If the damn raw milk enthusiasts are the vector for another pandemic, I'm going to be pissed. Fortunately, flu viruses are generally well understood, but everyone I personally know in healthcare...
If the damn raw milk enthusiasts are the vector for another pandemic, I'm going to be pissed. Fortunately, flu viruses are generally well understood, but everyone I personally know in healthcare may just walk off the job tomorrow if there's another pandemic caused by fools that don't take basic precautions like pasteurizing milk.
Flu viruses may be well understood in general, but H5N1 is terrifying. The CFR is like 50%, and it hits young adults the hardest. A 50% CFR could, with very little exaggeration, be called...
Flu viruses may be well understood in general, but H5N1 is terrifying. The CFR is like 50%, and it hits young adults the hardest. A 50% CFR could, with very little exaggeration, be called apocalyptic. It would almost certainly kill significantly more than 50% of the global population due to higher-order effects, especially considering that it hits the most economically-productive age groups the hardest.
Even the lower estimates of the "true" fatality rate put it at around 10%, which is around at least 10 times more deadly than COVID-19, and that's not even taking into account higher-order effects.
Frankly, I'm not sure why the world isn't completely freaking out over this. It's been keeping me up at night. The only thing going for us is that we're somewhat better-prepared for it than we were for COVID-19, since the CDC has always expected that a pandemic influenza would be the most important thing to worry about, and also we have mRNA vaccine technology now.
Exactly this. Zoonotic diseases are no joke. I had the swine variant of flu in early 2018. I was a highly active, healthy individual at the time. I ate a whole food plant based diet, exercised,...
Exactly this. Zoonotic diseases are no joke. I had the swine variant of flu in early 2018. I was a highly active, healthy individual at the time. I ate a whole food plant based diet, exercised, had an active job lifting and walking all day. I got the flu and never fully recovered. About 2 months later I developed edema and gained nearly 25 lbs over a period of a few weeks.
Then I developed a mild cough as well. I went to the doc and they did an ekg, chest xray, and blood labs at the clinic. They were alarmed and wanted to admit me to ER but I was feeling fine otherwise and declined. They scheduled an echocardiogram and a referal to a cardiologist.
Turns out, that strain of flu killed over 52,000 and many more hospitalizations. Me? The echo showed an EF of 20%. I was in heart failure. I should not have even been walking around never mind I was doing my job of throwing around 35 lb cinder blocks to build tables for nursery sales at a big box store.
Luckily for me, I had insurance, got the care I needed and fully recovered. I am still good with an EF of 51%. Its the lower end of normal and I'm not impaired by it. I maybe could have died like so many others. Instead I forever need to take meds due to the heart damage. I'm okay with that.
The moral being that the overall burden and cost of animal agriculture goes far beyond the obvious. Diseases like bird flu, swine flu and covid that can pass from animal to animal to human are risks that can be avoided. Poor practices in animal ag make it so its not 'if' but 'when' these outbreaks will occur. Something needs to change. I don't know how to fix it. I have opinions on what could be a better path forward, but they aren't worth my breath to air. Sadly corporations and the system are far more insterested in supporting profits over public safety, workers rights and animal welfare.
We have learned nothing. Vaccinations are just a bandaid (For the record I am fully vaccinated).
We need a sea change. <steps on soap box> People need to take responsibility. How you spend you hard earned money can send a message. Think about the fact that each time you buy an animal product that you support alot of disfunction the animal ag indusrty stands for. You line the pockets of those who just don't care about you or anyone else. Again, the burden goes far beyond what you would assume. It impacts every day health, global health and security, reduced forestization, worker abuses, climate impacts, I could go on and on.
<steps off soap box> As you can see, this got personal for me, it may already be personal for you all as well. I wish everyone the best. As always, trying not to let the world's negativity drill into the safe space I try to create for myself. Be well, friends.
We all really need to wake up about how bad animal agriculture is for all of us. I’ve also been on a whole food plant based diet, for about a year, and now I feel ashamed for how much stuff I had...
We all really need to wake up about how bad animal agriculture is for all of us. I’ve also been on a whole food plant based diet, for about a year, and now I feel ashamed for how much stuff I had just swept under the rug. On a personal level, I was released from the hospital for a gallbladder removal surgery three days ago, which I am told happened because of how bad my diet was before I made the change.
I don’t think everyone needs to become vegan, but the relationship that people have with animal products desperately needs to change. It’s bad for long-term health, it’s extremely questionable morally, and the environmental impacts are unconscionable.
I don't....I don't know what to do. For physical health reasons as well as morally I'm thinking I need to heavily step back participation in anything to do with the agricultural industrial...
I don't....I don't know what to do. For physical health reasons as well as morally I'm thinking I need to heavily step back participation in anything to do with the agricultural industrial complex? Be vegan aside from the fish I catch myself and the chickens I'm willing to slaughter myself? Spiritually that's probably a good move to be stricter about veganism for half the year as well.
And I guess the acceptance that nothing I do will "save" me and my family, only lessen the moral implication of death and suffering.
Do what you can, that's all that you do. The system lays a heavy burden on individuals, so try not to let that weigh you down. I do think its important to be mindful in everyday choices. We don't...
Do what you can, that's all that you do. The system lays a heavy burden on individuals, so try not to let that weigh you down. I do think its important to be mindful in everyday choices. We don't make those in a fishbowl. There are families and friends to take into account, outside pressures, pressures we place upon ourselves. Its very important to be kind to ourselves in the process as well as to others.
I've been fully vegan for almost 2 decades, mostly whole food plant based. That was my choice and I have zero judgements regarding others. I will say I think that lifestyle change made a huge difference in my health in general and my cardiac health in particular. I am always happy to discuss the subject with anyone who is curious.
