Posted on 01/28/2025 6:30:09 AM PST by Red Badger
A new international study suggests that vaccines may be driving bird flu evolution, as efforts to contain the spread of the virus face increasing challenges.
Amid growing concerns about potential human cases, a new analysis has found increasingly resilient bird flu strains are arising globally. Despite this, significant concerns for rapidly spreading H5 bird flu infections remain isolated within avian populations.
Mass Poultry Vaccines
In many countries, farmers feed livestock with steady doses of antibiotics and vaccines to keep them healthy until their turn at the slaughterhouse or as they continue to produce milk and eggs for animal agriculture.
The highly pathogenic H5 group of avian influenza virus, which includes H5N1, came into focus in the new research. The team studied H5 viruses in the wild and among poultry farming in agriculture, with an eye on comparing countries where poultry vaccinations are or are not routine practice. Currently, H5N6 is the most common variation in China, and its evolution may be vaccine-driven.
“As avian influenza continues to pose considerable challenges to wild and domestic animals, our research can help inform the development of preventive measures against AIV, such as global vaccination policies,” Bingying Li and colleagues write.
Evolving H5 Bird Flu Viruses
H5 viruses have been spreading worldwide for decades and are continually evolving. Many countries have implemented large-scale vaccinations to mitigate economic and food stability concerns.
However, large-scale vaccination may only accelerate evolution, producing more robust viruses that can easily circumvent vaccines’ protection. The new study maps these transmissions across wild, agricultural, and vaccinated and unvaccinated bird populations.
Researching Bird Flu Transmission
The researchers conducted a phylogenetic analysis of hemagglutinin (HA) sequences from worldwide viral samples from 1996 to 2023. The team utilized public databases like the international cooperative GISAID and the US National Institute of Health’s GenBank. HA specifically aids in viral binding and infection. The results showed that vaccination did minimize transmission from wild birds to poultry. However, countries like China with high vaccination rates also incurred much more rapid virus evolution than largely unvaccinated countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia.
While the data may be troubling, precautions are being taken. Biosecurity teams keep UK poultry separated from wild populations to minimize infection opportunities. Some countries rely more heavily on vaccination, as agricultural conditions make separating poultry from wild birds more challenging.
When The Debrief asked co-author Oliver Pybus of the Royal Veterinary College University of Oxford whether slowing the spread or virus evolution was the most pressing concern, he said, “That’s a really interesting question. In short, they are intimately linked. Virus evolution only occurs when the virus transmits, so the more opportunities for infection there are, the greater the potential for more virus adaptation.”
Where Bird Flu Goes Next
While H5N1 bird flu has led to 67 confirmed cases and even one death in the United States, according to the CDC, the forbidding virus has yet to become a significant problem for humans. Pybus said that his work did not raise any immediate concern about the imminent spread of the virus to humans.
“All previous human flu pandemics were caused by H1 or H3 viruses. We still don’t fully understand why H5 has not evolved to transmit among humans,” Pybus commented. But he did note that to keep poultry populations safe, “It’s clear that we need to enhance our surveillance of people who come into frequent contact with wild birds, poultry, and infected cattle.”
Despite alarms that have been raised about potential human spread, the team believes that keeping an eye on bird populations is the crucial next step. “Experimental work is needed to determine what has caused the change in virus evolution, and to test the hypothesis that avian flu might evolutionarily adapt in response to poultry vaccination,” Pybus explained.
The paper “Association of Poultry Vaccination with Interspecies Transmission and Molecular Evolution of H5 Subtype Avian Influenza Virus” appeared on January 22, 2025, in Science Advances.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
Nix Chix Vax..................
Yes, just like covid.
Multiple vaccinations caused the virus to mutate much faster than it might have naturally.
“Life, uh, finds a way.”
I have never vaccinated a chicken for anything, and I’ve raised HUNDREDS of them through the years.
I hope they get a handle on this, soon. Eggs are a staple and one of the BEST sources of protein and most of the B vitamins, and also lutein which is good for eyesight.
As always - GROW YOUR OWN when you can. :)
Duh. Chickens are static, unlike migratory birds.
Feds/state comes in, draws a 3km circle around a “presumptive positive” on either a commercial or backyard poultry operation, “stamps out” all of the chickens via various methods of euthanasia and projects gaslighting to the public that it is to control HPAI for the chickens...
...all the while doing everything to force the virus to mutate and accomplishing absolutely nothing except both driving food inflation and normalizing the government’s response - and public gaslighting - to a virus ‘threat’.
Nothing has changed since 2020...yet.
Perhaps we should research virus cures, not ways to make viruses more deadly.
They are pulling out all the stops.
