RFK Jr. Suggests Letting Bird Flu Spread
A controversial proposal from U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to let bird flu naturally spread through poultry farms is raising alarms among scientists -- who say the move could be inhumane and dangerous.
Let's not use the word "controversial" when "nobody with any qualifications would ever fucking agree with this" is more accurate. Controversial suggests a lack of consensus.
I think just saying dumb shit to cause drama and distract from other shit they're doing
I love how the U.S. spent like 90 years building up soft power around the world and we are giving it all up in like a 3 month span.
Every person in charge of an agency, is literally not qualified to run a grocery store let alone the agencies they run.
Its alll about loyalty now, and its going to send the U.S. back into the dark age.
Hitler came to power because the treaty of Versailles devastated and humiliated germany. what the fuck are historians going to point at in the US that lead to the rise in fascism? fucking gamergate? The self-inflicted 2008 crisis?
What historians will point to in my opinion are two key point in modern American history that unleashed the decent into madness.
After 9/11 you could slap a US flag on basically anything, shout patriotism and make a shit load of money while being thanked for it.
Then it just rolled on.
A multitude of issues have contributed to this, the creation of fox News, allowing our entire manufacturing sector to leave the country, and then ignoring the poorest and most vulnerable people's issues, misinformation, social media, state actor disinformation campaigns, and probably a bunch of stuff I haven't mentioned. Pick your favorite.
The pandemic, the inherent flaws of an antiquated two party system, malicious individuals controlling all major social media platforms, an overworked and undersupported population, low education standards. Idk I'm German and have never been over but from what I can tell it's very complex. And while many of my fellow Europeans like to give Americans shit online right now the truth is most of us are one or two unfortunate elections away from a similar scenario. Whatever it is that's driving people apart isn't exclusively an American problem.
what the fuck are historians going to point at in the US that lead to the rise in fascism? fucking gamergate? The self-inflicted 2008 crisis?
Losing the Cold War. America wasn't beaten militarily, but brought down via foreign propaganda. (It also hit the UK, with Brexit, and other countries with similar harmful things going on domestically to them.)
Livejournal was one of the earliest "modern" social media sites (for those who didn't experience it, it was like a longer-form tumblr--longer text posts, fewer images), and it was sold to a company in Russia in the early 00s. I remember scratching my head as a 20-something about why the servers kept going down, then I learned that intellectuals in Russia had taken it up as THEIR social media and due to politics "on the Russian" side it was getting DDoS'd.
I was still too young to connect the dots then, or understand what all that really meant (hindsight is always much better, isn't it?) but basically they perfected control via social media first on their own people, probably trawled through all the content of the original LiveJournal users posting in English, then perfected using what they learned there on later social media sites.
And because Americans A) thought the Cold War was over, and B) have a bit of a head-scratcher conundrum when it comes to free speech because it's valued so highly and nobody likes censorshiop, nobody did anything or even realized anything was happening until the harm was already done.
Personally, again with hindsight, I think company-designed social media algorithms that just suggest content to you as "trending" or whatever should be illegal (and block buttons should be mandatory). Users should have to be forced to follow, one by one, the content they want to subscribe to.
Having "trending" algorithms that have no transparency in what they show or boost allows malignant actors to game the algorithm.
If you force people to follow others based on word of mouth or reblogs from their actual friends, and give people a way to solidly block someone that's easy to find and instant to use, it will cut a lot of the bullshit down. People will be somewhat less inclined to fall down wells of stupidity. It won't completely stop it, but people are lazy and if you don't dangle shit in front of their nose many will go off and do something else instead of putting in the effort to find something horrible.
Regan had a huge hand in the downfall of the US.
I can at least tell you why people vote Trump. All right here:
How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind
Posted that many, many times, but it's important enough to post forever. As true now as it was in 2016.
I've been on both sides of what the author is talking about, seen and experienced everything he touches on. Give it a read, it's important.
Wasn't it Obama making fun of trump at the WH Correspondent's dinner? Thanks, Obama. /s
Capitalism has a tendency to eat everything it can. This includes the political system. The US is just ahead of the curve in this.
yeah, but also you-know-who.
In retrospect, I think the rise of smartphone-based, algorithm-driven social media circa 2012 will be seen as the information-age equivalent of lead poisoning that quietly brainrotted society. It greatly increased the power and reach of disinformation and radicalizing propaganda while destroying the ability of mainstream news sources to moderate or even alert people to the damage being done. There's a staggering gap in attitudes between people who get their news from social media apps vs. newspapers or even cable TV. And so much of the maliciousness is below the surface, distributed across millions of unique newsfeeds and "for you" pages that the public writ large has very little insight into. If some shell company were airing neonazi recruitment ads on national television, people would be shocked and outraged, but slip it into the feeds of vulnerable people and you can poison an entire generation with hardly anyone noticing until it's too late.
Well
Everything else that happened in those 90 years, AND racism because a whole bunch of lazy buttholes couldn't have slaves anymore.
Propaganda. Made hand-held and ubiquitous.
