RFK Jr. Unveils Disturbing Plan to Combat Bird Flu

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thinks that the vertebrate flu should beryllium allowed to dispersed unchecked to place birds that could beryllium immune.

Kennedy said successful a caller Fox News interrogation that farmers “should see possibly the anticipation of letting it tally done the flock truthful that we tin place the birds, and sphere the birds that are immune to it,” an thought that experts accidental would beryllium unsafe and wounded the poultry industry.

“That’s a truly unspeakable idea, for immoderate 1 of a fig of reasons,” Dr. Gail Hansen, a erstwhile authorities veterinarian for Kansas, told The New York Times.

Every caller corruption of the H5N1 microorganism is simply a accidental that it volition mutate and go much almighty and dispersed further, though it inactive hasn’t been proven to dispersed betwixt people. But if it were allowed to dispersed done millions of birds, “that’s virtually 5 cardinal chances for that microorganism to replicate oregon to mutate,” Hansen said.

While Kennedy’s section doesn’t person immoderate regulatory powers implicit farms, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins agrees.

“There are immoderate farmers that are retired determination that are consenting to truly effort this connected a aviator arsenic we physique the harmless perimeter astir them to spot if determination is simply a mode guardant with immunity,” Rollins said connected Fox News successful February.

If this program really goes into effect, the microorganism would dispersed among a larger fig of birds, putting much radical and different animals astatine hazard of infection. Right now, if a poultry workplace has a affirmative trial for the virus, it is reimbursed for culling its flocks to forestall its spread.

If the microorganism were allowed to dispersed connected purpose, vertebrate flu “infections would origin precise achy deaths successful astir 100 percent of the chickens and turkeys,” Dr. David Swayne, a poultry veterinarian and erstwhile USDA employee, told the Times, adding that it would beryllium “inhumane, resulting successful an unacceptable carnal payment crisis.”

Kennedy isn’t adjacent operating connected the close information: He claimed successful 1 interrogation that the microorganism didn’t look to impact chaotic birds, but determination are galore documented cases of chaotic birds dying from H5N1. Kennedy besides theorizes that immoderate chickens and turkeys whitethorn beryllium immune, but scientists accidental that poultry lacks the genes needed to defy the virus.

It seems that Kennedy’s pseudoscience is spreading unchecked arsenic well. He’s already been putting his anti-vaccine beliefs into practice astatine HHS by curtailing aggregate vaccine probe projects and directing resources toward researching the debunked conspiracy that vaccines origin autism. His latest thought connected the vertebrate flu is unsafe and could extremity up having disastrous consequences for nationalist wellness and U.S. agriculture.