So, in addition to the hit from culling chickens last year, paying for the vaccine, the big producers will see their income tank way more on average than if they just culled a few states worth of chickens and then sold the remaining at market rates.
On the other hand, this action should lower the price of eggs in the US, and makes it less likely that Trump will have to deal with pro-vaccine folks that don’t want their loved ones to needlessly die. I’m guessing they don’t want to distract their propaganda machine by making it explain that everything is great again, and your personal experience with flu deaths is an outlier.
Also, it will help further isolate the US economy, which should reduce the economic shock if Trump follows through with his plan to launch a four front invasion of Canada, Greenland, Panama and Gaza.
I’m hoping the “they did it so less people will die” theory is correct, to be clear.
The risk and impact to domesticated flocks is increased due to the sheer density of modern poultry operations.
“Overall, the excess death rate for Republican voters was 2.8 percentage points, or 15%, higher than the excess death rate for Democratic voters (95% prediction interval [PI], 1.6-3.7 percentage points). After May 1, 2021, when vaccines were available to all adults, the excess death rate gap between Republican and Democratic voters widened from −0.9 percentage point (95% PI, −2.5 to 0.3 percentage points) to 7.7 percentage points (95% PI, 6.0-9.3 percentage points) in the adjusted analysis; the excess death rate among Republican voters was 43% higher than the excess death rate among Democratic voters. The gap in excess death rates between Republican and Democratic voters was larger in counties with lower vaccination rates and was primarily noted in voters residing in Ohio [1].
Somewhat morbid, but one more pandemic would probably permanently shift some swing states’ partisan balances.
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
The number of chickens killed by bird flu is miniscule compared to the amount that have been culled by hyperventilation bureaucrats. Chickens have survived thousands of years without being rendered extinct by a virus, that's not going to suddenly change, because that's how evolutionary dynamics work.
So around the same time as the Spanish flu pandemic?
Chickens have survived for thousands of years, but not in quantities and conditions that we cultivate them in today to feed ourselves.
Sure, in an environment that’s completely different from an industrial farming operation.
If they didn’t cull our poultry industry—as a whole—would be ineligible for export to most countries.
If you think about it, veterinarians are a evolutionary adaptation as well!
Edit: stetrain phrased it better :)
In my country, if any factory farm is hit by any virus, the meat is considered tainted and cannot be sold (wouldn't be bought by big retailers anyway) until the virus is cleared.
For poultry it can means 3 months of throwing eggs away. It's more economical to kill all the chickens and start from scratch. If the contamination reach your neighbours, they will do the same thing (so you want to do it early, and radically).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek's_disease
Current strains are hitting 100% mortality rates in unvaccinated chickens, and it can spread over a mile on the wind. Wild turkeys are asymptomatic carriers.
There might be more chickens in one mega-farm than there used to be in the wild in their original homeland in Southeast Asia.
Currently you're just parroting conspiratorial disinformation.
I did a web search for you (it's not difficult, you should try it one day) and this came up:
Egg prices are a meme. Our egg prices are high while our vaccinating neighbours’ aren’t. We don’t want to import their cheap eggs. We don’t want to trash our export prospects by loosening culling requirements. So the only choice left is vaccination.
Here's the CBC talking why Canadian egg prices have been relatively stable so far (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/egg-prices-avian-flu-canada-u...). No mention of vaccines.
Government websites about poultry and HPIA state (...last updated in 2023 >.>) state that we're still doing "stamping out" as opposed to vaccines (though we do have a task force!) https://inspection.canada.ca/en/animal-health/terrestrial-an...
Never heard of shedding?
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/health/food-safety/highly-...
Apparently, we have a different idea what science is. I’d like to leave it at that. Any other takers?
>> Apparently, we have a different idea what science is.
Arrogant dismissal.
Your simplistic and dismissive look at this issue is the one that’s arrogant. Hand-wavy comments such as yours deserve to be challenged.
Anyway, I strongly believe that your vaccine didn't cause any problems, you're just hallucinating a link, probably because you need a link to justify something else.
Run your own double blind experiment on a large population to show a high enough correlation to suggest causation for similar symptoms? Peeked into parallel universe where you weren't vaccinated?
Symptoms started a couple of months after I was vaccinated. Total coincidence? Some other undiagnosed underlying medical condition? Sure. It's easy to play devil's advocate when it supports your pre-existing beliefs.
FWIW, I wasn't labeled anti-vax until I made this statement. I've had pretty much every vaccine given to average residents, including flu shots. But alas, questioning the side effects of just one is enough to get you labeled by the extremists. Literally, _just questioning_ this one vaccine and I'm all of the sudden "against vaccines." It's a tribal level of insanity. The only people who don't see it are the ones perpetuating it.
He claimed he’d focus on the reasonable half (like banning ultra processed foods). I’m hoping that’s true.
However, vaccinating the chickens creates a huge trade barrier (because you cannot sell vaccinated poultry products in most places), so this could just be another example of Trump’s isolationist trade policies.
I guess we can hope they did this to improve public health, but I suspect it’s more of “a stopped clock is right twice a day” situation.
However, scientists have repeatedly shown that they cause a statistically significant increase in all cause mortality.
If you take the random word generator that is RFK’s mouth, then filter it with reproducible scientific studies, the result is probably actually better than what previous political appointees have produced.
I’ve already expressed skepticism about the second step, where science is involved. Still, I can hope.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35658669/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25804833/
^—- Conclusions: The consumption of ultra-processed products (i.e. foods with low nutritional value but high energy density) has increased dramatically in Sweden since 1960, which mirrors the increased prevalence of obesity. Future research should clarify the potential causal role of ultra-processed products in weight gain and obesity.
So, the last one has a quantitative definition that could be used for a preliminary ban.
Also, all those articles link many more. One click deep will provide a dozen concurring studies. I didn’t feel like adding more links.
Also the GOP opposed mere taxes on sugary drinks but now they want to ban UPFs? I don't believe it.
That’s why I said “preliminary”
Alternatively, they could read more than three abstracts, and find a better definition.
Regardless, there’s enough evidence for a ban, and also quantifiable metrics that could be used to define one.
I’d expect the regulators and scientific community to do better than my proposal.
Antivaxxers are a supplements-industry bonanza.
I didn’t. You cited pharmaceutical profit motive as a reason to suspect vaccines. I’m pointing out that there is a similar motivation in pushing antivax material. The unregulated industry ruthlessly exploiting the masses is more one than the other.
I agree the supplement industry is a massive grift. It seems you assumed I didn't think that? Either way, you did change the subject, and I still have no idea why, other than to just put up a talking point.
Instead it’s based in observable evidence. I’m reasonably sure quantum mechanics, relativity and chemistry work because my cell phone relies on them, and there are reproducible scientific experiments that test those theories. The same is true of vaccines.
If we were well into Trump’s 25th term in office, and no other living being had seen a cell phone turn on, but some underground cult worshipped broken iPhones, then you could argue they had a religious belief in things like relativity and quantum mechanics.
That’s not the world we live in. Hell, Mitch McConnell is apparently old enough to remember that Polio vaccines work. (Which is why they let him vote against RFK.)
I don't agree with the OP's partisan take on the issue, but nowhere was it said that it takes religious belief to think that vaccines work.
I know of no other reasonable definition of religious beliefs.
It has nothing to do with believing vaccines work. It's simply taking things they say with a grain of salt because capitalist forces often encourage them to do the wrong thing.