Our Perspective on Avian Influenza and the Current Narrative

As an organization, we have been closely following avian influenza (bird flu) outbreaks, mitigation efforts, and the media-driven hysteria surrounding them for years. This is not a new issue for Big Ag or its consumers. In fact, Pennsylvania made headlines in 1983 when it identified the first recorded case of an H5N2 strain in poultry. https://www.abc27.com/news/environment/april-1983-bird-flu-hits-pennsylvania/

Notably, experimental infections conducted a year before the Pennsylvania outbreak found that H5N2 viruses from wild ducks and an H5N1 strain isolated in the state’s quarantine zone led to asymptomatic infections in chickens, with virus replication occurring only in the upper respiratory tract. These studies suggest that if the initial H5N2 virus in Pennsylvania originated from waterbirds, its adaptation to chickens likely involved key changes in host specificity and pathogenicity before the emergence of the Chicken/Penn./83 virus. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3985875/

While mainstream media fuels panic with words like “pandemic,” we can’t help but ask: Why is this an issue now? Could it be as simple as declining human flu vaccine sales? Regardless of the motivations behind the narrative, we recognize that two newly appointed federal leaders face a significant challenge. We hope that USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can work together to demonstrate a responsible, transparent approach to managing this issue. Maybe they’ll even consult some of the experts we suggest via the links in comments.

In the meantime, we will continue to pay attention to what our PA state legislators are saying and doing in regard to bird flu in Harrisburg. We cannot have a repeat of what happened during the COVID-19