The US Government Bumbles Its Way Through The H5N1 Pandemic
Remember the old line, “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”? As you are aware the highly pathogenic Avian Influenza strain H5N1 has been raging across the globe for more than two years, killing hundreds of millions of birds, and infecting huge numbers of mammalian species. Most of those mammals have been carnivores, and predatory behavior with infected birds has been assumed to be the mechanism of transmission. On the other hand, there has been some strong circumstantial evidence of transmission from mammal to mammal, especially in the mass death events affecting elephant seals. I noted early in March the first report of H5N1 in dairy cows in Texas, as well as spread of the virus to the last previously unaffected continent of Antarctica. You might assume that the reaction to the infected dairy cows by the USDA and FDA would be swift and comprehensive: given the animal’s critical position in the food chain, the very close and frequent human interaction with these animals, and the fact that the virus reaching out to infect a ruminant for the first time represents a highly significant event. I expected immediate experiments to prove that the extremely high concentration of H5N1 in the milk was completely inactivated by pasteurization—instead we got reassurances that pasteurization ‘should be adequate’ since it inactivates some other viruses. Now almost two months later the FDA is finally reporting that results of the first preliminary experiments (which are not hard to do or time consuming) are supporting this conclusion. Since we are dealing with a virus which has leap-frogged around the world, and already devastated the poultry industries of multiple countries including the US—sending the price of eggs up to six to ten dollars at one point—you might have expected a number of immediate actions from the USDA. We should have learned enough about the role of asymptomatic infection from COVID to begin expeditious sampling of healthy cows across the country, and not waited until reports of sick animals began to filter in from other US farms, now totaling more than 33 herds in nine states. Similarly, immediate sampling of humans in close contact with the animals was a reasonable precaution. After those measures, as well as the quarantining and testing of all cows for interstate transfer, have finally been taken we find out that H5N1 has already spread very widely throughout the country’s dairy herds. How widely is evident from this weeks FDA report that 20% of random retail milk samples from around the country have genetic traces of H5N1. Could we have prevented this by a more proactive approach? I don’t know—but I do know how you guarantee failure. The horse has already bolted from this barn and there will be no chance of controlling the further spread of H5N1.
“I am from the government and I’m here to help you”
Some very prominent scientists around the world have criticized the US government for a lack of transparency and sharing of data regarding this seminal event. This week the USDA released genetic sequence information on viral samples taken from cows, birds, cats (a few have been infected and died) and other mammals associated with the dairy farms. Several experts in molecular evolution have opined that all the viral samples from the cows cluster so closely that it strongly suggests a single spill-over event from birds, with subsequent spread around the country by the movement of cows and humans in the dairy industry. The single sample from the sole infected farm worker however, is a very different strain from the cows, and so far investigation has failed to show any potential chain of connection between many of the affected herds. Maybe the experts in viral evolution are correct, or maybe they have something new to learn about this virus and how it behaves—after all they were universally wrong in the spring of 2020 about how SARS2 would mutate and evolve.
The good news so far is that infection in the cows has not been lethal, but does make them sick and their milk abnormal and unusable. Of course since the experiments have not been done yet, we have no idea how long a cow which appears to be recovered, will go on excreting virus in the milk. Would it matter at all as long as the virus is inactivated by pasteurization? It might to some folks, but assuming the milk looks and tastes normally, the answer is no as far as safe consumption is concerned. Milk is full of the inactivated remains of other bacteria and viruses killed by the process, they are not removed. The question however is very germane to the issue of potential spread of the infection to other cows and the humans handling them. The H5N1 virus has been ubiquitous in the natural environment for over two years and apparently just infected cows for the first time. It is a rather solid bet that some critical mutations have occurred conferring upon the virus an enhanced ability to infect these ungulates. It is not reasonable to believe that with all the virus floating around in birds, the hundreds of millions of cows in the world and their innumerable interactions with birds, that the virus just happened after two years to finally infect a single cow, and that it suddenly was then highly contagious between cows. This situation is worrisome enough, but of greater concern to me is the potential for swine herds to become infected. Pigs of course are omnivores, and the risk of contamination from infected birds seems very real. Pigs also harbor influenza A strains which are already adept at infecting and readily transmitting between humans. If the H5N1 Avian influenza manages to adapt to pigs then there is a high risk of this virus re-assorting with the strains they carry which are adapted to humans.