It sounds like you do know what you need to do. What's making you feel so apprehensive? I'm pretty lazy and I eat a vegetarian, mostly vegan diet. Maybe I can offer you some pointers?
It sounds like you do know what you need to do. What's making you feel so apprehensive? I'm pretty lazy and I eat a vegetarian, mostly vegan diet. Maybe I can offer you some pointers?
Thanks, I could use some help. Half of it is habit: meals are centered around meat and thing around it are side dishes. This is fixable by introduction and habit building. Half of it is cost....
Thanks, I could use some help.
Half of it is habit: meals are centered around meat and thing around it are side dishes. This is fixable by introduction and habit building.
Half of it is cost. Looking at flyers today, Chicken is $2.50/lb, cheaper if it's on sale. Basically any time I go into a store I can nearly guarantee some kind of meat will be $2/lb or cheaper. Tomatoes are $4/lb, oranges $3.50, fresh greens are always more etc, they rarely go on sale and the quality is compromised if so.
Beans rice peas are cheaper. So again it goes back to habit. Myself, I could survive on rice noodles and broth with frozen spinach in it probably indefinitely. It's harder to feed a family.
I've tried all kinds of tofu and veg based fake meat products, it doesn't get eaten by the family and I'm the only one finishing it up. Stews and curries and wet type foods with 2+ ingredients mixed in are out, even with meat they're barely tolerated.
I wonder where you might live where prices are like that. It's practically the opposite where I live, where meat tends to be much more expensive than vegetables, categorically. I just checked out...
I wonder where you might live where prices are like that. It's practically the opposite where I live, where meat tends to be much more expensive than vegetables, categorically. I just checked out the prices at Walmart for meat and they did have chicken for under $2/lb, but it was the bone-in drumsticks and wings.
Kids are hard. You have to beasically force them to eat food they may not like, but if you try too hard they will develop an even stronger aversion. The best way to get them to eat them, I think, is to "hide" them in tasty dishes they will tolerate, bring them in on the cooking process so they can see that it's OK to eat. But no matter what tactic you take it will take a long time to get them to eat right.
It’s funny. Looking back all of the foods I refused to eat were meat based. Sausage, meat loaf - basically any weird ground up meat concoction. I wasn’t obsessed with veggies but got plenty of...
It’s funny. Looking back all of the foods I refused to eat were meat based. Sausage, meat loaf - basically any weird ground up meat concoction. I wasn’t obsessed with veggies but got plenty of exposure to tasty foods of all types.
Ah, cooking for a family is out of my depth. In my house it's just me and my husband and most of the time even my husband chooses meat over my veggie meals. I think it sounds like you have a good...
Ah, cooking for a family is out of my depth. In my house it's just me and my husband and most of the time even my husband chooses meat over my veggie meals.
I think it sounds like you have a good idea on how to make it work for yourself. If you've got the space to raise chickens, you've probably got enough space to grow some of the easier vegetables, like lettuce*, which should help with costs. As far as getting the family on board, I think they have to agree to reduce their meat intake first, otherwise they're never going to accept compromises on the diet that they prefer. Are you the person who primarily cooks for your family? Do you think your family would be open to discussing a reduction in meat consumption on environmental, moral, and/or health grounds?
*I buy a whole head of lettuce, then when I'm done I stick the bottom in a pot with dirt, and a new head grows. It needs a little water and sunlight. I tend to kill even the hardiest of plants, but even I can get two or three heads out of each store bought head this way. You can do the same thing with green onions, but it's even easier. They don't even need dirt, just an empty jam jar half filled with water.
Yeah, I'm reading some older Tildes threads like this and going to research how to make tempeh and seitan. https://tildes.net/~food/19y1/vegans_of_tildes_what_are_your_favourite_sources_of_protein...
Yeah,
I'm reading some older Tildes threads like this and going to research how to make tempeh and seitan.
I've also tried making my own tofu and it's too time consuming + results not fool proof enough.
But for big lifestyle changes like this, it'll be a marathon not a sprint. We've sort of started, by reducing meat consumption twice a week for religious reasons (2/7 reduction), then only expecting it for dinner (further 2/3) reduction. The bigger change was when we moved out of the city, to where we could grow things and raise chickens. So....maybe we'll never be fully vegan, but I could hopefully see us one day going down to local beef and self raised chickens + foraged / hunted animals.
Seitan can be found in grocery stores sometimes. I really like a chorizo seitan that we buy because it's heavily spiced. I cook it up with scrambled eggs for a simple breakfast wrap occasionally....
Seitan can be found in grocery stores sometimes. I really like a chorizo seitan that we buy because it's heavily spiced. I cook it up with scrambled eggs for a simple breakfast wrap occasionally. It doesn't crisp like sausage crumbles, but it's very moist and tender in an appreciable way.
With tofu, I find that preparation matters quite a lot. Here's my preferred procedure for making firm tofu. Freeze it. This helps give it a better texture. Let it thaw. Press it. Cut it into...
With tofu, I find that preparation matters quite a lot. Here's my preferred procedure for making firm tofu.
Freeze it. This helps give it a better texture.
Let it thaw.
Press it.
Cut it into cubes.
Pan-fry it, preferably with some kind of sauce.
If done right, the result should be agreeably crispy.
I like to distinguish between zoom levels. Zooming out, if you want to change society, personally being a vegetarian is sort of like a protest vote in an election. You need a big movement to have...
I like to distinguish between zoom levels. Zooming out, if you want to change society, personally being a vegetarian is sort of like a protest vote in an election. You need a big movement to have a big effect. It does add up, but it’s mostly others doing the adding. I think it makes sense to cooperate with large movements you support, but not to worry all that much about your personal contribution.
