What I Learned From My Awful Experience with Avian Flu

[Egg Blues]

I don’t believe that. 90-100% mortality in 48 hours is the claim. If that was so, infected flocks wouldn’t need to be culled. They’d simply cull themselves in 2 days. Which isn’t what actually happens when HPAI hits a flock. Otherwise we wouldn’t have stories like the OP. A flock could just be quarantined until all the birds die in a few hours. Instead, what actually happens is some birds die, some birds don’t. The government culls the birds that don’t.

It would do no good to have a group of birds develop immunity--that would nullify the profits of those creating vaccines to sell. Furthermore, having a group that had developed immunity would show up the vaccinated group, health-wise, so that people became wise to the vaccine's deleterious effects.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

You don't believe it because you've made a number of very erroneous assumptions. Not surprising, you have to hunt a bit to find out much about why they cull the birds that they do, and why the numbers don't match up with some of the worst claims about HPAI.

Do you want an education, or are you comfortable with your current state of knowledge?

What are my erroneous assumptions?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

What are my erroneous assumptions?

Among the most obvious

1) that HPAI is something that can be identified with specificity by analysis of the infecting virus.

2) that only HPAI-infected flocks are culled.

3) someone seems to have offered an erroneous figure for HPAI mortality, which you have accepted.

 

[MysteryChicken]

There's this good reading.
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2014/415418/

 

[U_Stormcrow]

It would do no good to have a group of birds develop immunity--that would nullify the profits of those creating vaccines to sell. Furthermore, having a group that had developed immunity would show up the vaccinated group, health-wise, so that people became wise to the vaccine's deleterious effects.

Nice theory.

Only there isn't a broadly effective vaccine, the first one approved in the US wasn't till 2007, was only effective against some H5N1 strains, and the US Gov't (among others) DISCOURAGES its use. More recently, some bivalent (meaning mostly effective against two strains) and even a trivalent (mostly effective against three strains) vaccine or two have been developed - mostly in China. There are potentially 22 clades of H5 and H7 strains of AI which could potentially present in Highly pathogenic forms, and more than a hundred others known to present in Low Pathogenic forms, a few of which have been confirmed in humans - and have also been found in pigs, horses, wild songbirds, and waterfowl.

Nor do the vaccines prevent infection, they merely minimize mortality while the infected birds become a carrier risk to others.

 

[Egg Blues]

Nor do the vaccines prevent infection, they merely minimize mortality while the infected birds become a carrier risk to others.

Exactly. Same with Marek's, same with Covid. So why do we place such importance on the vaccines?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Exactly. Same with Marek's, same with Covid. So why do we place such importance on the vaccines?

In the case of HPAI, we DO NOT. In the case of Mareks, destroy the flock, cleanse the ground, start over.* As a policy, Marek's vaccinations (while available) are not broadly encouraged.

*People who view their chickens as pets are seemingly willing to spend a lot of money to maintain a disease reservior in the environment. Not really my thing, and not the recommendation of any government body I am aware of. People do strange things.

This is a chicken forum, lets stick to chickens, shall we? I am uninterested in your politics, particularly as your the factual premise for your opinions appears "shaky". When and If chickens get COVID in any significant rate of infection, I'd be happy to discuss.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Among the most obvious

1) that HPAI is something that can be identified with specificity by analysis of the infecting virus.

2) that only HPAI-infected flocks are culled.

3) someone seems to have offered an erroneous figure for HPAI mortality, which you have accepted.

1. It can be detected through various tests, some direct, some indirect. I am aware that HPAI infections are often identified by the presence of antibodies, thus surviving birds who have beat the infection will test positive and be culled. There are also rapid antigen tests and other more in-depth tests. Therefore I’ve made no erroneous assumption there. That antibody and antigen tests are often used only strengthens my point. Often the quick tests only show the bird had the virus at some point, possibly recently. An otherwise healthy acting bird that tests positive with an indirect test could be a bird that had HPAI and beat it, the exact kind of bird that I assert shouldn’t be culled.

2. I am aware that the government culls for several other diseases besides HPAI, and I’ve made no claim to the contrary, so again no wrong assumption there. I have similar objections to many diseases the government culls for.

3. I very obviously rejected the quoted statistic that didn’t make sense to me. I don’t see how you can claim I accepted it. And yet I do not doubt that in some particular setting, likely with highly inbred factory birds, there was once an instance of 90-100% mortality. Even if that happens in some circumstances, I am skeptical 90-100% mortality is the typical result in a backyard flock of healthy, generically diverse, birds, and the statistic should not be used to justify scorched earth culling.

I think you’re the one making some erroneous assumptions about my stance. You’ve read a lot into what I’ve said that I have never stated.

