Blythe Terrell
Appearances
Science Vs
The War Keeps Raging Against Science
I don't, if it's a war, maybe scientists don't know we're supposed to be fighting. You know, like, I don't, scientists like to ask questions and tinker in the lab and, like, do science. That's why we pick up a pipette.
Science Vs
The War Keeps Raging Against Science
I think it's all about, like, what are we defining as dangerous gain-of-function research? This is where I think everyone's like, wait, what does that mean? Does that mean studying antibiotic resistance for treatment of even things like cancer, right? Viruses that are used to treat head and neck cancers that could be caught up in this.
Science Vs
The War Keeps Raging Against Science
What it is is that it is confusing because we have regulations in place. We routinely get inspected every year.
Science Vs
The War Keeps Raging Against Science
No, no, exactly. Absolutely. This is why it's confusing. We're like, well, what does this mean on top of everything else that already exists?
Science Vs
The War Keeps Raging Against Science
It's sad because we do this really well. We are really good at doing science in the U.S. The infrastructure, the amount of resources that have been pumped into scientific research over the last decade, 30, 50 decades, right? This isn't like recent developments. This is like decades of investment in science in the U.S., bipartisan. And that's why we're a superpower.
Science Vs
The War Keeps Raging Against Science
That's why we lead in antivirals, stem cell therapies, immunotherapies. It feels like we may lose that.
Science Vs
The War Keeps Raging Against Science
What it is, is that it is confusing. I mean, the thing is, I don't think anybody is safe. Every scientist, not just virologists. I mean, bacteriologists should be concerned. Cancer biologists should be concerned.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And that's partly because of this disgusting and kind of fascinating thing called a manure lagoon. Oh, sounds like a 90s band.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. So after the break, we hear what happens when humans get this new type of bird flu.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Wendy, I have seen reports of eggs smuggling, like people getting busted bringing eggs across the border. Also, like, in New York City, in the Bronx, the bodegas are, like, selling egg loosies. Like, you know, you can usually buy, like, one cigarette at a time. They're selling, like, two eggs at a time.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Okay, so we heard about the cows, all the birds, the seals, all these other animals, right? Yes. So after all this cow stuff starts popping off, pretty quickly we start getting reports of bird flu in humans in the U.S.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yes. So in the U.S., we start seeing cases in people around March 2024. That's when we get the first known case of someone getting it from a cow. And actually, scientists think that not only is this the first time that they know about that bird flu has gone cow to human— They actually think that this is the first time they know about that any mammal has given bird flu to any human.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Right, right, yeah. We normally get it directly from a bird.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And some people in the U.S. do start getting it from birds, too. So overall, in the past couple years, we've seen about 70 known cases of this bird flu in the U.S., of this H5N1 baby.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. So actually, this is what's pretty surprising. So despite all the scary headlines, every time someone gets bird flu, generally speaking, people who have gotten this in the U.S. are not getting that sick. Oh. We are mostly seeing people who have flu-y symptoms, your typical stuff, fatigue, respiratory issues.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
We do see this one weird symptom that I want to talk about for a sec, cropping up a lot, because a lot of people are getting conjunctivitis or pink eye. Actually, one study looked at this, the people who'd gotten it, and found that 93% of them had gotten pink eye, which is like not typical for flu.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, but overall, like a lot of people are getting these sort of like milder symptoms.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
But then there are some serious cases where things played out really differently. And I want to talk about a couple of those. Okay. So there's one in Canada. Canada's first human case of bird flu has everyone talking.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Had to be on life-saving machines, super scary, ends up surviving. And then there's a person in Louisiana who, same thing, gets really sick and ends up in the hospital, and that person ends up dying.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And when the scientists genetically tested the virus that's in these two people, they're like, oh, no. This is a slightly different type of bird flu. Because H5N1's baby, she's got babies of her own. And this particular baby, it seems to be making people sicker. And it is spreading in birds. And now also in the cows.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, and we've since seen a few more cases of it in the U.S., a couple more people hospitalized. In addition to this, you know, we are seeing bird flu cases and deaths in other countries, too, in H5N1. It's showing up in Cambodia. It's killed several people there, including children.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
We just had a child die in India, a child in Mexico, and we don't always know exactly which of these types of H5N1 it is, which version, if it's this creepier one, if it's something else. In some cases, though, it does seem likely that it is.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
That is 100% the question, right? Because that, if that starts happening, Wendy, like that's when we're like, we've got an outbreak. Yes. And we start freaking out about a pandemic, right? Exactly.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Exactly. So is that happening? Here's what Seema told me about what's been going on in the U.S.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. And I mean, it is really like blowing up beyond chickens and eggs. So, you know, at this point they found the bird flu in like all sorts of animals, more than 450 species.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So basically, there are a few cases of people who've gotten bird flu, and we just don't know how.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
The big thing scientists are watching is exactly that, Wendy. Like, it's exactly the genetics of the virus. Like, they're watching how this thing mutates, right? Because what they want to see is if it ends up mutating in a way that makes it way easier to spread from one person to another.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And one of the scientists who is watching this is a guy named Richard Webby. He's a virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee. I did come across an article that called you the flu catcher. What do you think about that nickname?