At a smaller scale, you might support your local farmer or vegetarian restaurant, but again, one customer more or less isn’t going to make or break a business. Or zooming in further, you might be vegetarian for personal heath reasons.
This is true more generally. The world is large and for the most part, we can only make small changes. Unless you see an unusual opportunity, it’s better to look for meaning at a personal, local level and not think of big, society-wide events as something you have any control over.
When thinking about big scary events like hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and pandemics, we normally think about how we can prepare rather than how to prevent them.
Sorry, Ejection Fraction. Normal is 55-80%. If your EF falls below 35%, they generally want to implant a difibrilator as your risk of sudden cardiac death is fairly high. I wore an AED vest 24/7...
Sorry, Ejection Fraction. Normal is 55-80%. If your EF falls below 35%, they generally want to implant a difibrilator as your risk of sudden cardiac death is fairly high. I wore an AED vest 24/7 for three months upon my diagnoses. My EF was at 38% at the 3 month point in my recovery.
If we were a rational society we’d be significantly scaling back livestock production and consumption. Should we have milk and steaks or let a double-digit percent of the population die?
If we were a rational society we’d be significantly scaling back livestock production and consumption. Should we have milk and steaks or let a double-digit percent of the population die?
Because COVID "wasn't that bad" and "it was just a couple old people that died." I've heard it over and over. It will be worse if this leads to a pandemic. People will take it less seriously and...
Frankly, I'm not sure why the world isn't completely freaking out over this. It's been keeping me up at night.
Because COVID "wasn't that bad" and "it was just a couple old people that died." I've heard it over and over. It will be worse if this leads to a pandemic. People will take it less seriously and push back against mandates even more. People are still in the anger stage of grief after losing years from our lives. Another pandemic so soon is terrifying.
Because there's rumblings of some new bird or swine flu in the media every other year and they almost always turn out to be nothingburgers. People have been conditioned to ignore it.
Frankly, I'm not sure why the world isn't completely freaking out over this.
Because there's rumblings of some new bird or swine flu in the media every other year and they almost always turn out to be nothingburgers. People have been conditioned to ignore it.
I can't stand the raw milk folks either, but since these guys tested commercial milk products, it might be a bigger deal than that. Sure, it's currently killed by pasteurization... but I think the...
I can't stand the raw milk folks either, but since these guys tested commercial milk products, it might be a bigger deal than that. Sure, it's currently killed by pasteurization... but I think the virus continuing to spread and potentially evolve is a big threat even without the raw milk people.
Looks like cats who drank raw milk from infected cows contracted H5N1 and died. Maybe it's time to start stocking up on masks and getting vaccinated for the flu (though I'm not sure how much that...
Looks like cats who drank raw milk from infected cows contracted H5N1 and died. Maybe it's time to start stocking up on masks and getting vaccinated for the flu (though I'm not sure how much that will help at this point).
Your Local Epidemiologist had a critical take on the H5N1 response. Also, an earlier article that provided more broad context My takeaways: there has been cow-to-human transmission but not...
The article itself covers the pig thing specifically
The article itself covers the pig thing specifically
Although the risk of infection from dairy products is very low, the worry is that the wider H5N1 spreads in cows, the more opportunities the virus has to adapt to transmit efficiently in mammalian hosts. It also increase the chances H5N1 could get into pigs, where it could swap genes and form hybrids with other flu viruses. Viruses that mutate to be able to spread easily through one species of mammals could find it easier to infect people.
Andrew Bowman, a veterinary epidemiologist at Ohio State University, had a hunch. He had been struck by the huge amounts of H5N1 virus he’d seen in milk from cows infected with the bird flu and thought that at least some virus was getting off of farms and going downstream — onto store shelves.
He knew the Food and Drug Administration was working on its own national survey of the milk supply. But he was impatient. So he and a graduate student went on a road trip: 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.
The researchers expect additional lab studies currently underway to show that those samples don’t contain live virus with the capability to cause human infections, meaning that the risk of pasteurized milk to consumer health is still very low. But the prevalence of viral genetic material in the products they sampled suggest that the H5N1 outbreak is likely far more widespread in dairy cows than official counts indicate. So far, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reported 33 herds in eight states have tested positive for H5N1.
...
The testing by PCR — polymerase chain reaction — turned up only genetic traces of the virus, not evidence that it’s alive or infectious. The FDA has been adamant that H5N1, which is heat-sensitive, is very likely killed through the process of pasteurization.
The agency is still assessing those samples for viral viability by attempting to grow virus from milk found to contain RNA from H5N1. The FDA plans to release results of those studies in the coming days. On Wednesday, Jeanne Marrazzo, the new director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters that a team of NIAID-funded researchers had early data to suggest that pasteurization does appear to be effective.
...
Although the risk of infection from dairy products is very low, the worry is that the wider H5N1 spreads in cows, the more opportunities the virus has to adapt to transmit efficiently in mammalian hosts. It also increase the chances H5N1 could get into pigs, where it could swap genes and form hybrids with other flu viruses. Viruses that mutate to be able to spread easily through one species of mammals could find it easier to infect people.
...
In H5N1-infected cows, the first thing that tends to happen is their appetite disappears and their activity goes down. Then their milk production dries up. In some animals, the milk they do produce turns yellow and thick. “It’s an odd thing that seems to be unique to this particular virus,” said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. And it’s one of the chief red flags that dairy farmers are supposed to be on the lookout for when deciding whether to test their herds. If milk from asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic cows looks normal but can carry virus, it would obscure the need for testing.