 

[Egg Blues]

In the case of HPAI, we DO NOT. In the case of Mareks, destroy the flock, cleanse the ground, start over.* As a policy, Marek's vaccinations (while available) are not broadly encouraged.

*People who view their chickens as pets are seemingly willing to spend a lot of money to maintain a disease reservior in the environment. Not really my thing, and not the recommendation of any government body I am aware of. People do strange things.

This is a chicken forum, lets stick to chickens, shall we? I am uninterested in your politics, particularly as your the factual premise for your opinions appears "shaky". When and If chickens get COVID in any significant rate of infection, I'd be happy to discuss.

This isn't about politics--it's about science, which I had understood you to be favoring. It was when I discovered symptoms of Marek's disease in some of my chickens that I made the serendipitous discovery that the Marek's vaccine and the COVID vaccine have very much in common. Both are known as "leaky vaccines," which means they prevent symptoms, but do not prevent infection--and the recipient of the vaccine can still spread the virus to others. Both diseases, Marek's and COVID, are identified by PCR testing. While in the case of the Marek's vaccine, which has been in use for decades, the evidence has stacked up against it to the point where many no longer recommend it as having been a good policy, it has become virtually essential because the natural immunity is reduced and the virus has become so prevalent on account of the vaccine.

Any "vaccine" that is a "leaky vaccine," in which disease is not prevented, does not even count as a proper "vaccine" in my book. It's too bad that it took so many decades for the science to catch up on the Marek's situation to the point where it's too late to reverse the damage. But why aren't scientists learning from this instead of launching on the same path again? What happened to true science--evidence-based understandings and practice?

Maybe you're right. Maybe politics happened. I would rather focus on the science part myself.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

1. It can be detected through various tests, some direct, some indirect. I am aware that HPAI infections are often identified by the presence of antibodies, thus surviving birds who have beat the infection will test positive and be culled. There are also rapid antigen tests and other more in-depth tests. Therefore I’ve made no erroneous assumption there. That antibody and antigen tests are often used only strengthens my point. Often the quick tests only show the bird had the virus at some point, possibly recently. An otherwise healthy acting bird that tests positive with an indirect test could be a bird that had HPAI and beat it, the exact kind of bird that I assert shouldn’t be culled.

2. I am aware that the government culls for several other diseases besides HPAI, and I’ve made no claim to the contrary, so again no wrong assumption there. I have similar objections to many diseases the government culls for.

3. I very obviously rejected the quoted statistic that didn’t make sense to me. I don’t see how you can claim I accepted it. And yet I do not doubt that in some particular setting, likely with highly inbred factory birds, there was once an instance of 90-100% mortality. Even if that happens in some circumstances, I am skeptical 90-100% mortality is the typical result in a backyard flock of healthy, generically diverse, birds, and the statistic should not be used to justify scorched earth culling.

I think you’re the one making some erroneous assumptions about my stance. You’ve read a lot into what I’ve said that I have never stated.

Still wrong. I'll help, maybe then things will become more clear.

1]
HPAI is DEFINITIONAL.
The World Organization for Animal Health (the OEI), defines HPAI in three parts (though is reviewing the third, as some recent presentations have defied the definition):

A) The disease is caused by Influenza type A;
B) It kills 75% or more of eight inoculated chickens within 10 days;
C) The presence of multiple dibasic amino acids at a particular location on the H protein.

Until about 20 years ago, all the HPAI outbreaks identified were with H5 or H7 virii families which satisfed the third requirement. More recently, H2, H4, H8, H10, and H14 strains with HPAI characteristics have been identified.

In other words, if it is an Influenza A virus that doesn't kill, relatively quickly, 3/4 or more of the birds injected in a lab test, while its AI, its not HPAI. Genetic testing doesn't identify it as HPAI, its mortality rate does.


2]
Because LPAI (Low Pathenogenic Avian Influenza) has been known int he wild to spontaneously present in a Highly Pathenogenic form, its the policy of the US and elsewhere (and has been for many years) to destroy flocks which testing shows were exposed to any H5 or H7 Avian Influenza strain, regardless of symptoms presented. That why published mortality rates are so low, compared to the HPAI definition. Because LPAI infections are responsible for the vast majority of cullings. Even the linked study on the last page of the Nigerian outbreak makes the mistake. The majority of the infections were, definitionally, not HPAI. Not that they weren't fatal to some percentage of birds, not that they weren't (possibly - I've read the study, it has some limitations due to the timing and number of samples they could test) H5N1 strains which could have presented in an HPAI form - but definitionally, they weren't HPAI in the majority of cases. Not enough birds died of the disease, as opposed to the cullings.

3]
If you were aware of the definition (see 1a, b above) you'd have rejected out of hand any suggestion that HPAI routinely kills 90-100% of infected birds in two days.