“We’ve always been at war with Bird Flu, Winston.”................
Should be feeding them ivermectin and zinc.
Multiple vaccinations caused the virus to mutate much faster than it might have naturally.
Yep. The “shot for everything” people have caused the same issues with viruses that the “pill for everything” people have caused with bacteria. We’re seeing more virulent strains of viruses because of the pressure to mutate that “vaccines” place on them. Just like how we are now threatened by numerous drug-resistant strains of bacteria because of overuse of antibiotics.
Vaccines and antibiotics have their place, but it’s idiotic to treat them like magical potions that should just be given to everyone at all times. They have BIG downsides as well, and must therefore be carefully managed. Mass vaccination with the still-experimental MRNA shots was the height of stupidity, clearly extended the pandemic, and those who shouted down anyone who disagreed (many even among us here) were just clueless fools who valued magical wishes over objective data.
I understand why liberals are foolish utopians, but we should be wiser than that. The blunt reality is that life isn’t “safe”, and man-made attempts to create a disease-free utopia will always fail. We can and have made life much better, but blind faith that anything labeled a “vaccine” must be good is just stupid. It’s just a word. Some vaccines ARE good (though even the best ones have risks that must be carefully considered). But there are also substances called by the same word that are of dubious benefit and carry high risk, such as the MRNA shots.
There are no magic cures to be found. Everything must be carefully weighed, and just forcing large populations, whether human or animal, to take these imagined magic cures inevitably will cause terrible outcomes, as we have seen with SARS CoV-2 and now with H5N1.
A veterinarian warned about the “ leaky vaccine” effects on humans of the early covid vaxx push. Marek’s chickens… This seems like a predictable evolution for animals. Vets love vaxx as much as MDs
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous
As it does in humans.
It’s known as vaccine escape.
I never vaccinated chickens either and never had a problem with any flock-wide illness, just the occasional bumble foot or egg bound in my older hens.
I quit vaccinating my goats years ago too. I felt the risk of the disease is not worth the risk of the shots. I keep an antitoxin on hand instead (like tetanus)
Virologists have known this for decades… I remember them warning about it back when H1N1 was going around. They all agreed that you don’t vaccinate your way out of a pandemic
If they keep vaxxing people, they will cause “human flu” breakouts 😤
We do our own vaccinating on the puppies we raise; everything you need can be bought at Farm & Fleet.
Nothing else has ever needed ‘vaccines’ other than the occasional use of Penicillin for minor wounds and scrapes on the dogs.
Golly ... maybe we should stop vaccinating people for the same reason. No need to drive viral evolution through selection pressure.
Ordinarily, I might agree. However, H5N1 avian flu is ridiculously prone to adaptation and mutation *naturally*.
Google image “h5n1 clade tree”, and you can see hundreds of natural known mutations in small print.
Plus, antibiotics do generally not affect viruses.
" A new international study suggests that vaccines may be driving bird flu evolution, as efforts to contain the spread of the virus face increasing challenges.
Amid growing concerns about potential human cases, a new analysis has found increasingly resilient bird flu strains are arising globally.
Despite this, significant concerns for rapidly spreading H5 bird flu infections remain isolated within avian populations."
Mass Poultry Vaccines
"In many countries, farmers feed livestock with steady doses of antibiotics and vaccines to keep them healthy until their turn at the slaughterhouse
or as they continue to produce milk and eggs for animal agriculture.
The highly pathogenic H5 group of avian influenza virus, which includes H5N1, came into focus in the new research.
The team studied H5 viruses in the wild and among poultry farming in agriculture,
with an eye on comparing countries where poultry vaccinations are or are not routine practice.
Currently, H5N6 is the most common variation in China, and its evolution may be vaccine-driven."
….
"When The Debrief asked co-author Oliver Pybus of the Royal Veterinary College University of Oxford whether slowing the spread
or virus evolution was the most pressing concern, he said, “That’s a really interesting question.
In short, they are intimately linked.
Virus evolution only occurs when the virus transmits, so the more opportunities for infection there are, the greater the potential for more virus adaptation.”
"While H5N1 bird flu has led to 67 confirmed cases and even one death in the United States, according to the CDC,
the forbidding virus has yet to become a significant problem for humans.
Pybus said that his work did not raise any immediate concern about the imminent spread of the virus to humans." (Emphasis mine)
“All previous human flu pandemics were caused by H1 or H3 viruses. We still don’t fully understand why H5 has not evolved to transmit among humans,” Pybus commented.
But he did note that to keep poultry populations safe, “It’s clear that we need to enhance our surveillance of people who come into frequent contact with wild birds, poultry, and infected cattle.” (The article continues...)
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