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Dairy worker bird flu case shows need for protective gear, US CDC study shows

https:// www.reuters.com /world/us/dairy-worker-bird-flu-case-shows-need-protective-gear-us-cdc-study-shows-2024-05-03/

I find it worth noting that, as opposed to COVID, this time around it's affecting rural parts of the US first, instead of urban areas. It's the rural areas that, generally, didn't take COVID seriously.

I wonder if this time around they're going to stick to their guns about how simple protective measures somehow infringe on their freedumbs, or if a little prudence will suddenly become "the American Way."

I imagine that the conspiracy theories about the Biden administration deliberately infecting cows with H5N1 over 5G networks have already started.

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14 comments

  • How about reevaluating our Dairy husbandry practices as well to address overcrowding and feed quality of the cows? Its healthier for all. The cows, the workers, the quality of the milk and ultimately the health of the people. The cows are crammed into barns where they spend virtually their entire lives indoors. They are fed all together with processed food made from literal chicken excrement that they eat off the floor through confinement systems and head slots. Its a dismal existence. Why are we not talking about this? It has been proposed in the past that the practice of feeding dairy cows chicken litter ( poop ) be banned due to the risk of contamination, yet we still allow this practice in the US.

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  • Thank you. Finally a story about this that addresses the real problem and not "there's flu in our milk!!!!"

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    • I think that flu being in the milk is also a problem, at least if people are gonna consume it raw.

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  • Animal agriculture should be stopped

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    • Imagine the options we would have if we instead subsidized plant-based alternatives and the research to get us away from meat and dairy. There's no reason for continuing the cruelty and wasting natural resources like we do when we know better.

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    • If you want to be vegan, that's an option available to you today.

      If you want everyone else to be vegan, I don't think that that's likely to happen unless there are preferable options available. If someone can grow steaks in a lab and make them cost-effective and have an equally-good experience as a chunk of a cow, then sure.

      I don't think that that's impossible. But I also don't think that the technology is there yet in 2024. My guess is that there's gonna be some heavy lifting from genetic engineering companies that hasn't happened yet. When we get to the point that we can just go make a cow milk tree or an egg vine or something on that level, then sure.

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  • Before they die, they will spread it around, it's what sheeple do.

    Edit: in case it may somehow not be entirely obvious, by "sheeple" I meant conservatives, who have the luxury of choices, not the workers.

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    • Maybe don't associate people who work with livestock with the actual livestock?

      Sheep are culled.

      Let's not make such implications.

      Also, it's not their fault that their employers are not giving them the necessary protective gear.

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      • "Sheeple" by definition means people. It's an extremely common term. Are you trying to make a joke here? If so I missed it.

        Trump's plan to let the previous pandemic virus work its way through the population was a culling, of the worker class, so long as the elite class remained on their private yachts away from it all then the virus could just sweep through the population unchecked with no need for monetary aid to try to mitigate its ravages, i.e. bUt ThE eCoNoMy ThO. And it was very "successful" too, killing off more people than all wars combined iirc, and primarily affecting those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, yet leaving the billionaire class mostly untouched.

        I have no idea where you got "people who work with livestock" from - OP was talking about conservatives here, e.g. "It’s the rural areas that, generally, didn’t take COVID seriously" means like governors of those states and people who vote for them, made all the more obvious by statements such as the last sentence "I imagine that the conspiracy theories about the Biden administration deliberately infecting cows with H5N1 over 5G networks have already started." Can you explain how you translated this into "people who work with livestock"?

        Anyway yes, the people who work with livestock probably do need protective gear now that the threat is becoming apparent. I went off on an attempt at a deep dive trying to find out how widespread use of PPP is for poultry workers where the threat has already been known since long ago but I am no expect there so figured I'd leave it for someone who truly knows to speak.

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