Inside the Bungled Bird Flu Response, Where Profits Collide With Public Health
October 23, 2024 at 01:58AMIn this Vanity Fair investigation, Katherine Eban examines the US federal government response to the growing H5N1 outbreak in the nation’s dairy cows. The virus has infected dairy herds across multiple states, and the more time it has to spread and evolve, the more scientists warn it could mutate into a human pandemic threat. Rural veterinarians have been silenced or fired for speaking out, and the USDA—which oversees cows and farms—has decided to protect Big Milk at the expense of public health. Have we learned anything? “As one White House health official tells Vanity Fair, ‘Not only have we not learned, we have regressed.'”
Today, without nationwide surveillance or a clear understanding of the H5N1 outbreak’s scope, “we are repeating every single mistake” of the last pandemic, says Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. “The whole adage of ‘don’t take a test because we don’t want to know what the answer is’ is really irritating.”
In May, Medgene informed the USDA that it had an H5N1 vaccine for cows and already had half a million preorders from desperate farmers. To develop the vaccine, the company relied on USDA regulations formulated in 2018 to accelerate vaccine approval in the event of an agricultural emergency.
But as it struggled to get sign-off, the company kept hearing that trade restrictions stood in the way. Meanwhile, the USDA kept stating that vaccine development was still in the early stages. Says Medgene CEO Mark Luecke: “We’re screaming at the top of our lungs, ‘We have an H5N1 vaccine for cattle ready to help farmers and ranchers today!’”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/10/22/inside-the-bungled-bird-flu-response-where-profits-collide-with-public-health/
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