#MooFlu forever

The NYT finally notices that the avian influenza virus been victorious in infecting US cow farms:

"How U.S. Farms Could Start a Bird Flu Pandemic"

https://archive.is/5eOOt

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/21/health/bird-flu-cattle-pandemic.html

The virus is not going away. Apparently, the cows' udders are excellent viral breeding spots. So the Big Dairy industry is going to literally fulfill Rob Wallace's book title from years ago: "Big farms make big flu".

The fact that it's endemic in cows or "enzootic", as they put it, means that the cows are plague spreaders. Wherever they go: bird flu. Wherever the raw milk goes: bird flu. Whoever works there: bird flu. Whoever works there and travels to other animal farms... flu chaos. That's the thing, influenza viruses don't stay the same, they evolve and they also mix with other influenza viruses ("reassortment"). This means that any other influenza virus needs to be kept away from these cows, including seasonal flu (humans) and pig flu. What are the odds of this isolation happening successfully long-term?

The NYT article noticed that this failure is akin to what happened in China in 2019 when they successfully failed to end the (very large and profitable) wild animal farming sector which was the breeding ground for SARS-CoV-2. Whoever is reading this, you can be certain that there already are "lab leak" conspiracy theories about the mooFlu in the US. Neither regimes are going to do anything about it, as these sectors are large and create GDP, and what is needed is to end them.

#avianInfluenza #HPAI #milk #bigMIlk #bigDairy #cows #cattle #zoonosis #pandemic #birdFlu #enzootic #capitalism #BigBusiness #BigFarms #BigFlu

Land barons are destroying the land:

CA is trying to enforce the requirements of a nearly 10-yr-old law limiting groundwater pumping that major landowners —incl. Tulare Lake Basin blatantly resisted. In Oct, ST water regulators: taking the 1st step toward putting the Tulare Lake region on “probation” for its lack of progress.

The move sets the stage for a confrontation b/w state regulators & the powerful land barons who have long controlled water use-.

#BigFarms #Water https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-12-27/tulare-lake-land-barons-defy-calls-to-cut-groundwater-pumping