By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
Natural immunity has handled the problem of avian influenza or bird flu over a century of observation. Human agency has worsened the global burden of this viral zoonosis with every public health intervention. About 20 years ago China and other countries in Southeast Asia started vaccinating poultry. Because the shots are not sterilizing, they allowed more birds to carry the virus, spread it, and the birds failed to develop natural mucosal immunity.
In the summer of 2023, the French attempted to vaccinate meat ducks and it backfired with greater spread of the virus and a response from the US and Japan by banning French duck meat.
The current strain of H5N1 or highly pathogenic avian influenza circulating in the United States is most likely a result of serial passage or gain-of-function research conducted in the US Poultry Research Center in Athens, Georgia. The experiments were successful in expanding the host range into mallard ducks and migratory waterfowl allowing spread from farm to farm. However, this adaptation resulted in the virus no longer being characterized as “highly pathogenic” with no large numbers of lethal cases in birds and very mild and rare cases in farm workers.
Legacy reports carried forward to May 30, 2024, indicate the case fatality rate (CFR) for human infection with avian influenza A(H5N1) virus was 52%, with 463 deaths out of 889 reported cases largely from Southeast Asia since January 2003. Malnutrition, very poor working conditions, families sleeping with sick chickens, lack of early therapeutics and care for secondary bacterial pneumonia appear to be the explanation for deaths from this treatable illness. McCullough Foundation was unable to find any human deaths in the US over decades of avain influenza.
Despite these observations, bio-security measures have been taken in multiple states (Texas, Michigan, Iowa, Colorado) which are “bird-brained” unnecessary government PCR testing of poultry, culling or intentionally killing healthy flocks of chickens with payment to farms for testing and culling. US FDA approved the CSL Seqirus Audenz antigen vaccine in 2021 based on antibody studies in normal human volunteers. There were 11/2395 deaths from the vaccine and 1/796 with placebo in the volunteer group indicating it was not safe for human use. Oblivious to the risks, the European Commission's Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority tapped CSL Seqirus to deliver 665,000 doses of its bird flu vaccine for 15 European countries. Under a four-year contract, authorities can purchase up to 40 million more doses. Moderna received an infusion of US government dollars ($176M) to develop mRNA human bird flu vaccines.
Like a bad science fiction movie, none of the WHO, CDC, or other public health agency briefings have recognized the virus is spreading by reinfection of farm after farm by migratory waterfowl. To sort out all of this madness and give us a practical approach to influenza A (including H5N1), our guest is Dr. Clayton Baker, a Harvard trained internist in Western New York State who is a voice of sanity in the midst of bird flu madness.
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Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
President, McCullough Foundation
Bird-Brained Public Health Management of H5N1 Avian Influenza