To really understand the scale of spread as well as possible mechanisms of viral transmission, it’s necessary to conduct widespread testing of animals with and without symptoms, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center. “If we’re only testing cows with outward symptoms, we’re missing infections in those without.”
...
On Wednesday, the agency issued a federal order requiring an animal to test negative for the virus before it can be transported across state lines. It also requires laboratories and state veterinarians to report to the USDA any animals that have tested positive for H5N1 or any other influenza A virus. But outside of interstate travel, testing remains voluntary and encouraged only for visibly ill animals.
Public health experts told STAT that such narrow testing criteria are likely distorting the true extent of the outbreak. “I have not seen evidence that makes me want to discard the fear that testing practices are absolutely shaping what we think we know about this virus,” Nuzzo said. “We just don’t have the right data right now to tell us what’s going on.”
The situation is reminiscent, she said, of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the early weeks of that outbreak, testing policies were narrow — limited to symptomatic individuals who had traveled to China. Meanwhile, the SARS-CoV-2 virus was spreading undetected throughout the U.S., as genomic analyses would later show. Later, when at-home tests became widely available, official counts became unreliable, leaving state and local health departments in the dark.
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.
Can I ask a really uniformed question? I swim a lot in the ocean and often times there are big groups (like 15-40 individuals) of seagulls or grebes or pelicans just chilling in the water. My...
Can I ask a really uniformed question?
I swim a lot in the ocean and often times there are big groups (like 15-40 individuals) of seagulls or grebes or pelicans just chilling in the water. My worry is that on low wind, stagnant days I swim through a lot of their shit. Is there any chance of picking up H5N1 that way? Assuming no, but just wanted to check.
The risk would be low. When influenza is in birds it needs to have a certain type of HA to be able to bind to bird host cells (SAα2,3), in humans it needs a different type (SAα2,6). Avian...
The risk would be low. When influenza is in birds it needs to have a certain type of HA to be able to bind to bird host cells (SAα2,3), in humans it needs a different type (SAα2,6). Avian influenza makes the news when we see it spreading in mammals because it means it gained a new binding strategy to deal with mammal cells. Pigs are the big worry because they can transmit human binding and avian binding influenza so they make a perfect mixing pot for avian influenzas to get decent at human spread. Seagulls and such are always pooping in areas that mammals like seals are in, and it is super uncommon to see seal die offs from influenza, enough so that when it happens it makes waves in the influenza surveillance community. But we have seen seal die offs, there was one about a year or 2 ago that we did a lot of work on.
The cow to human transmissions we are seeing now are rare, and cows have much much closer contact with humans than birds and are already mammals (but not as big a deal as pigs). So you are likely fine in the water where it should be diluted, but don't go licking up or snorting poop if you can help it.
Awesome, thank you! I figured I was being silly but thought with all the knowledgable people in the thread I'd just ask. My mom is volunteering at an elephant seal pupping area and said there were...
Awesome, thank you! I figured I was being silly but thought with all the knowledgable people in the thread I'd just ask. My mom is volunteering at an elephant seal pupping area and said there were concerns of transmission there and I extrapolated to where we were.
So you are likely fine in the water where it should be diluted, but don't go licking up or snorting poop if you can help it.
I would say that if you see a lot of dead birds in the area or hear about seals or other mammals dying it would also be wise to stay further away as it might indicate a larger degree of infection.
I would say that if you see a lot of dead birds in the area or hear about seals or other mammals dying it would also be wise to stay further away as it might indicate a larger degree of infection.
I don't know a lot about viruses other than what I've learned from books and TV shows. Well, that and what we all learned from COVID. Can someone with more knowledge tell me whether H5N1 actually...
I don't know a lot about viruses other than what I've learned from books and TV shows. Well, that and what we all learned from COVID.
Can someone with more knowledge tell me whether H5N1 actually has a lot of potential to be another pandemic? A light Google search showed that it seems to have a pretty low R-naught in humans when compared to other viruses.
The R-naught in humans is currently 0; i.e., it cannot currently spread from person to person. If it gains the ability to do so, it almost certainly will become a pandemic. The fact that is is...
it seems to have a pretty low R-naught in humans
The R-naught in humans is currently 0; i.e., it cannot currently spread from person to person. If it gains the ability to do so, it almost certainly will become a pandemic. The fact that is is currently spreading in cows is very worrying, given that 1. cows are mammals, and therefore much closer to us than birds, and 2. humans interact with cows a lot, which gives the virus a lot of opportunity to infect humans and potentially develop the ability to spread between humans.
One source said it had an R-naught of .05 in humans. Sorry, I don't have the time to Google that again. But your point stands. I suppose we are one mutation away from a potentially horrible...
One source said it had an R-naught of .05 in humans. Sorry, I don't have the time to Google that again.
But your point stands. I suppose we are one mutation away from a potentially horrible situation in any case.
From what I've read the flu has a superpower that makes it particularly nasty. It can and will find and recombine with leftover flu bits that an organism was infected with at an earlier date. This...
From what I've read the flu has a superpower that makes it particularly nasty. It can and will find and recombine with leftover flu bits that an organism was infected with at an earlier date. This gives it the ability to basically pick up parts from other H-virus and swap them out for genetic upgrades. This isn't done in any kind of intelligent way, it's just how the virus operates, and it's random chance if it even finds such a bit to use when replicating.
If it someday gobbles up the right piece of covid or the regular flu, it can inherit features of those other viruses and create a hybrid. That's how H5 could make a fast jump into other species. It's a rare event as I understand it, but the point is this - every infection it pulls off in a human, or in any other species, is like playing roulette. It could instantly become as transmissible as that other flu, though odds are any such mutations are going to be less lethal because it'll also inherit other genetic properties. Less lethal in this context can still get you a 45% death rate globally, wiping out fully half of the world population in under a year.