COVID infections here in the US continue on their post winter peak downward trajectory—there were only 5,600 hospitalizations due to the virus last week. The national waste water surveillance confirms this as well. We can expect a summer bump up in cases as observed during the last three years, but of course the timing is uncertain.
For those still interested in COVID minutia, I will point out that the JN.1 variant, which caused this past winter surge, peaked as a percentage of all viral sequences in early February. Since then it has been slowly replaced by two new variants JN.1.7 and the currently fastest spreading strain PK.2—now top dog at 25% of US sequences. Since we have declining hospitalizations as well as waste water COVID this crucial information is important only for your appearance on Jeopardy.
On the “Let’s be Experimental” front I am highlighting a paper from the April 22, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exploring the action of topical neomycin in the nose of mice (and a few humans) to up-regulate the expression of genes usually triggered by the natural anti-viral cytokine Interferon. Neomycin, an antibiotic, has no direct anti-viral action, but stimulates the production of a number of proteins in the nasal and respiratory mucosa which do have powerful anti-viral activity. These researchers demonstrate and categorize the extent of the response, and that pre-treatment with neomycin protects the mice from lethal SARS2 infection. It has a very significant protective effect from severe disease even when started two days after the mice are dosed with SARS2 (including the major variants from Alpha to Omicron derivatives). A similar cytokine response is seen in the small number of humans they studied. Could there be a low tech, readily available, almost side effect free, off the shelf OTC triple antibiotic ointment at your local CVS that will be shown to have a significant impact on COVID prevention and early treatment? Time will tell; too bad the world never seems to work like that. In the mean time, I personally would be feeling fairly experimental regarding my own nose, although not while partying at the White House with Hunter.
Intranasal neomycin evokes broad-spectrum antiviral immunity in the upper respiratory tract April 22, 2024. PNAS
121 (18) e2319566121
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2319566121
The last several weeks have presented us with scenes of incredible antisemitism and vicious hatred on Left-wing University campuses. It’s one thing to be able to protest the actions of another sovereign state, but something quite different, disturbing and revealing to verbally and physically threaten Jewish people who have absolutely no say in the actions of a foreign government. Chants at Harvard of, “We love you Hamas, and your rockets too” and “death to America”, are sufficient to prove the point. Some University leaders have been paralyzed with fear by these rioters—for rioters is what they are. When they disobey private institutional and societal rules, ethical norms and laws, threaten and harass fellow students and other citizens, destroy private and public property, and block highways for commuters and emergency vehicles, they forfeit any claim to be “peaceful protestors”. At California Polytechnic Humbolt campus, anti-Israeli protestors have occupied the main administration offices for over a week, causing millions of dollars in damage, and shutting down classes that other students have paid dearly to attend. A similar scene is unfolding this morning at Columbia University even as I write. “Mostly peaceful protestors” was a phrase we heard continuously during the summer of 2020, as whole neighborhoods were burned to the ground. The Universities’ leaderships have given us a birds eye view into how cowardly, morally bankrupt and complicit they are. Harvard for example has gone from vigorously denouncing the posting of an antisemitic cartoon by anti-Israeli campus groups in February, to the spectacle of their President testifying to Congress that calls for genocide against Jews must be viewed in context, to the open toleration of hate speech and harassment of Jewish students on campus. Columbia may be even worse. The same administrations which claimed they needed “safe spaces” to protect their goslings from any conservative ideas contrary to their woke agenda, and countenanced the absurdity that speech they don’t agree with is “violence”—now portray themselves as champions of the First Amendment in order to justify their toleration of truly hateful and illegal speech and actions. For the time being we can still vote in a meaningful way in America, and also still vote with our checkbooks.