From mercola.com
Story at-a-glance
- France plans to vaccinate 64 million ducks across 2,700 farms against bird flu, at a cost of $105 million
- The vaccination campaign, which is mandatory for farms with more than 250 ducks or those raising ducks for meat or foie gras, was launched in response to the country’s repeated outbreaks of bird flu since 2020
- Birds vaccinated for bird flu may not show signs of illness but could still transmit the virus, causing further circulation of the disease
- As a result, the U.S. restricted the importation of poultry from France, as well as live ducks, duck eggs and untreated duck products from the European Union, Iceland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway
- Bird flu is being painted as the next big pandemic, and the U.S. is testing avian flu vaccines for use in poultry and people
France plans to vaccinate 64 million ducks across 2,700 farms against bird flu. The vaccination campaign, which is mandatory for French farms with more than 250 ducks or those raising ducks for meat or foie gras, was launched in response to the country’s repeated outbreaks of bird flu since 2020.
If even a single case of the disease is found, an entire farmed population may be culled. Hundreds of millions of birds have already been killed as a result in the last two years.1
Officials have also turned up the fear-mongering, suggesting avian influenza could mutate, infect humans and turn into the next pandemic.2 The shots are estimated to cost $105 million, 85% of which will be paid by France3 — and that’s without factoring in the economic losses from import restrictions.
US Restricts French Poultry Imports
Due to the use of bird flu vaccines, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced it restricted the importation of poultry from France, as well as live ducks, duck eggs and untreated duck products from the European Union, Iceland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway.4 According to APHIS:5
“These restrictions are due to increased risk of introducing Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) into the United States … The restrictions … the result of France’s decision to vaccinate commercial meat ducks against HPAI. France’s decision to vaccinate presents a risk of introducing HPAI into the United States.
The United States does not currently allow the import of poultry from countries affected with HPAI or from flocks that have been vaccinated by HPAI. Vaccination of poultry against HPAI virus may mask HPAI virus circulating in poultry. Vaccinated birds may not show signs of HPAI infection, which could lead to the export of infected live animals or virus-contaminated products to the United States.”
Japan’s Agriculture Ministry also announced plans to suspend imports of poultry products from France due to the vaccination campaign.6 It’s interesting to note that, compared with chickens, ducks are typically resistant to avian influenza virus and don’t show symptoms.7
Duck and foie gras trade group CIFOG was in favor of the shots nonetheless, stating, “This vaccination plan … is a world-first: its goal is to protect all farmed birds and should put an end to the preventive slaughter of animals, which no one wants to live with anymore.”8 Yet, others weren’t receptive to the idea. One farmer told French news outlet AFP that her clients were “calling to tell me they don’t want meat from vaccinated ducks.”9
USDA Is Testing Bird Flu Vaccines
Most countries have been hesitant to vaccinate poultry against bird flu because it can hide symptoms of the illness, allowing the virus to circulate further.10 But the U.S., despite restricting imports of vaccinated poultry from France, has already begun avian influenza vaccination trials. In an April 2023 news release, the U.S. Department of Agriculture stated:11
“ARS [Agricultural Research Service] researchers are currently testing several vaccine candidates … Should the trials be successful, and should USDA elect to continue development, the next step is identifying manufacturers interested in vaccine production. Once one or more manufacturers are identified, there are 20 discrete stages to complete before vaccine delivery.
These stages begin with feasibility work by the manufacturer and culminates with product label submission and review. General timeframes are 2.5-3 years; however, in emergency situations manufacturers may expedite development, resulting in a shortened timeframe to licensure.
From vaccine development to production timelines, to dissemination to flocks, there are many factors that make implementing a vaccine strategy a challenge and it would take time to deliver an effective vaccine.
In a best case scenario, USDA estimates an 18-24 month timeline before having a vaccine that matches the currently circulating virus strain, is available in commercial quantities, and can be easily administered to commercial poultry.”
Further, back in 2015, the USDA granted a conditional license to Harrisvaccines for its RNA avian influenza vaccine against HPAI.12
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Is Bird Flu Being Weaponized?
Nearly 15 years ago, I wrote my New York Times best-selling book “The Great Bird Flu Hoax.” President George Bush spent over $7 billion and warned that more than 2 million Americans could die.13 But no one in the U.S. died from bird flu, which was a fraud. Yet, here we are today, with governments still warning that bird flu could be the next big pandemic in humans.
Historically, natural avian influenza (H5N1) hasn’t posed a threat to mankind, but then scientists started tinkering with it, creating a hybrid with human pandemic potential.14 Some of that research has been undertaken in Pentagon-funded biolabs in Ukraine.15
Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have also funded gain-of-function research on H5N1.16 One scientist whose work on H5N1 has been funded by both Fauci and Gates is Yoshihiro Kawaoka, Ph.D.17
In one experiment, Kawaoka mixed bird flu virus with the Spanish flu virus, resulting in a highly lethal respiratory virus with human transmission capability. Kawaoka has also played around with mixtures of H5N1 and the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) virus, creating an airborne hybrid capable of evading the human immune system, effectively rendering humans defenseless against it.18,19,20
Further, in a March 30, 2022, CenterPoint interview, former director for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, more than hinted at the possibility of a coming bird flu pandemic, stating, “I believe the great pandemic is still in the future, and that’s going to be a bird flu pandemic for man. It’s going to have significant mortality in the 10% to 50% range. It’s gonna be trouble.”21
Meanwhile, bird flu is also affecting mammals at a rate not previously seen, including skunks, bears, seals, foxes, minks and even dolphins.22 Gavi, which was founded by the Gates Foundation in partnership with WHO, is using this as propaganda for why “bird flu vaccines need urgent R&D.”23 According to Gavi:
“In general, bird flu doesn’t infect people easily — the virus binds to receptors in the upper airways of birds that are not as common in mammalian upper airways, which means it is much harder for infected mammals to spread it. Those affected tend to have been in close contact with the animals, such as farm workers, and it doesn’t easily spread between people.
