GET ME REWRITE: Scientists are racing to find a new way to freak out MAGA

 

Illustration:  News Medical Life Sciences

Headline:  University of Nebraska Medical Center, 1/2/2025

As bird flu continues to ramp up, many are wondering what tools—namely, vaccines—we have to fight it if such intervention becomes necessary. 

“Public-health and infectious disease folks around the world are watching bird flu very, very carefully,” says Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and spokesperson for the Infectious Disease Society of America. “The concern is that this virus could acquire the capacity to attach to human cells and spread widely. That would be opening the door to a new pandemic for sure.” 

For that to happen, the H5N1 virus would have to develop the right mutations that allow it to more easily infect human cells—a process that could occur more easily if someone were to be infected with both seasonal flu and H5N1, for instance, allowing the two viruses to exchange genetic information and recombine into a strain that readily infects and spreads among people.

Related posts:

January 2025

Wisconsin dairy farms as "dry tinder" for H5N1 outbreak.  (1/2)

New England Journal of Medicine warns of emerging threat of H5N1 to humans.  (1/1)

December 2024

Keeping tabs on human-to-human transmission of H5N1.  (12/31)

The key is in the lock but it doesn't yet open the door.  (12/31)

Bird flu and normalcy bias.  (12/30)

Bird poop will save us from the next pandemic.  (12/29)

Iowa records first human case of bird flu.  (12/28)

Wildlife sanctuary in Washington State provides on refuge from bird flu.  (12/27)

Lax response by US government allows bird flu to spread nationwide.  (12/22)

Iowa reports first human case of bird flu.  (12/21) 

Bird flu in humans; it's here in the USA.  (12/20)

Bird flu emergency in California:  300 herds test positive in last 30 days.  (12/19)

Bird flu in chickens:  IT'S EVERYWHERE IT'S EVERYWHERE!!  (12/18)

Simply deadly:  Raw milk in an era of widespread bird flu.  (12/17)

Coming soon to your cat:  Bird flu.  (12/16)

Bird flu has now reach 49 states and 560 counties.  (12/15)

Bird flu slaughters northern gannets in eastern Canada.  (12/15)

Bird flu comes to British Columbia. (12/14)

What worries pandemic experts most about bird flu.  (12/13)

Will Trump administration health policies spark another pandemic?  (12/12)

Let's do the math about those 6,000,000 Iowa laying hens "affected" by bird flu.  (12/10)

Top 5 states with confirmed cases of bird flu in cattle herds.  (12/10)