Having it floating around in raw milk for people to drink is taking unnecessary risks, it's frankly insane. That should be stopped, period. Deny it the opportunity to mutate. Make sure we have a working mRNA vaccine that works on H5N1 and variants, get the bugs out of that tech because we're going to need it someday. It's just a matter of time.
Influenza can be harsh and does kill a lot of people every year, which is why we have global collaboration groups tracking it (such as CIERR, which Andy Bowman is part of). But we also pay a lot...
Influenza can be harsh and does kill a lot of people every year, which is why we have global collaboration groups tracking it (such as CIERR, which Andy Bowman is part of). But we also pay a lot more attention to influenza, know way more about it, and have vaccine pipelines already working which can respond much faster.
COVID was rough in large part because we had a long period of time not knowing enough and not having vaccines.
Can an influenza cause a pandemic? Of course, it has happened before multiple times. Are we better prepared for an influenza pandemic than a novel pathogen? Yes.
This may be a stupid question, but is it possible that consuming dairy products with the dead virus could have a vaccine-like effect? I assume we don't have enough info to make a claim like that,...
This may be a stupid question, but is it possible that consuming dairy products with the dead virus could have a vaccine-like effect? I assume we don't have enough info to make a claim like that, just wondering if it's theoretically possible.
It's unlikely to be dangerous IF the dairy was pasturized. The virus samples from this article were detectible but not active/replicating so it shouldn't be possible to pass an infection. If some...
It's unlikely to be dangerous IF the dairy was pasturized. The virus samples from this article were detectible but not active/replicating so it shouldn't be possible to pass an infection.
If some is consuming unpasteurized dairy (or the much less likely scenario of something slipping through), that might be different case but no one knows for sure yet.
Right, I was just wondering if the dead virus could act as a vaccine of some sort if consumed, but I guess the pasteurization process causes too much damage for that.
Right, I was just wondering if the dead virus could act as a vaccine of some sort if consumed, but I guess the pasteurization process causes too much damage for that.
I wonder, too, if our digestive systems, particular our stomachs, would also destroy the remains of the viruses or proteins. Seems like vaccines are always shots or skin pricks of some kind (like...
I wonder, too, if our digestive systems, particular our stomachs, would also destroy the remains of the viruses or proteins. Seems like vaccines are always shots or skin pricks of some kind (like the tuberculous BCG vaccine). I'm not a medical worker, but I feel like I've never heard of a vaccine that's administered orally. Not to say they don't exist at all, but there has to be a reason why they're rare, given that an oral route would probably be preferred over shots by most.
There's an oral polio vaccine! It's notable because It's cheap to produce, and It works via an attenuated polio virus. This means that it causes a mild polio infection, which can spread to...
I'm not a medical worker, but I feel like I've never heard of a vaccine that's administered orally.
There's an oral polio vaccine! It's notable because
It's cheap to produce, and
It works via an attenuated polio virus. This means that it causes a mild polio infection, which can spread to others---usually good, because it means that one dose can vaccinate multiple people, but it can sometimes revert to a more dangerous form of polio. This is important for the fight to eradicate polio, since "wild" polio is expected to be eradicated in the next few years, but "vaccine" polio will be around a while longer.
That's cool! I bet this is super helpful given the places we'll need to go to to eradicate polio. Do you happen to know why we don't have more orally-administered vaccines? Are they just that much...
That's cool! I bet this is super helpful given the places we'll need to go to to eradicate polio.
Do you happen to know why we don't have more orally-administered vaccines? Are they just that much harder to make, so the "juice isn't worth the squeeze?"
True. Building up a tolerance via oral consumption is more for allergies, which is probably where the thought came from initially. Now that you say it, it makes sense that that's likely a...
True. Building up a tolerance via oral consumption is more for allergies, which is probably where the thought came from initially. Now that you say it, it makes sense that that's likely a different process (as you can see, this is very much not my wheelhouse lol).
No, but not because the viruses are damaged. Attenuated viruses have been used in a wide range of vaccines. Vaccines work because they (1) have proteins associated with a particular target...
No, but not because the viruses are damaged. Attenuated viruses have been used in a wide range of vaccines. Vaccines work because they (1) have proteins associated with a particular target pathogen and (2) are associated with some kind of damage to the body. This damage often comes from the subcutaneous injection with a needle and causes the immune system to start searching for a culprit. The immune system finds the vaccine particles and associates the damage from the needle with the antigens in the vaccine and produces antibodies for the pathogen.
If there is no damage, there will likely be no immune response and therefore no immunity.
If it's pasteurised it's highly unlikely but it seems consuming raw milk could be a risk. Recently it was reported that cats living on farms who drank raw milk from infected cows contracted the...
If it's pasteurised it's highly unlikely but it seems consuming raw milk could be a risk. Recently it was reported that cats living on farms who drank raw milk from infected cows contracted the disease and some of them died.
If the damn raw milk enthusiasts are the vector for another pandemic, I'm going to be pissed. Fortunately, flu viruses are generally well understood, but everyone I personally know in healthcare may just walk off the job tomorrow if there's another pandemic caused by fools that don't take basic precautions like pasteurizing milk.
Flu viruses may be well understood in general, but H5N1 is terrifying. The CFR is like 50%, and it hits young adults the hardest. A 50% CFR could, with very little exaggeration, be called apocalyptic. It would almost certainly kill significantly more than 50% of the global population due to higher-order effects, especially considering that it hits the most economically-productive age groups the hardest.
