“Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman who is President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been off the political stage for more than 15 years.” “Yet over the years his views have aligned in many ways with those of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Trump’s choice for health and human services secretary, and Dr. Weldon’s potential boss. The two have maintained a 25-year relationship. Like Mr. Kennedy, Dr. Weldon, 71, has claimed that some children may develop autism when vaccinated against measles because of genetics or other factors, despite dozens of robust studies that thoroughly disproved the claim.”
to read the full article go to https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/health/dave-weldon-cdc.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
“The risk of a bird flu pandemic is rising” By Jessica Hamzelou
“How worried should we be about bird flu? It’s a question that I’ve been asked by friends and colleagues several times over the last couple of weeks. Their concerns have been spurred by some potentially worrisome developments in the US, including the continued spread of the virus among dairy cattle, the detection of the virus in a pig as well as cow’s milk, and—most concerning of all—the growing number of human infections.” “I’ll admit that I’m worried. We don’t yet have any evidence that the virus is spreading between people, but the risk of a potential pandemic has increased since I last covered this topic a couple of months ago. And once you combine that increased risk with an upcoming change in presidential administration that might leave US health agencies in the hands of a vaccine denier who promotes the consumption of raw milk, well … it’s not exactly a comforting thought.”
“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the new administration’s selection for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the N.I.H., routinely castigates federal scientists and is a staunch critic of conventional pharmaceuticals and vaccines, with a long record of spreading falsehoods about vaccine safety.
He has said that he would steer the agency into a yearslong “break” from infectious disease research, focusing instead on chronic diseases.”
“But scientists are clear-eyed about the risk ahead.
With reservoirs of virus persisting in dairy cattle, poultry and wild birds, there are ample opportunities for spillover into humans. Meanwhile, the virus is turning up in raw milk on store shelves. And flu season is raising the troubling prospect that bird flu could commingle with seasonal influenza.
“This virus is not so easy to get rid of,” says Dr. Jürgen Richt, a veterinary microbiologist at Kansas State University. “We will have to live with it for some years to come.““
“I Ran Operation Warp Speed. I’m Concerned About Bird Flu”
By David A. Kessler
“No one knows how many mutations will be required to set off human-to-human respiratory spread. That could require many mutations and may never happen. But we could also be just two or three mutations away. If the virus begins to transmit efficiently among humans, it will be very difficult to contain, according to the Johns Hopkins assessment, and “the likelihood of a pandemic is very high.”
The incoming Trump administration needs to be prepared.”
“The USDA, CDC, and FDA can all credibly claim that they should be leading the response, but it doesn’t seem like any one organization has particularly taken up the mantle as the one in charge. USDA regulates agriculture; CDC is concerned about the spillover risk to human health; the FDA regulates milk. And they’ve all been involved, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to find one organization that would say they are running lead on this — that they are the H5 influenza czar overseeing and coordinating all aspects of the response.”
“President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University physician and economist known for his controversial views during the Covid-19 pandemic, as director of the National Institutes of Health.”……..
“Bhattacharya was one of the main authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. The open letter, published in October 2020 and signed by thousands of public health scientists, argued against lockdown measures and in favor of a hands-off approach to the pandemic, relying on letting low-risk people build up herd immunity — a suggestion then-NIH Director Francis Collins called dangerous.”
“If you’re a public-health person and you’re trying to make a decision, you have this very narrow view of what the right decision is, and that is something that will save a life,” Dr. Collins explained in a Covid discussion this summer for Braver Angels, an outfit that aims to bridge political divides. A video of the discussion surfaced this week on X.com.
Dr. Collins continued: “So you attach infinite value to stopping the disease and saving a life. You attach a zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people’s lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never quite recovered.” This, he explained, “is a public-health mindset,” which was “another mistake we made.”
“Dr. Bhattacharya, a Stanford University medical economist and outspoken opponent of lockdowns, masking, school closures and other Covid-19 mitigation measures, and Mr. Trump’s other health picks have one thing in common. They are all considered Covid contrarians whose views raise questions about how they would handle an infectious disease crisis.”
“Bird flu has been detected in a batch of raw milk sold in California stores, and the state’s department of public health said Sunday that the public should not drink it.”
“No one has become sick nor contracted the disease from this lot of raw milk, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) noted. However, “out of an abundance of caution, and due to the ongoing spread of bird flu in dairy cows, poultry, and sporadic human cases, consumers should not consume any of the affected raw milk,” the agency said in a news release.”
H5 bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows with several recent human cases in U.S. dairy and poultry workers.
While the current public health risk is low, CDC is watching the situation carefully and working with states to monitor people with animal exposures.
CDC is using its flu surveillance systems to monitor for H5 bird flu activity in people.
“Health officials on Friday confirmed bird flu in a California child — the first reported case in a U.S. minor.
The child had mild symptoms, was treated with antiviral medication and is recovering, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in announcing the test results. State officials have said the child attends day care and lives in Alameda County, which includes Oakland and surrounding communities, but released no other details.
The infection brings the reported number of U.S. bird flu cases this year to 55, including 29 in California, the CDC said. Most were farmworkers who tested positive with mild symptoms.”
“Failure to control H5N1 among American livestock could have global consequences, and this demands urgent attention. The United States has done little to reassure the world that it has the outbreak contained.”…………………..
“The world cannot afford to gamble with this virus, letting it spread in animals and hoping it never sparks a serious outbreak — or crossing our fingers that its effects won’t be serious in people. Time will tell. I hope we are not watching the start of a new pandemic unfold, with both the American and the international communities burying our heads in the sand rather than confronting potential danger.”
Different Virus, ‘Same Mistakes’: Birx Sounds Alarm About Bird Flu Response
Deborah Birx a physician who served as former President Trump’s coronavirus response coordinator, warned that the United States is making the “same mistakes” with the bird flu as it did with COVID-19.“This is why I’m really concerned because we’re making the same mistakes today that we made with COVID. And what do I mean by that? We’re not testing to really see how many people have been exposed and got asymptomatically infected,” Birx told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Tuesday.”
to read the full article go to https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/different-virus-same-mistakes-birx-sounds-alarm-about-bird-flu-response/