However, the fact that the current global H5N1 bird flu outbreak has caused such large die-offs and has started to spread in small mammals means that some scientists are concerned that the virus could evolve to spread more easily among human beings, potentially triggering another pandemic.”
Given the increasing rhetoric from globalists that a bird flu pandemic is coming, if we do end up with a lethal human bird flu, there’s every reason to suspect it was manmade. There’s also every reason to suspect a bird flu vaccine will be either ineffective, hazardous or both.
Bird Flu Shots in the Works for People ‘Just in Case’
Even though “bird flu doesn’t infect people easily,”24 and human cases are “very rare”25 with low risk of transmission, three vaccine manufacturers — GSK, Moderna and CSL Seqirus — are developing or ready to test bird flu shots in people. A fourth company, Sanofi, said they have existing bird flu vaccine strains and “stand ready” to ramp up production.26
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which was founded in 2017 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, World Economic Forum and Wellcome, among others, is already setting the stage for a rush on bird flu shots. “We could potentially have a much worse problem with vaccine hoarding and vaccine nationalism in a flu outbreak than we saw with COVID,” Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEPI’s chief executive, told Reuters.27
Why should you be wary of CEPI’s warning? As The Highwire reported, “CEPI is a global syndicate of public-private organizations whose mission is to highlight pandemic threats, continuously prepare for the next “Disease X,” and advance vaccines.”28
Moderna already launched trials of an mRNA pandemic flu shot targeting avian influenza and also said it could produce such vaccines “very quickly” if an outbreak occurs.29
What Would Work to Stop Bird Flu?
The World Health Organization has blamed avian flu outbreaks on wild birds, not those raised on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).30 Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals, told NPR in 2022:
“We don’t know exactly what it is about it, but it does seem just to be able to grow and transmit better in wild birds. Wild birds are the perfect mechanism to spread a virus because they, of course, fly everywhere.”
It does seem strange to describe wild birds as the “perfect mechanism to spread a virus” without also pointing out that quick viral spread is virtually guaranteed on every CAFO, where birds are literally on top of each other. Yet, admitting this would necessitate sweeping changes to an industry that depends on raising large numbers of animals in close quarters.
“The USDA and the industry desperately want to blame wild birds, backyard flocks and dirty shoes rather than looking in the mirror and realizing this is nature’s way of screaming ‘Enough!,'” Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface farm and a pioneer in sustainable agriculture, writes.31 The solution to stopping avian flu in poultry doesn’t lie with vaccines and pharmaceuticals, it lies with ingenuity and a return to tradition, including smaller flocks. Salatin explains:32
“If our current ag policy is insane, what is a better alternative? My first suggestion is to save the survivors and begin breeding them. That’s a no-brainer. If a flock gets HPAI, let it run its course. It’ll kill the ones it’ll kill but in a few days the survivors will be obvious.
Keep those and put them in a breeding program. The beautiful thing about chickens is that they mature and propagate fast enough so that in a year you can move forward two generations. That’s relatively fast. Let survival determine tomorrow’s genetic pool.”
The next step involves raising poultry in optimal flock sizes, which, according to Salatin, is about 1,000 chickens or fewer. “An elderly poultry industry scientist visited our farm once and told me that if houses would break up chickens into 1,000-bird groups it would virtually eliminate diseases,” he says.
Finally, respecting nature is an essential part of the process, which means letting animals live the way they were meant to — outdoors, in fresh air and sunlight. As Salatin puts it, you’ve got to “treat the chickens like chickens” if you want them to be healthy and disease-free:33
“In addition to proper flock size, give them fresh pasture in which to run and scratch. Not dirt yards. Not little aprons around a CAFO. With mobile shelter, on our farm we move the flocks every day or so to fresh pasture. That keeps them on new ground that’s been host free for an extended period of rest. They don’t sleep, eat, and live every moment of every day on their toilet.”
Sources and References
1 Reuters June 28, 2023
2, 6, 8, 9 DW October 2, 2023
3 Yahoo October 2, 2023
4, 5 USDA APHIS September 29, 2023
7 Virology Journal volume 16, Article number: 46 (2019)
10 University of Minnesota, CIDRAP October 2, 2023
11 USDA April 14, 2023
12 Merck Animal Health September 21, 2015
13 A Retrospective on the Avian Flu Scare of 2005 AIER March 22, 2020
14 Slate December 22, 2011
15, 16, 17 OCA April 22, 2022
18 Journal of Virology May 2009; 83(10): 5278-5281
19 Cidrap June 21, 2012
20 All Nurses February 24, 2010
21 Wine Press News April 29, 2022
22 ABC News February 9, 2023
23, 24 Gavi February 15, 2023
25, 26, 27 Reuters March 20, 2023
28, 29 The Highwire January 25, 2023
30 NPR December 2, 2022
31, 32, 33 Brownstone Institute March 14, 2023
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Image by Szabolcs Molnar from Pixabay
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