Even the lower estimates of the "true" fatality rate put it at around 10%, which is around at least 10 times more deadly than COVID-19, and that's not even taking into account higher-order effects.
Frankly, I'm not sure why the world isn't completely freaking out over this. It's been keeping me up at night. The only thing going for us is that we're somewhat better-prepared for it than we were for COVID-19, since the CDC has always expected that a pandemic influenza would be the most important thing to worry about, and also we have mRNA vaccine technology now.
Exactly this. Zoonotic diseases are no joke. I had the swine variant of flu in early 2018. I was a highly active, healthy individual at the time. I ate a whole food plant based diet, exercised, had an active job lifting and walking all day. I got the flu and never fully recovered. About 2 months later I developed edema and gained nearly 25 lbs over a period of a few weeks.
Then I developed a mild cough as well. I went to the doc and they did an ekg, chest xray, and blood labs at the clinic. They were alarmed and wanted to admit me to ER but I was feeling fine otherwise and declined. They scheduled an echocardiogram and a referal to a cardiologist.
Turns out, that strain of flu killed over 52,000 and many more hospitalizations. Me? The echo showed an EF of 20%. I was in heart failure. I should not have even been walking around never mind I was doing my job of throwing around 35 lb cinder blocks to build tables for nursery sales at a big box store.
Luckily for me, I had insurance, got the care I needed and fully recovered. I am still good with an EF of 51%. Its the lower end of normal and I'm not impaired by it. I maybe could have died like so many others. Instead I forever need to take meds due to the heart damage. I'm okay with that.
The moral being that the overall burden and cost of animal agriculture goes far beyond the obvious. Diseases like bird flu, swine flu and covid that can pass from animal to animal to human are risks that can be avoided. Poor practices in animal ag make it so its not 'if' but 'when' these outbreaks will occur. Something needs to change. I don't know how to fix it. I have opinions on what could be a better path forward, but they aren't worth my breath to air. Sadly corporations and the system are far more insterested in supporting profits over public safety, workers rights and animal welfare.
We have learned nothing. Vaccinations are just a bandaid (For the record I am fully vaccinated).
We need a sea change. <steps on soap box> People need to take responsibility. How you spend you hard earned money can send a message. Think about the fact that each time you buy an animal product that you support alot of disfunction the animal ag indusrty stands for. You line the pockets of those who just don't care about you or anyone else. Again, the burden goes far beyond what you would assume. It impacts every day health, global health and security, reduced forestization, worker abuses, climate impacts, I could go on and on.
<steps off soap box> As you can see, this got personal for me, it may already be personal for you all as well. I wish everyone the best. As always, trying not to let the world's negativity drill into the safe space I try to create for myself. Be well, friends.
We all really need to wake up about how bad animal agriculture is for all of us. I’ve also been on a whole food plant based diet, for about a year, and now I feel ashamed for how much stuff I had just swept under the rug. On a personal level, I was released from the hospital for a gallbladder removal surgery three days ago, which I am told happened because of how bad my diet was before I made the change.
I don’t think everyone needs to become vegan, but the relationship that people have with animal products desperately needs to change. It’s bad for long-term health, it’s extremely questionable morally, and the environmental impacts are unconscionable.
I don't....I don't know what to do. For physical health reasons as well as morally I'm thinking I need to heavily step back participation in anything to do with the agricultural industrial complex? Be vegan aside from the fish I catch myself and the chickens I'm willing to slaughter myself? Spiritually that's probably a good move to be stricter about veganism for half the year as well.
And I guess the acceptance that nothing I do will "save" me and my family, only lessen the moral implication of death and suffering.
Do what you can, that's all that you do. The system lays a heavy burden on individuals, so try not to let that weigh you down. I do think its important to be mindful in everyday choices. We don't make those in a fishbowl. There are families and friends to take into account, outside pressures, pressures we place upon ourselves. Its very important to be kind to ourselves in the process as well as to others.
I've been fully vegan for almost 2 decades, mostly whole food plant based. That was my choice and I have zero judgements regarding others. I will say I think that lifestyle change made a huge difference in my health in general and my cardiac health in particular. I am always happy to discuss the subject with anyone who is curious.
It sounds like you do know what you need to do. What's making you feel so apprehensive? I'm pretty lazy and I eat a vegetarian, mostly vegan diet. Maybe I can offer you some pointers?
Thanks, I could use some help.
Half of it is habit: meals are centered around meat and thing around it are side dishes. This is fixable by introduction and habit building.
Half of it is cost. Looking at flyers today, Chicken is $2.50/lb, cheaper if it's on sale. Basically any time I go into a store I can nearly guarantee some kind of meat will be $2/lb or cheaper. Tomatoes are $4/lb, oranges $3.50, fresh greens are always more etc, they rarely go on sale and the quality is compromised if so.
Beans rice peas are cheaper. So again it goes back to habit. Myself, I could survive on rice noodles and broth with frozen spinach in it probably indefinitely. It's harder to feed a family.
I've tried all kinds of tofu and veg based fake meat products, it doesn't get eaten by the family and I'm the only one finishing it up. Stews and curries and wet type foods with 2+ ingredients mixed in are out, even with meat they're barely tolerated.
While I'm not giving up, it's an uphill battle.
I wonder where you might live where prices are like that. It's practically the opposite where I live, where meat tends to be much more expensive than vegetables, categorically. I just checked out the prices at Walmart for meat and they did have chicken for under $2/lb, but it was the bone-in drumsticks and wings.
Kids are hard. You have to beasically force them to eat food they may not like, but if you try too hard they will develop an even stronger aversion. The best way to get them to eat them, I think, is to "hide" them in tasty dishes they will tolerate, bring them in on the cooking process so they can see that it's OK to eat. But no matter what tactic you take it will take a long time to get them to eat right.
