already much prefer flax milk, so, that's what goes on cereal and whatnot already.

@MelodyWainscott

I would hope that it's been/being investigated, but, I was pretty disappointed that the FDA just went "It probably works, but, we haven't tested it." Seems like something that should have been extensively tested ahead of that moment. It really wouldn't have been THAT hard to do.

Great source info on the different ways to treat milk, though. Thank you for that! I definitely learned something there.

I've also been asked a lot whether we're in panic mode here, and if we're running off to the homestead.

No, not at this point. We, obviously, already take airborne precautions. Please don't forget about COVID.

Last night my wife and I did make the decision to stop using grocery store milk. We really only buy 2 gallons a month. It's not a big deal to us, so it seems like an easy thing to do. We use it to make kefir, and kefir can, under some circumstances, harbor and facilitate the growth of viruses from what I've read. So the kefir grains are going to stop being fed for the moment. Sorry kefir grains.

If I bought a lot of ground beef from the store would I be worried? Hard to tell since it's not something we do, but, I guess I'd be cooking it to a higher temperature, at least.

Know your egg substitutes.

Crises precipitate change. Don't be afraid to be flexible as circumstances change.

Otherwise, we're just keeping up to date and seeing what goes on.

Who am I following on this? @HelenBranswell has a string of great articles at statnews.com.

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/05/bird-flu-cdc-urges-doctors-watch-for-h5n1-in-farm-workers/

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/18/h5n1-bird-flu-scientists-want-usda-genetic-data-faster/

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/21/usda-releases-h5n1-bird-flu-genetic-data-eagerly-awaited-by-scientists/

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/23/h5n1-bird-flu-genetic-analysis/

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/23/h5n1-bird-flu-virus-particles-in-pasteurized-milk-fda/

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/24/h5n1-bird-flu-vaccine-preparedness/

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.

@PacificNic @Edelruth @NilaJones

And one more interesting one, from @HelenBranswell with something I hadn't seen elsewhere yet.

"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."

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/23/h5n1-bird-flu-genetic-analysis/

@PacificNic @Edelruth @NilaJones

The updates to this article add some details that I hadn't seen previously, as well.

https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-government-hot-seat-response-growing-cow-flu-outbreak

@PacificNic @Edelruth @NilaJones

Well, so much for #2 it seems. I guess not all of it's been too viscous to make it to pasteurization and then the market.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/bird-flu-virus-found-in-grocery-milk-as-officials-say-supply-still-safe/ar-AA1nxpSy

@currentbias

It's way out of my wheelhouse, too. I'm just wondering if chewing on an H5N1 infected steak would colonize your mouth and esophagus long before it got to your stomach acid.

But a quick search on this for bacteria didn't lead me to any conclusions, and I don't have enough time to figure it out properly at the moment 😂

@currentbias

I suspect you know more about this than I do, so can you explain this gastric acid idea to me? When you inhale IRPs of, say, COVID, they replicate in your nasopharynx, your mouth, your throat, etc.

Why if you ate viral infected food would it not replicate "above" the stomach and any acid?

@currentbias

I had the same thought, especially because there were no die-offs noted in the wild bird population where they were shot, but, this threw at least some cold water on the idea:

"Time-resolved phylogenetic and amino acid analysis found that all the sequences from the bush dogs were the result of a single introduction, however whilst there were amino acid substitutions, these do not appear to have been consistently maintained. Taken together, this suggests that transfer between dogs is unlikely, and that a common source of infection is responsible, although it is impossible to definitively conclude whether dog-to-dog transmission occurred. Critically, of the original bush dog population within the enclosure, 5 animals survived remaining clinically normal throughout. This may indicate that these dogs had not received a dose of virus sufficient to drive a productive infection. This is further supported by low level serological responses being detected in two of the animals (cases 11 and 12) that may indicate exposure to antigen or a low-level infection that was cleared by the host immune response."

Also:

"From the perspective of zoonotic risk, the well-established marker of mammalian adaptation (E627K) was detected in all but one of the bush dog sequences generated."

Seems to indicate that the source was likely non-mammalian. But I agree, it's not an airtight case that there was zero mammal to mammal transmission.

Thanks for pointing out the paper! It was a little morbid, but I learned some things.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.18.590032v1.full

@trendless

I felt like my post on this paper was long enough already that 99% of people weren't going to read it, but, overall the liver and kidney(your filters) were where a lot of viral RNA and subgenomic RNA were found.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(24)00171-3/fulltext

I'm also going to hammer the point endlessly, but, your body also has to try to remove microplastics and PFAs, so people's livers and kidneys probably weren't in the best shape before COVID.

Blaming it on drinking alone is lazy.

@PacificNic @Edelruth @NilaJones

I would HOPE, for example, that someone at the CDC has been in contact with, say, dairy farmers, to make sure that any sick people get reported, but, who knows?

@PacificNic @Edelruth @NilaJones

Sure, and I get the concern, especially because the latest spread in cows has been said to be asymptomatic when visually inspecting the cows.

I think it points out the holes in the system. Who determines that they should be testing pigs? Who pays for it? Do farmers have to have their pigs tested? At what point do we start mass-surveilling people looking for signs?

I've been looking for reports of lots of sick people without COVID wastewater numbers going up, for instance, but is there anyone at the USDA or CDC looking for such things? You just wouldn't know and it's unclear who would make that call. They're all fine questions that I don't think have great answers.