CDC Uses “Bird Flu” Fears to Push Seasonal Flu Vaccines Onto Nation’s Farm Workers
The officials assert the measure will help prevent the mutation of a new strain. However, a look at declining flu shot rates suggest another motivation.
The last time we checked on the status of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (i.e., “bird flu), Colorado had reported its 10th human case, mainly among poultry workers. Currently, the symptoms in humans are chiefly pink eye and mild fevers.
However, bird flu is clearly in the lead for the 2024 election season pandemic. Now, it is being reported that the government is going to push the seasonal flu vaccine on farm workers.
The reason for this move? Officials argue that a new strain of super-flu that could potentially arise.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday a $5 million initiative to offer seasonal flu vaccines to livestock workers in order to reduce the public health concern that a new version of the influenza virus could emerge among farm workers who are at a higher risk of catching the bird flu (H5N1) virus, which has been circulating in millions of farmed and wild animals.
The goal of the initiative is to protect the health and safety of livestock workers as seasonal respiratory viruses begin to circulate, Dr. Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the CDC, said Tuesday.
“Preventing seasonal influenza in these workers, many of whom are also potentially exposed to H5N1 viruses, may also reduce the risk of new versions of the influenza A virus emerging,” he said.
If two different strains of influenza infect a person, there is always a risk they could mix together and create a completely new virus with traits from each one. A new virus could be harmless, but there is also a chance that it could be even more contagious, deadly or resistant to existing treatments.
I will suggest there may be another motivation: Flu vaccines are not as popular as they once were.
Influenza immunization rates have declined from their ~50% peak amongst the U.S. population during the 2020/21 season to 36% during the 2023/24 influenza season. This has been seen across all age groups and demographics. Vaccinations have been shown to reduce flu-related medical visits and hospitalizations and serious consequences.
I wonder what could have happened post 2020/2021 that would have made getting vaccines less appealing?
Officials will persist on this game plan. At least they are not over-selling the shot..at the moment.
While the seasonal flu shot offers no cross-protection against bird flu, Shah said the vaccination boosts the body’s immune system, fighting off the seasonal flu virus before the virus can take hold.
“Therefore we can at least reduce the chance of this co-infection from happening,” Shah said. “It doesn’t eliminate it, but it does reduce it. And in public health, that’s the name of the game.”
CDC officials have not seen evidence that the bird flu virus has changed to produce a more severe disease, nor have they seen any person-to-person transmission, warranting the use of a H5N1 vaccine.
“When we think about the right tool for this moment, the seasonal vaccine has all of the benefits we’re looking for,” Shah said.
As with all other medical decisions, everyone should gather available information and assess their own risks and needs. Hopefully, this won’t morph into a mandate.
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Comments
Don’t knock the new vaccine. I hear it’s hotter than a baker’s flue.
“Shah said the vaccination boosts the body’s immune system”
Yeah, I’m not buying that.
The only times I’ve ever had the flu in my life were after the Navy forced me to get the “vaccine”.
I ignored the mandated vaccines most of the time, and got away with it, but a few times we had an overzealous flight surgeon who actually checked and followed up on such things. I was ordered to get the shot, which I did, more than once followed by contracting the flu.
I’ve never, in my life, had the flu during the years that I didn’t get the shot. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I doubt it. I think my natural immune system is adequate to fight it off, but when I go the shots, it suppressed my immune system and so I caught it when exposed.
I’m not saying that my experience is the majority or that the shot can’t help some people, but I’m not concerned with “some people”, I’m concerned with me and in my experience, the flu shot does more harm than good for me.
BTW, I was long retired before the Wuhan Flu reared its ugly head. My career was primarily in the 80’s and 90’s. Most records were still on paper and it was much harder for them to monitor who’d had shots and who hadn’t.
I’ve been getting flu shots for at least 10 years and I’ll be getting another one this fall I haven’t had the flu in those 10 years but nobody made me get the shots
‘It puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose’.
I got my flu shot. (got a wife and kid at home with compromised immune systems) No more Covid shots. Ever.
just give the birds the shot
they are the ones spreading it
Maybe if we mask them.
Fauci admitted, in an article published right after he retired, that vaccines for respiratory viruses (such as flu) are never very effective.
Hmmmm…
I’m not getting another flu shot.
There is a known concern/probability that getting the flu shot, while it may decrease your chances of getting the flu or improving your response to it, does cause a significant increase risk of being afflicted with a variety of other respiratory viruses. Hmmm, since it’s called the bird flu, could the usual flu shot cause in increase in cases of it? We shall see.
Given the correlation between pandemics and Leftist political advantage, the effect of COVID on the CDC’s credibility, and the ever growing list of side effects of the COVID vaccine; one has to wonder what the percentage is of people who will deliberately NOT take any US Government recommended seasonal immunization until it is obvious that the disease is worse than the purported defense against it?
Subotai Bahadur