It’s funny. Looking back all of the foods I refused to eat were meat based. Sausage, meat loaf - basically any weird ground up meat concoction. I wasn’t obsessed with veggies but got plenty of exposure to tasty foods of all types.
Ah, cooking for a family is out of my depth. In my house it's just me and my husband and most of the time even my husband chooses meat over my veggie meals.
I think it sounds like you have a good idea on how to make it work for yourself. If you've got the space to raise chickens, you've probably got enough space to grow some of the easier vegetables, like lettuce*, which should help with costs. As far as getting the family on board, I think they have to agree to reduce their meat intake first, otherwise they're never going to accept compromises on the diet that they prefer. Are you the person who primarily cooks for your family? Do you think your family would be open to discussing a reduction in meat consumption on environmental, moral, and/or health grounds?
*I buy a whole head of lettuce, then when I'm done I stick the bottom in a pot with dirt, and a new head grows. It needs a little water and sunlight. I tend to kill even the hardiest of plants, but even I can get two or three heads out of each store bought head this way. You can do the same thing with green onions, but it's even easier. They don't even need dirt, just an empty jam jar half filled with water.
Yeah,
I'm reading some older Tildes threads like this and going to research how to make tempeh and seitan.
https://tildes.net/~food/19y1/vegans_of_tildes_what_are_your_favourite_sources_of_protein
I've also tried making my own tofu and it's too time consuming + results not fool proof enough.
But for big lifestyle changes like this, it'll be a marathon not a sprint. We've sort of started, by reducing meat consumption twice a week for religious reasons (2/7 reduction), then only expecting it for dinner (further 2/3) reduction. The bigger change was when we moved out of the city, to where we could grow things and raise chickens. So....maybe we'll never be fully vegan, but I could hopefully see us one day going down to local beef and self raised chickens + foraged / hunted animals.
Seitan can be found in grocery stores sometimes. I really like a chorizo seitan that we buy because it's heavily spiced. I cook it up with scrambled eggs for a simple breakfast wrap occasionally. It doesn't crisp like sausage crumbles, but it's very moist and tender in an appreciable way.
If you have a freezer, local beef can be very reasonable
With tofu, I find that preparation matters quite a lot. Here's my preferred procedure for making firm tofu.
If done right, the result should be agreeably crispy.
I like to distinguish between zoom levels. Zooming out, if you want to change society, personally being a vegetarian is sort of like a protest vote in an election. You need a big movement to have a big effect. It does add up, but it’s mostly others doing the adding. I think it makes sense to cooperate with large movements you support, but not to worry all that much about your personal contribution.
At a smaller scale, you might support your local farmer or vegetarian restaurant, but again, one customer more or less isn’t going to make or break a business. Or zooming in further, you might be vegetarian for personal heath reasons.
This is true more generally. The world is large and for the most part, we can only make small changes. Unless you see an unusual opportunity, it’s better to look for meaning at a personal, local level and not think of big, society-wide events as something you have any control over.
When thinking about big scary events like hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and pandemics, we normally think about how we can prepare rather than how to prevent them.
You mentioned your EF was 20% - what's EF?
Sorry, Ejection Fraction. Normal is 55-80%. If your EF falls below 35%, they generally want to implant a difibrilator as your risk of sudden cardiac death is fairly high. I wore an AED vest 24/7 for three months upon my diagnoses. My EF was at 38% at the 3 month point in my recovery.
https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-failure/diagnosing-heart-failure/ejection-fraction-heart-failure-measurement
If we were a rational society we’d be significantly scaling back livestock production and consumption. Should we have milk and steaks or let a double-digit percent of the population die?
Because COVID "wasn't that bad" and "it was just a couple old people that died." I've heard it over and over. It will be worse if this leads to a pandemic. People will take it less seriously and push back against mandates even more. People are still in the anger stage of grief after losing years from our lives. Another pandemic so soon is terrifying.
Because there's rumblings of some new bird or swine flu in the media every other year and they almost always turn out to be nothingburgers. People have been conditioned to ignore it.
I can't stand the raw milk folks either, but since these guys tested commercial milk products, it might be a bigger deal than that. Sure, it's currently killed by pasteurization... but I think the virus continuing to spread and potentially evolve is a big threat even without the raw milk people.
Looks like cats who drank raw milk from infected cows contracted H5N1 and died. Maybe it's time to start stocking up on masks and getting vaccinated for the flu (though I'm not sure how much that will help at this point).
Your Local Epidemiologist had a critical take on the H5N1 response.
Also, an earlier article that provided more broad context
My takeaways:
My own opinion: this reads as USDA being protective of or influenced by dairy industry interests, which is not great but not surprising either.
The article itself covers the pig thing specifically
From the article:
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Can I ask a really uniformed question?
I swim a lot in the ocean and often times there are big groups (like 15-40 individuals) of seagulls or grebes or pelicans just chilling in the water. My worry is that on low wind, stagnant days I swim through a lot of their shit. Is there any chance of picking up H5N1 that way? Assuming no, but just wanted to check.
The risk would be low. When influenza is in birds it needs to have a certain type of HA to be able to bind to bird host cells (SAα2,3), in humans it needs a different type (SAα2,6). Avian influenza makes the news when we see it spreading in mammals because it means it gained a new binding strategy to deal with mammal cells. Pigs are the big worry because they can transmit human binding and avian binding influenza so they make a perfect mixing pot for avian influenzas to get decent at human spread. Seagulls and such are always pooping in areas that mammals like seals are in, and it is super uncommon to see seal die offs from influenza, enough so that when it happens it makes waves in the influenza surveillance community. But we have seen seal die offs, there was one about a year or 2 ago that we did a lot of work on.
