Bird Flu Panic Ramps Up as California Declares State of Emergency

Written by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. on December 23, 2024. Posted in Current News

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency for H5N1 avian influenza, commonly known as “bird flu.”

The declaration came after cases were detected in dairy cows on farms in Southern California, according to a press release. Newsom’s office said the cases showed the need to ramp up monitoring and mitigation to stop the spread of the virus.

“This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak,” Newsom said. “While the risk to the public remains low, we will continue to take all necessary steps to prevent the spread of this virus,” he said.

As of Wednesday, there were no cases of person-to-person spread of bird flu in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There also have been no human cases confirmed from consuming milk from an infected cow or eating eggs from an infected chicken, according to internist and bioweapons expert Dr. Meryl Nass.

“Gruesome Newsom had to get into the act, despite no serious cases in CA, and no one who has caught bird flu from milk,” Nass wrote in a Substack post where she provided a history of the disease. Bird flu has been present globally for at least 27 years without causing a major health crisis and has lost virulence over time, she said.

Newsom’s announcement raised concern among critics.

“This order grants significant authority to emergency officials and mandates compliance from residents,” epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher wrote on the Courageous Discourse Substack. “This means the State will have the authority to forcibly enter farms, test their animals, and mandate mass culling at their discretion.”

“It’s coming in from multiple angles today,” Dr. William Makis wrote, referring to Newsom’s announcement and other bird flu headlines. “Looks like this could be the start,” he said, suggesting that public health authorities could announce another pandemic.

Emergency Declaration comes on heels of other recent bird flu developments

Newsom’s announcement comes on the heels of the CDC announcement earlier the same day that the first person in the U.S. to develop severe bird flu illness was hospitalized in Louisiana. The agency said it confirmed the infection last week.

The CDC said the person “had exposure to sick and dead birds in backyard flocks” — which would mark the first case of bird flu from a backyard flock in the U.S. This version of the virus is different from the one found in cattle.

The infected person was over age 65 and had underlying medical conditions, according to ABC News.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services also announced Wednesday the state’s first presumptive case of bird flu, contracted by a poultry worker at a commercial farm in Barron County. Health authorities in Delaware also recently identified a probable case of bird flu through routine influenza surveillance, according to The Guardian.

Also on Wednesday, Los Angeles County health officials announced they are investigating a case of three cats presumed to have bird flu. Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released guidance on how to protect cats from bird flu after two cats may have died from the disease in Texas in March.

Thirteen states will now be required to test bulk milk to examine the extent of the spread among dairy cows and identify new outbreaks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday, adding seven states to the list previously announced on Dec 6.

Labcorp also announced on Tuesday that the first commercial test for H5N1 was now available to the public with a physician’s order.

Since April 2024, there have been 61 human cases of bird flu reported in the U.S., according to the CDC. Nearly all of the cases have been mild. People can also develop asymptomatic cases of the virus.

While the CDC has consistently maintained the risk to the general public is low, some top public health officials in the U.S. and at the World Health Organization have sounded the alarm about possible dangers associated with the virus, including claims that bird flu could be “100 times worse than Covid.”

Critics have called such claims “farcical,” “overblown” and profit-driven “fearmongering” that fuels undue panic and obscures more sober assessments of the current bird flu risks.

“Bird flu is concerning,” Children’s Health Defense Senior Scientist Karl Jablonowski, wrote in a recent op-ed. He added:

“It is a few mutations away from finding the right combination to become communicable between humans, and a novel influenza virus may cause sickness and death. This is as true in 2024 as it was in 100,000 BCE — bird flu has been a looming threat to humans for as long as there have been humans.”

Bird flu concerns have been used to stoke public fear and justify the culling of millions of U.S. chickens, Jablonowski said, which has reportedly driven up egg prices and also resulted in some cases of mild bird flu among the culling staff.

Moderna announces successful animal trial of mRNA bird flu vaccine

The U.S. government holds three FDA-approved H5N1 vaccines in its National Pre-Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Stockpile, one each manufactured by Sanofi, GSK and CSL Seqirus.

In May, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it was preparing 4.8 million doses in case a vaccine was needed for the current outbreak. And in October, the HHS Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority gave these firms $72 million to bolster supplies of their shots.

HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell also said in May that the agency was in talks with Pfizer and Moderna about developing mRNA-based bird flu vaccines.

Moderna said on Wednesday that its mRNA vaccine for the current variant that it is developing with HHS successfully protected ferrets from dying of the virus. Moderna published the results of its trial in Science Translational Medicine, FierceBiotech reported.

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