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
What's he do? What's he doing on our bird flu episode then? He was mostly like, my kids aren't in daycare anymore.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So Richard tells me that flu viruses, including bird flu viruses, are generally really good at mutating. And that's partly because when they get inside an animal or a person and start making copies of themselves, they tend to make a whole bunch of little mistakes. And then in some cases, those mistakes are very helpful and like help them adapt.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, exactly. And so I asked Richard, at this point, how likely do you think it is that this H5 virus will start moving from human to human?
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, like they look like the virus that you're pulling out of a goose or a chicken or a turkey or whatever. I mean, they haven't like really adapted to be good at infecting humans. Got it. Generally.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So scientists don't think it'll take that much mutating at all to get to a version that could have the capacity to spread more easily. And actually, there was like a big paper that was looking at this in the lab and actually identified one mutation. They were like, oh, if you flip this switch.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
That's a version that'll probably be easier to get into people. Uh-huh. And we do know that this bird flu can get certain mutations like this out in the wild. Because you know those two patients, Wendy, who got really sick and one of them died? Yeah, yeah. They were sick for so long that scientists think the virus did mutate inside their bodies.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And when they looked at the virus's genetics, like some of the virus in those people did have mutations that might have made it easier to spread from person to person. Wow. Which is interesting because it didn't. in those cases. Yes, right. Which brings me to perhaps like a kind of surprisingly optimistic point. Some good news, if you'll have it. I'll take it. I'll take some good news.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
The UN has called the spread in animals, quote, unprecedented, actually. And then, yeah, like, all this is happening while the Trump administration is making cuts to science and to a bunch of the agencies that handle public health in the US. Right. So with all this going on, we are just getting this steady drumbeat of headlines and news reports saying that this bird flu is the real deal.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So like we've seen it mutate. It's gotten into a fair number of people. It hasn't yet broken out as far as we can tell in any meaningful way. And Richard told me that like scientists are like really debating what that means.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
They say it would have happened by now if it could. Right. Huh.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Right. Yeah. And there's this other thing that could happen that could screw us on this. It is called reassortment. And it's where different types of flus are kind of able to mix together. So the deal with that is like, say I get infected with the regular human flu and I'm a poultry worker and I go in to work and I get exposed to bird flu.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And like both of these flus managed to get inside my body at the same time. What can happen is that they can kind of mix and match inside of me. And that is reassortment. And that's actually like that process has triggered, one scientist told me, basically all the major flu pandemics in modern history. Oh.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
It always is, isn't it, on Science Versus? Mm-hmm. I mean, and overall, big picture, like, when we talk about these viruses and how this flu is mutating and what could happen, where it could go, how it could mix with other viruses... What scientists told me is that it's a numbers game.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
You know, the more chances you give it, the more you give it chances to have virus sex, the more likely it is that it'll mutate into something that I can give to you and that you can pass along.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
No more boy who cried wolf Wendy. It's only a matter of time before this thing could totally blow up and land us in another global pandemic.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Is that like buying a few extra masks? Is that toilet paper?
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Would that help? Yeah. For humans, generally tends to be a respiratory virus. Like, that's what we see. So I do think masks would help. Right. And this is still a flu. It's still a flu. That's right. It's still a flu. I mean, Wendy, I did buy masks last week. Oh, okay.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, there are vaccines. You can't just go get one at the pharmacy. They're not like available, but they do exist. Right. But as far as how they would do if bird flu really took off?
