I note this article this week: https://apnews.com/article/usda-firings-doge-bird-flu-trump-fdd6495cbe44c96d471ae8c6cf4dd0a8. That version says that the Trump Administration is trying to rehire bird flu experts that got fired. Most of the news outlets frame it differently: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/usda-accidentally-fired-officials-bird-flu-rehire-rcna192716. Suddenly it is the USDA at fault not the Trump administration’s chainsaw fool.

Should we worry about bird flu? Oh, yes, I think so. I have been wondering why we still have chicken to eat and chicken in the stores, if millions of chickens are being wiped out to try to prevent H5N1 bird influenza from moving into humans. This article explains in unreassuring detail how factory farms, packing chickens together, and killing them at 6 weeks old for meat, puts pressure on the virus to become more deadly and kill the host. In wild birds the influenza virus wants to spread, so it’s better not to kill the host fast. That is not true on our national and international big factory farms.

The Unnatural History of Bird Flu

Firing the people working the track the H5N1 bird influenza and trying to stop it if it starts going human to human, well. Is that injustice or arrogance or stupidity? Or all three? And who wants to work for the government now? It is being treated as a corporation, but it isn’t a corporation. Public service often pays less. Good luck hiring the best and brightest who want to serve our country and humanity.

This is the worst year in the US for influenza since 2017-2018 so far. That is without the H5N1 bird influenza really getting in to people. Here is the graph for the week ending February 15th from the CDC. I keep an eye on it all through influenza season.

The article on H5N1 bird influenza is the best argument I’ve ever read for choosing not to eat meat. I like meat, but the factory farming is going to more countries. It may produce more eggs and more chickens, but if it is also the perfect breeding ground for lethal influenza, that changes my viewpoint. We cannot go on. We will have another pandemic.

Why are humans such fools?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: injustice.