U.S. Spending $1 Million on Research to Make Bird Flu More Infectious and Deadly
Meanwhile, Cambodia reports another human H5N1 avian flu case.
The last time we checked on the strain of avian flu (i.e., “bird flu) sweeping across the globe, Northern California poultry farms had been hit hard, the elephant seal pup population in Venezuela wiped out, the first penguin infections were reported, and two people seriously infected by H5N1 in Cambodia.
Furthermore, research indicates the virus has mutated to target the brains of mammals.
You are likely thinking that responsible scientists would focus on looking for cures rather than mutating the pathogen into something worse.
The US government is spending $1million of American taxpayer money to fund experiments on dangerous bird flu viruses in collaboration with Chinese scientists.
The research involves infecting ducks and geese with different strains of viruses to make them more infectious, and study the viruses’ potential to ‘jump into mammalian hosts,’ according to research documents.
It is being funded through the US Department of Agriculture and collaborating studies will take place at sites in Georgia, Beijing and Edinburgh in Scotland.
It comes despite similar research being restricted in 2022 and growing concerns that dubious Chinese studies may have started the Covid pandemic.
US Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is demanding information about Biden’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) “dangerous bird flu experiments”, which apparently involves a researcher connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (the likely source of the covid virus).
The Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing will help with tests to infect vaccinated chickens, mallard ducks, species of Chinese geese and Japanese quail to evaluate the virus’s transmissibility and “potential to jump into mammalian hosts.”
Ernst told [USDA Secretary] Tom Vilsack to hand over any departmental information about whether there are any safeguards in place, if the experiments constitute risky gain-of-function research, and what portion is being done in China.
“The health and safety of Americans are too important to just wing it, and Biden’s USDA should have had more apprehension before sending any taxpayer dollars to collaborate with the CCP on risky avian flu research,” Ernst told The Post in a statement.
“They should know by now to suspect ‘fowl’ play when it comes to researchers who have ties to the dangerous Wuhan Lab, and simply switching from bats to birds causes concern that they are creating more pathogens of pandemic potential,” she added, referring to risky experiments that may have led to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The research project received a grant to fund research from April 2021 to March 2026. The researchers receiving the money are from the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Athens, Georgia, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The USDA offered the following response via email from a USDA spokesperson.
“Any time Senator Ernst has a question for USDA about our research or our commitment to helping America’s farmers mitigate animal diseases like highly pathogenic avian influenza, she should reach out to us directly before putting misinformation in a press release or public letter. This particular research project was applied for in 2019 and was approved in 2020, and despite the Senator’s assertions, this is not ‘gain-of-function’ research.
What’s more, USDA’s funding is only being committed to the specific components carried out by our own team located in Athens, Georgia, and is not any way contributing to research taking place in the UK or China.
Because animal diseases present a global threat, it is common for international researchers to conduct independent research that’s connected to the same end goal – but what Senator Ernst lays out in her letter is far off base from what’s actually transpiring, and on top of that is based on approval decisions that predate this Administration.”
I find no consolation in the USDA response.
Covid was probably the mildest warning we could get about the consequences of gain-of-function research to make viruses more transmissible and deadlier.
The current version of bird flu is already an effective killer, and our tax dollars should not be going to make it more so, no matter where that research takes place or with whom.
One last note: Cambodia has reported even more human infections with an H5N1 strain.
The [most recent] patient is a 17-year-old girl from Kampot province, according to a ministry statement translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary, an infectious disease news blog. Kampot province is in southern Cambodia. The girl is hospitalized in the intensive care unit and is improving.
…Cambodia has now reported 5 cases for 2024 and a total of 11 since February 2023, following nearly a decade with no human infections. Genetic sequencing on samples from several cases has revealed that the virus belongs to an older H5N1 clade (2.3.2.1c) that still circulates in poultry in some Asian countries, including Cambodia. It is different from the newer H5N1 clade (2.3.4.4b) that is currently affecting wild birds and poultry in multiple world regions, including the United States.
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Comments
My God, this strain of flu H5N1 already has a 40% mortality rate in humans. The only thing protecting us is the present poor transmission rate (infectivity). Why would they not tinker with a less lethal strain…. well they could be making a vaccine at the same time and demand billions when it comes “from an undisclosed Chinese poultry farm”
Who in the hell do these psychotic Frankenstein bastards think they are? I mean really……WTF????
Please excuse the language, but it is needed…
Fuck Around and Find Out…..from the virgins that know everything about sex from all the pornography they consume.
…at this point it is pretty obvious that the fucking around has resulted in finding out what was sought…the Avian/Human jump.
Purposely.
Because that worked out so well the last time.
Ah, Science.
Want to make it more deadly? Easy. Just come out with a mandatory vaccine for it.
Great Maker, these people just don’t ever learn their lessons. Or they learn their lessons all to well and then ignore them. The fact that they are doing Gain of Function research on a virus that already has mutated to infect mammalian brains and has a horrendous 40% mortality rate is just unconscionable. The fact that such research is once again being conducted at the Wuhan Institute is insane. They’ve proven they cannot safely handle any viruses in a safe manner.
Covid was the experiment to see if it was possible to spread a virus worldwide and what government response would be. That experiment succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Now comes the real pandemic. One that will kill more people than they ever could imagine possible. 40% of the world’s population on the chopping block and the end of democracy as we know it. Who would have thought such a thing was possible.
I’ve been saying for quite some time the next lab engineered pandemic will be avian flu. They will release it to ensure the Democrats win in 2024, and because the viruses are circulating in wild birds, they will have plausible deniability, They just have to do some serial passage in lab animals to make the virus be more lethal to the demographics of Republican voters than Democrats, and then just let er rip.
And if you look on Nextstrain, Cambodia does seem to be a hotspot of human infections of avian flu.
Also consider – flu viruses do something called reassortment, where the 8 discrete RNA segments of influenza can swap between strains. [H5N1 refers to the H segment and the N segment which are the spike (surface) proteins. There are 6 other segments that have internal functionality.] If they unleash an avian flu that is capable of infecting both humans and birds well (this is very hard to do), it will be able to swap segments with the numerous varieties that are circulating in birds and go back and forth to humans, which could keep a pandemic going for decades or even centuries.
“….to make them more infectious…” is the textbook definition of gain-of-function. To say otherwise is a lie; a deadly lie. Covid was only a test run for Big Virus.
Every single one of the scientists, researchers, admins, and even congress critters who fund this frankenstein insanity needs to be in prison awaiting execution for crimes against humanity.
Every. Single. One. Fauci the psychopath goes first.
“Fauci the psychopath goes first.”
before he does the “perp walk”, the gallows/guillotine has to be built first.
I haven’t seen any motion in this direction.
“… she should reach out to us directly before putting misinformation in a press release or public letter.”
Why? I don’t think it’s misinformation and their answer was hardly sufficient. In fact, it sounds defensive, not open and transparent. These idiots are going to get us all killed.
Misinformation = unapproved by the Deep State. It sounds ominous, “who do you think you are, Senator Ernst, someone in charge of the government? Comrade, this not how things are done now.”
It’s simply unbelievable to me that after China either intentionally released or facilitated the spread of Wuhan virus throughout the world, that the U.S. would collaborate with Chinese regime scientists on anything.
The vile Dhimmi-crats truly are dumber than rocks.