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. I mean, look, it's not going to do anything specifically for bird flu. They're just different enough. But you should do it. You should do it. I mean, a lot of scientists reminded me that the regular flu, Wendy, I mean, it kills thousands of people every year. Like that's still going on. Yeah.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And getting the flu vaccine does reduce the chance that, I mean, if you happen to be very unlucky, right, and also get bird flu, get that reassortment thing that we talked about, that you, Wendy, you know, will be patient zero of the bird flu pandemic. And actually, one of the things that Health and Human Services Department here in the U.S.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
told me is that they are actually giving agricultural workers access to the seasonal flu vaccine as kind of part of their strategy here.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So, I mean, yeah, overall, like, bird flu does not really seem to be a big focus right now. You know, at the USDA, they are looking at ways to stop it in chickens. But like I mentioned at the start of the show, you know, the Trump administration is also like firing tons of people, including people whose job it was to work on diseases like this.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. And I mean, you know, the thing I'm actually kind of freaked out about here, Wendy, is like whether we're really going to be able to track this thing properly, you know, given everything that's going on, like how soon would we would we really know if it's starting to gain steam and spread in people? Yeah.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And one reason this has been on my mind so much is, so when I first started working on this episode, you know, watching all this last year into this year, human cases were kind of ticking up kind of a few at a time here and there. There's reports, there's news reports, data's coming in. And it was early this year, like around February, when we hit that 70 cases or so that I mentioned, right?
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And so where we are now, it's May, more than two months later, and we're still, like, supposedly at 70 cases. Mmm. And that just makes me a little suspicious, right? Because the flu is still showing up in cows. It's still showing up in new herds of cattle, right? There have been almost 50 new cattle herds infected in just the past month.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. So, like, are we really not getting more cases in people? It's just so hard to know if we can trust that.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. And there is one more thing, you know, that... I guess gets my Spidey sense on this tingling. So there was this CDC report out a couple months ago, like before all these firings really got going, where what they had done is they had tested a bunch of veterinarians who work on large animals, right?
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Oh, man. Are they right? That's what we're going to find out after the break.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And they found that three of them had antibodies for this bird flu for H5N1. Okay. Yeah, but they hadn't really been sick. And in some cases, these vets hadn't even known they were working with infected animals in the first place. So what this tells me, right, is that there have been at least some silent cases of this flu already. floating around.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
That's, yeah, that's my feeling in this moment. And I guess I will say, like, not to... Not to put your scare hat on. Not to put my scare hat on. I will say, you know, I will say, like, not to... I don't want to be alarmist about it, right? Because I will also say that, like, I asked a bunch of scientists this question. Because I've had this question.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
I'm like, if there is... If this thing really starts to spread, will we know? Mm-hmm. And all of them were like, yeah, dude. Like, if this really gets going, like, and we're seeing a lot of cases, they're like, we'll know. You know, like, reports are going to come out other ways. There's going to be, you know, you're going to start hearing from doctors. Yeah.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Is it... Are we crying wolves? Well, now you have me worried, Wendy. We all know what happened to that guy. He was murdered by wolves.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
I've got my binoculars. I'm going to do my best to keep watch for the wolves.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So in this week's episode, we have 123 citations, Wendy. Ooh. I know.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
They should go to our transcript, which they can find in the show notes of this episode. And they can find all of our sourcing, including, by the way, some citations that I'm sure will explain that a virus is not necessarily technically alive. It's complicated, we know. Yeah. Yes, yes.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Okay, yeah, so I want to start actually by talking about why exactly this bird flu scares the crap out of us so much.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
A lot happening. And also, like, to point out, too, you know, we talk about layoffs. We talk about some people losing their jobs. There have been stories about the government trying to rehire some of those people, some of the people working on bird flu. It's just been really confusing what's actually going on with that.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And I just want to note, too, that I did reach out to Health and Human Services and talk to them about a little bit of this. I did try to ask them about this whole idea that we might be missing cases of bird flu, and I just didn't hear back on that.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