The cow to human transmissions we are seeing now are rare, and cows have much much closer contact with humans than birds and are already mammals (but not as big a deal as pigs). So you are likely fine in the water where it should be diluted, but don't go licking up or snorting poop if you can help it.
Awesome, thank you! I figured I was being silly but thought with all the knowledgable people in the thread I'd just ask. My mom is volunteering at an elephant seal pupping area and said there were concerns of transmission there and I extrapolated to where we were.
It's very temping but I'll try to resist!
I would say that if you see a lot of dead birds in the area or hear about seals or other mammals dying it would also be wise to stay further away as it might indicate a larger degree of infection.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.ph/lwdT6
I don't know a lot about viruses other than what I've learned from books and TV shows. Well, that and what we all learned from COVID.
Can someone with more knowledge tell me whether H5N1 actually has a lot of potential to be another pandemic? A light Google search showed that it seems to have a pretty low R-naught in humans when compared to other viruses.
The R-naught in humans is currently 0; i.e., it cannot currently spread from person to person. If it gains the ability to do so, it almost certainly will become a pandemic. The fact that is is currently spreading in cows is very worrying, given that 1. cows are mammals, and therefore much closer to us than birds, and 2. humans interact with cows a lot, which gives the virus a lot of opportunity to infect humans and potentially develop the ability to spread between humans.
One source said it had an R-naught of .05 in humans. Sorry, I don't have the time to Google that again.
But your point stands. I suppose we are one mutation away from a potentially horrible situation in any case.
Not a virologist, but my understanding is that it’s hard to be reassuring because it depends on how it mutates, and we don’t know that.
From what I've read the flu has a superpower that makes it particularly nasty. It can and will find and recombine with leftover flu bits that an organism was infected with at an earlier date. This gives it the ability to basically pick up parts from other H-virus and swap them out for genetic upgrades. This isn't done in any kind of intelligent way, it's just how the virus operates, and it's random chance if it even finds such a bit to use when replicating.
If it someday gobbles up the right piece of covid or the regular flu, it can inherit features of those other viruses and create a hybrid. That's how H5 could make a fast jump into other species. It's a rare event as I understand it, but the point is this - every infection it pulls off in a human, or in any other species, is like playing roulette. It could instantly become as transmissible as that other flu, though odds are any such mutations are going to be less lethal because it'll also inherit other genetic properties. Less lethal in this context can still get you a 45% death rate globally, wiping out fully half of the world population in under a year.
Having it floating around in raw milk for people to drink is taking unnecessary risks, it's frankly insane. That should be stopped, period. Deny it the opportunity to mutate. Make sure we have a working mRNA vaccine that works on H5N1 and variants, get the bugs out of that tech because we're going to need it someday. It's just a matter of time.
Influenza can be harsh and does kill a lot of people every year, which is why we have global collaboration groups tracking it (such as CIERR, which Andy Bowman is part of). But we also pay a lot more attention to influenza, know way more about it, and have vaccine pipelines already working which can respond much faster.
COVID was rough in large part because we had a long period of time not knowing enough and not having vaccines.
Can an influenza cause a pandemic? Of course, it has happened before multiple times. Are we better prepared for an influenza pandemic than a novel pathogen? Yes.
This may be a stupid question, but is it possible that consuming dairy products with the dead virus could have a vaccine-like effect? I assume we don't have enough info to make a claim like that, just wondering if it's theoretically possible.
It’s very unlikely because viruses are damaged too much.
It's unlikely to be dangerous IF the dairy was pasturized. The virus samples from this article were detectible but not active/replicating so it shouldn't be possible to pass an infection.
If some is consuming unpasteurized dairy (or the much less likely scenario of something slipping through), that might be different case but no one knows for sure yet.
Right, I was just wondering if the dead virus could act as a vaccine of some sort if consumed, but I guess the pasteurization process causes too much damage for that.
I wonder, too, if our digestive systems, particular our stomachs, would also destroy the remains of the viruses or proteins. Seems like vaccines are always shots or skin pricks of some kind (like the tuberculous BCG vaccine). I'm not a medical worker, but I feel like I've never heard of a vaccine that's administered orally. Not to say they don't exist at all, but there has to be a reason why they're rare, given that an oral route would probably be preferred over shots by most.
There's an oral polio vaccine! It's notable because
That's cool! I bet this is super helpful given the places we'll need to go to to eradicate polio.
Do you happen to know why we don't have more orally-administered vaccines? Are they just that much harder to make, so the "juice isn't worth the squeeze?"
True. Building up a tolerance via oral consumption is more for allergies, which is probably where the thought came from initially. Now that you say it, it makes sense that that's likely a different process (as you can see, this is very much not my wheelhouse lol).
No, but not because the viruses are damaged. Attenuated viruses have been used in a wide range of vaccines. Vaccines work because they (1) have proteins associated with a particular target pathogen and (2) are associated with some kind of damage to the body. This damage often comes from the subcutaneous injection with a needle and causes the immune system to start searching for a culprit. The immune system finds the vaccine particles and associates the damage from the needle with the antigens in the vaccine and produces antibodies for the pathogen.
If there is no damage, there will likely be no immune response and therefore no immunity.
Woah, really? I'd (somehow) never heard that the method of delivery was so integral to how vaccines function, but that's very cool. Thanks!
If it's pasteurised it's highly unlikely but it seems consuming raw milk could be a risk. Recently it was reported that cats living on farms who drank raw milk from infected cows contracted the disease and some of them died.