A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org

@rolandelli @kzodasnowman

Yeah, it's such a gamble somewhere like Amazon for something so specific that could harm you if it's wrong. I'd also say Naomi Wu's stuff is all on the up and up, and that's what I'd get, personally.

@DrPsyBuffy has bought more than one brand, if I'm remembering correctly, but search is broken on this instance, so maybe she'll weigh in if/when she sees this.

@ClimateNewsNow

While it's not a new paper(it's from last year), it's worth highlighting again. Thanks for sharing!

I have done you all a disfavor by putting these two documents in the same thread, but what's done is done. I'm going to try to make this clear.

These are NOT the same documents. One is about only COVID:

https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/376346/9789240090576-eng.pdf

One mentions COVID, but is about ANY airborne pathogen:

https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/376496/9789240089181-eng.pdf

All day every day I see people taking quotes from the second one and talking about how absurd it is to say that about COVID, and every time I look, the document's not actually talking about COVID where they quoted from.

I know this won't stop any of it. It's far from a perfect document and that could be discussed. There's plenty there to disagree with, but, I'd say 90% of the discussion about it that I've seen to date has been uninformed and/or disingenuous.

@IPEdmonton

I think that depends on your soil, largely. In Florida I would never try to plant directly in the sand that comprises our whole property, but at our homestead we have amazing edge-of-forest soil, and we're planning a bit of both raised and in ground.

To be clear, I haven't tried these, but when I was asking here once about how to make raised beds, I got quite a few good suggestions(I think) from aircrete with forms to things like this amazon link.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09H5G3CC8/

I haven't fully figured out how we're doing our raised beds yet, either, so maybe you'll get some ideas we haven't thought about yet, too.

@IPEdmonton

Raised beds? Or in ground?

Pro tip:

This applies to H5N1, too. The fire hose of bad science right now is crazy and all of the same COVID grifters are latching on trying to use "the next pandemic" to support their views on COVID.

Lots of absolutely well meaning people in my timeline right now are sharing stuff from people they've spent the last 4 years saying were unreliable.

Likewise, lots of "here's who you should listen to" followed by stuff from people saying the opposite on both the COVID and H5N1 fronts right now.

Being the "first" to put something up, or mashing the boost button just because something supports what you believe isn't as helpful as taking the time to critically think about it first.

I know saying this is pointless against the volume of bad science, but, try to think about it anyway.

I don't really have time today to do a deep dive write-up on these, as I often do for articles. However, if you're interested in the possibility of airborne transmission, where the science has been on this, and how far off the possibility has been(spoiler alert, 5 amino acid substitutions) these articles are a good starting point. I'm also putting them here so I can refer back to them in the future if needed.

"Influenza A viruses are transmitted via the air from the nasal respiratory epithelium of ferrets"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14626-0

"Airborne Transmission of Influenza A/H5N1 Virus Between Ferrets"

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1213362

"The Potential for Respiratory Droplet–Transmissible A/H5N1 Influenza Virus to Evolve in a Mammalian Host"

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1222526

"A comprehensive review of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1: An imminent threat at doorstep"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477893923000984

"The Role of Airborne Particles in the Epidemiology of Clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza Virus in Commercial Poultry Production Units"

https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/15/4/1002

"Influenza: Five questions on H5N1"(which I admittedly mostly found interesting because it extensively quotes Jeremy Farrar 11 years before he became the head of the WHO in 2023)

https://www.nature.com/articles/486456a

An article from today about the possibility of this H5N1 spread being similar to the spread of contagious mastitis in cows. It's from the perspective of the industry.

https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/20994-usda-working-to-provide-answers-on-h5n1-in-dairy

I also read way more about contagious mastitis than I ever wanted to, but, if anyone is interested this article was a good review.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7649072/

@HelenBranswell on top of it again today. Lots of good tidbits in this one.

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/24/h5n1-bird-flu-usda-orders-dairy-cow-testing/

"an animal to test negative for the virus before it can be moved across state lines"

"farms that move cattle across state lines and have animals that test positive for H5N1 or any influenza A virus will be required to open their books to investigators, so they can trace movement of cattle from infected herds"

"The order currently applies to lactating dairy cows but could be expanded if necessary"

"He sidestepped questions about where the positive milk samples were purchased and what percentage of samples contained traces of the virus when tested by PCR — polymerase chain reaction testing — saying that the agency has an analysis of its work that will be made public “very shortly.”"

"There was some support offered for the oft-repeated claim that pasteurization would kill the virus in milk from by Jeanne Marrazzo, the new NIAID director. She said that some NIAID-funded researchers had also found PCR-positive milk in samples bought from stores, but that when the researchers tried to grow virus from those samples, they could not.

“The results that those investigators got indicated that the PCR-positive material was not alive,” Marrazzo said, though she warned that work was done on a small number of samples and needs to be confirmed by the larger FDA effort."

"Watson confirmed that USDA has met some resistance from farmers who they’ve suspected of having infected cows. Farmers have been told they must discard any milk produced by cows that are infected with H5N1 virus, though it’s not clear if or how that recommendation is being enforced."

@ABScientist @Omega_Scribet @biancanogrady

While THIS document was about all airborne pathogens

https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/376496/9789240089181-eng.pdf

They already did the COVID specific one less than a month ago.

https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/376346/9789240090576-eng.pdf

Presented without further comment.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-019-0143-6

"The adaptive immune response to influenza virus infection is multifaceted and complex, involving antibody and cellular responses at both systemic and mucosal levels. Immune responses to natural infection with influenza virus in humans are relatively broad and long-lived, but influenza viruses can escape from these responses over time owing to their high mutation rates and antigenic flexibility."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5291154/

"In summary, herd effects are assumed with influenza vaccine programmes, but there are few studies that quantify the herd effect of vaccination. We found low-level evidence supporting a herd effect of vaccination on influenza virus infection in contacts of vaccinated persons. Further rigorous studies are needed in order to better understand under which circumstances vaccination may prevent influenza and its complications in contacts."

@PacificNic @Edelruth @NilaJones

Exactly this. I went from 99% confidence, to maybe 90% on this after more reading.

We've cut out grocery store milk as of last night, but, it's a tiny bit of our diet and just seemed like something really easy to do for us.

@PacificNic @Edelruth @NilaJones

Correct. Further testing necessary.

@mfennvt

Yes, but really just because someone just sent it to me to try to "talk me down from the ledge" about bird flu. I don't think I'm on any ledge here and I certainly don't need Leana Wen to talk me down

One of the easiest blocks in history.

I've never turned on the option to not receive DMs from people you don't follow(or something like that) but maybe I should 😂