Deep rooted insecurity and lack of critical thinking.
Capitalism
First-past-the-post voting
The War on drugs
The patriot act
Americans
The self-inflicted 2008 crisis?
The repeal of glass steagall act
We were already a 3rd world country in comparison to most of our allies. Now we are speedrunning becoming a 7th world country
That's dumb, leave the U.S. sometime. Despite the problems in the U.S., we are still one of the richest countries on the planet. I went to a plant in Mexico for work a few years ago, and there were people living in sheds with no running water, entire neighborhoods of that. Outside of homeless people, even our poorest people have it better than a lot of other countries.
and the general population hasnt got a clue what “soft power” even is
I love how the U.S. spent like 90 years building up soft power around the world and we are giving it all up in like a 3 month span.
Madness is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.
Joker, The Dark Knight (2008)
Every person in charge of an agency was literally selected for the express purpose of destroying that agency. It's not incompetence, and it's not an accident. It is deliberate sabotage and treason.
checks notes Yup, I think "sending america back to the dark ages" is the intention. I actually think if written from the perspective of the men, a frightening amount of current gov leaders in the U.S. would unironically enjoy the "Utopia" in a handmaids tail.
I am reminded of the quote "some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make".
Who would have known. The russian mafia puppet government that's doing it's best impression of the New world order stereotype.. is suggesting a population cull
If bird flu is such a minor issue, I say we inject it into Donald Trump, JD Vance, RFK Jr., and Elon Musk. Demonstrate how safe it is. Do it. Come on. DO IT YOU WUSSES.
why inject, since you can spread bird flu by coughing in the same room as them. Trump also is a well known germaphobe too, considered trump and his dad both bullied thier brother into suicide and alcoholism.
I’m pretty sure bird flu currently cannot be spread person-to-person and that’s why it’s only a notable concern rather than a pandemic 2.0 level threat
Yes. Tell them we need their ubermensch genetics to base a cure on. Tell them they'll be rich for it.
Interestingly, my understanding of the way in which flu vaccine was (in part) produced involved injecting blood infected with a the flu into developing chicken embryos (eggs), allowing them to develop the flu, and several probably very complicated steps later, you've got flu virus particles for a vaccine.
Any ways...
The Secretary of HEALTH recommends letting a pandemic spread. Think about that for a second.
Inhumane is ironic considering that the mere existence of poultry farms is inhumane. But yeah, it would be stupid, cruel and it will raise the chance of mutations that spread to other species including us.
I think they really mean it would be inhumane if you consider the problem vis-a-vis the yardstick most Americant capitalists measure their "humanity" by, ie: less dollary-doos for them.
Or maybe because it would kill people
It was scientists, not capitalists claiming this is inhumane.
For the unaware, this bird flu variant has about a 50/50 survival rate. It won't be like Covid.
It's a bit complicated. That survival rate primarily includes people who become severely ill and seek medical attention. Since it's the most severe cases, the case fatality rate (CFR) will appear higher.
HOWEVER, what also needs to be emphasized is that a disease with like a 10% CFR is probably a civilization (as we know it) ending disease. I believe covid 19 was between like 1-2% and we saw how it nearly broke our health care system, and that was with people more competent than RFK in charge.
If a disease emerges that spreads as easily as COVID did and with a CFR rate 3 to 4X as worse, it'd obliterate the health care system very, very quickly. Then people are going to start dying en masse from preventable diseases, like common infections, moderate injuries (e.g. broken leg) etc.
If a disease emerges that spreads as fast and far as COVID and has a 50% CFR, yeah that'd collapse most societies completely. Maybe some societies that can truly lock down and enforce social distancing, like China, could survive long enough for a vaccine or other solution to become available.
From what I've read i think it will be worse than 50/50 if lots get it because the recovery stories I've seen involved weeks in the ICU and required those machines that help with organ functions like pumping blood.
There will be a massive shortage of ICU beds and machines to save the people.
BND: There's a high probability that the last pandemic was caused by negligence in China.
US: Last Pandemic? Wait, hold my pisswater.
What a fucking disgrace he is to the Kennedy legacy. I hope he gets swallowed by a whale or gets eaten by a bear or a worm eating his brain.
his own family more or less disowned a while ago, and also hes not all there because the way he speaks is like someone got a stroke, he was a known heroin addict.
That's not RFK Jr. talking. He died long ago. His body is being controlled by the worms.
This was the worms' plan all along: finally revenge on the chickens.
I think the worms are the most intelligent part about the guy.
Hahahahahaha jesus tapdancing christ this timeline is fucking wild. He is going to create the conditions for the next pandemic. It’s gonna start here. I’m calling it now.
So “do nothing” is his answer to bird flu and measles?
Everyone who survives will be immune.
That's the whole logic. It was awful enough with Covid's 1% mortality. Measles only kills about 0.1%. Bird flu kills 90-100% of infected birds and 50% of infected humans. And there's plenty of lasting/permanent deficits short of literal death. They're psychopaths.
hey theres a good chance certain very old people in leadership and in high risk group of falling over to it will catch it, so the problem would solve itself naturally?
