H5N1 Outbreak in Central Valley, California: dead cows piled by roadsides | Hacker News Reader

H5N1 Outbreak in Central Valley, California: dead cows piled by roadsides

latimes.com

39 pointsspats199012 comments

I have to assume that a vaccine using legacy methods (let alone newer technology) would be easily achieved at this point, and that at least in humans, a possible outbreak could be blunted in under a year. So is it just not cost effective to do it for cattle?

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edit: leaving my original typed comment in place above. But I found this - https://texasfarmbureau.org/usda-approves-first-h5n1-vaccine...

There's also this recent-ish piece regarding the USDA's response to bird flu in cows thus far.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/inside-the-bungled-bir...

In trials now, trials expect to be completed in five weeks:

https://drgnews.com/2024/10/23/south-dakota-company-to-test-...

Possibly related [1]

[1] - https://www.kvpr.org/health/2024-10-11/photos-of-dead-cattle...

Looking at the picture of the Central Valley dairy farm, maybe this shouldn’t exist? Where is the grass?

Absolutely should not exist. California’s Central Valley cattle farms are notorious for giving people a glimpse of how inhumane factory farming is. You drive down I-5 and the smell of these places is overpowering for miles. You can’t ignore them and when you see them you know that no creature should be forced to live like that. I’ve heard from several friends that those farms contributed to their decision to stop eating animal products.

These farms are inhumane for the animals, and they exist as a fragile ecosystem at risk of bacterial or viral outbreaks. In nature, plants and animals coexist with insects and microorganisms in ways which are more robust to catastrophic collapse. But these cattle farms are like agricultural monocrops - dead dirt and one kind of creature, fed by machines and vulnerable to the rapid spread of disease and sickness. It’s bad for the animals and it’s bad for us.

So you’re absolutely right, this should not exist!

I second this. I'm not a full vegetarian or especially an advocate, but I decided 8 years ago to stop eating red meat and my health has worked out just fine. It's very possible to live a full life without consuming beef and pork, and while it's harder to cut chicken out, I personally believe cows perceive their situations more clearly than chickens. Additional benefit: this automatically removes most processed meats from your diet.

Cattle meat is by far one of the most energy dense sources of nutrition, and if done right societally, one of the most efficient too. The issue is that the US (and most of the developing world) does it wrong by adopting factory farming to mass produce meat and destroy ecosystems within a few decades.

If you're eating cattle/red meat, do it right - buy fresh, don't touch frozen and always go for grassfed. That itself makes it much safer than eating chicken (which is more likely to be factory-farmed) or eating fish (which is more prone to chemical contamination these days).

What happens when you freeze meat that you want to avoid?

I didn't quite understand your statement. I was referring to store-bought frozen meat, as they're usually teeming with nitrates, benzoates and other chemical preservatives.

Oh I see, so it's not the freezing process. Freezing is just a proxy for other bad stuff?

> The diseased carcasses are brought to Baker’s rendering site in the Fresno County town of Kerman, where the bodies are “recycled” and turned into “high protein” animal feed and fertilizer...... ”

Ahh USA, where the standards for the meat industry are obnoxiously low.

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