Say 2% of the population get sick and 50% of that die, that's 4 million potential deaths.
But yeah right wingers, tell me again how socialism kills so many people...
That was the whole play with COVID. Not much changes in 5 years it seems.
Jesus Christ, can we please close our airports for American flights?
Please do. All of a sudden the Republicans would care about the UN.
I remember when people laughed at the concept of the immune system being like a muscle, that needs frequent excercise, and with same excercise it could be built back.
Good times.
Nowadays I wonder when will people shoot each other with increasingly higher caliber bullets to build up immunity to bullets.
I eat one credit card a day to build immunity to capitalism
He can go first. Go ahead Bobby, show us how easy it is.
Guess we'll have to force anyone returning from the US to stay in quarantine.
I don't think he knows about second pandemic, Pip.
I guess that would succeed in killing off a bunch of the elderly and infirmed, which be a huge savings to Medicare and social Security, so it's a win-win right?
/S if it wasn't implied already
That is exactly how the Nazis in charge are thinking about this. They assume they'll make it through because they're constitutionally superior, while the weak die and are no longer a burden on the Übermenschen.
Yeah, of we could just stop importing food from the USA, that would be greaaaaat
'Murica, I swear you guys really need a slapping.
Please invade us. We need help
What's the worst that could happen?
COVID 2: DIE HARDER
Increased cost of eggs for starters...
Genius.
That’s just about got the whole zeitgeist sewn up.
Isn’t he worried one of his falcons will catch it?
probably gave himself worms from the carcasses he ate.
They're wearing masks.
stand with rfk. americans voted trump twice into office and shows now sign of stopping their brain rott. bird flu is best that can happen. last time the facist leader was in office we had corona globally - lets just hope for a very localised (to the USA) bird flu outbreak to help the imbeciles remember 2020.
I knew he was just a huge shill for the reptile egg shadow industry. Before you know it, all US omelets will be made from factory-farmed sea turtle eggs.
the worm egg industry, he needs everyone to have worms.
Anyone have the quotes handy on how they want to destroy the country and rebuild as feudal kingdoms?
Do you want another pandemic? Because that is how you get another pandemic.
You go first Mr RFK Jr
Such a fantastic idea. This man is a genius.
And a stable genius at that!
I've contracted covid twice. Both were when visiting the US. And that was before this numpty was in charge. This will not go well.
Any random person in the US has probably had COVID at least four times by now
I still have not gotten it. I was very conscientious about masks and social distancing and even have my vaccinations up to date just in case. But, I haven’t masked or social distanced in a long time, so now I’m just running on luck I guess.
I made a joke about this in a German community and yet here we are. Satire is dead, murdered by the imbeciles in the Trump administration.
are poultry prices going up like egg prices are in the states?
No, they're different chickens and the virus has been spreading more through egg laying chickens. In part because they're in different locations.
thanks!
What is wrong with the man ?
Well for one, a worm ate his brain.
hes mostly worms.
“The way we raise birds now, there’s not a lot of genetic variability,” Hansen said. “They’re all the same bird, basically.”
What is the stance of the department of agriculture on the bird flu?
Let him visit one of these farms for a good few days.
From what I know it's mostly the trucks transporting between farms. They're not being cleaned frequently enough or well enough. Though, there is I think some cases of it being transmitted in migrating wildlife.
Do you want plague chickens? Because this how you get plague chickens.
Historically this strategy hasn't really worked out so well for the masses...
Well, there it is. Life will... find a way.
not paywalled for me: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/health/kennedy-bird-flu.html
preserve the birds, that are immune to it
I still don't like the everyone get measles version of this.
willing to really try this on a pilot as we build the safe perimeter around them to see if there is a way forward with immunity
"pilot with safe perimeter" seems reasonable, as long as safe perimeter works. Bird flu is endemic already, afaik. = "will remain a constant presence". It only makes sense for domestic chickens/fowls. It is not endemic yet in other animals/humans, and maximum quick containment seems like only approach to keep it that way.
Bird flu not being a problem in countries that have smaller flocks, seems a transformative solution.
I didn't like the rebuttals in my link above. One of them says that the best thing for you/chickens is "to have a central authority decide to cull you minimizing for a balance of cost and your pain, instead of giving you the chance/choice of either surviving, or far more likely, suffering before death." I would choose the 2nd option, but can only do so under central authority that has already decided what it prefers.
I can't read this because fuck nyt, but wtf @
I didn't like the rebuttals in my link above. One of them says that the best thing for you/chickens is "to have a central authority decide to cull you minimizing for a balance of cost and your pain, instead of giving you the chance/choice of either surviving, or far more likely, suffering before death." I would choose the 2nd option, but can only do so under central authority that has already decided what it prefers.
Like what? Who is saying this to the person that is "you" in this scenario? Wtf? Absolute fucking non starter. I'm not choosing shit, fuck that we're not doing that.