All right. Thanks, Blythe. Thank you, Wendy. Thanks for letting me bird flu with you. Thanks for bird fluing with me. Anytime.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And a huge reason is that generally speaking, this type of bird flu, H5N1, can be really deadly for humans. Like, some of the warnings out there say that if we do get a bird flu pandemic, it could kill 100 million people. Why do they think that? Yeah, so there's a couple reasons, right? So, you know, if you look at past flu pandemics, like, often a lot of people get sick.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And this flu has a really high fatality rate. So when humans get this kind of bird flu, it tends to kill 50 to 60 percent of the people who get it. And, you know, with the caveat that there are some people who get bird flu and we don't know about, so maybe that death rate is a little high.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
But still, I mean, over the past few decades, on and off, about 1,000 people have been diagnosed with this, H5N1, and about half of them have died.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So when bird flu gets really bad in a person, they can get this terrible fever, they can't breathe, they might go into respiratory failure, and sometimes their organs will fail too. They can get inflammation in their brain. It can be really bad. So bird flu has been going around for a while now, every now and then, killing people over the last 20 years.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So over the years, there's been all these different types. And I mean, I've been talking about H5N1, sort of this umbrella type. But then several years ago, something changed the game here. So H5N1 has been making virus babies, let's call them. Each one a little different. These are different clades. Clades is what they're called. And then this one called 2344B popped up.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So... The day has finally come when I get to talk to you about bird flu.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, I know. I know. We didn't realize most of the time it's these really nerdy number names that are a little bit hard to keep track of.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. And I mean, that's because when it started showing up in wild birds, it was clear that something was really different about this guy. Okay. I talked about this with Seema Lakdawalla, who is a virologist at Emory University. And so Seema came across this because she works with other nerds who monitor bird flu like worldwide.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And she remembers first hearing about this virus from some other scientists out of the U.K.,
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Wait, like, wait, they were, like, literally falling out of the sky dead?
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
I actually watched a video of this bald eagle with bird flu, and it's, like, flying down to the ground, and it stumbles, and it, like, can't really land, and it's trying to walk, and it's going around in circles, and it's just, like, shaking its head, shaking its head all over the place. Oh, gosh. It's really sad.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And of course, what can happen with bird flu is that it moves with the birds who also move. So it makes its way to other countries, including the U.S. And we start seeing it in wild birds and in chickens. And this is like late 2021, 2022. And so in the U.S., what we do when this happens, when it shows up on like a poultry farm, whatever, we kill those birds. And we are killing millions of birds.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yes, I will. I will. And actually, Wendy, I will say it's been years that we've been talking about bird flu, not mere months.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Which is definitely, like, one thing that can make eggs more expensive, right? You've got fewer birds, you've got fewer eggs. Right. So overall, as this happens, though, when it first kind of pops up, it's not ringing, like, huge alarm bells for humans, right? Like, it's crappy, but we're kind of used to bird flu and birds. Right.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
But then this virus starts showing up in, like, more and more mammals. And scientists always keep an eye on that. Because... Once a virus starts like jumping species, maybe adapting to these different hosts, you start to worry that it could get to a point where it is easier for it to move from human to human.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So we're finding this new bird flu in all these different animals. But the important thing that happens next in our story is when it shows up in this particular mammal.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So we don't know for sure, but it could be that seals live along the shorelines, like along the waterline. And you also get a ton of birds who live and hang out in that same space, right? So we're thinking, oh, maybe the birds are crapping on or near the water and the seals are like, maybe they're licking it up. Maybe they're swimming in like bird crap infested waters or whatever.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. And, well, the thing is that it wasn't just the dead seals that, like, freaked people out here because they were sad about seals. The important thing was that the seals started giving this virus to each other. Oh. So they think it wasn't just, like, one seal sucks up some bird crap, another one does, another one does. They think the seals were actually spreading it.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And this kind of thing is pretty unusual. You know, bird flu going mammal to mammal. It's not the first time. But scientists start to worry that this could help it mutate to where it could go human to human.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Okay, so at this point, when we start to see all these dead seals, I asked Seema, like, how she was feeling. And she actually said she was not freaking out. It's not terrifying yet.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Exactly. Also, I mean, humans don't hang around seals all that much, right? So we have a low chance of getting it from them. Which kind of leads me to what you might be wondering, which is when does it get terrifying for people like Seema?
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Why is she worried about cattle? I believe that's actually what farmers call them, is the seals of the land. You know, those big eyes, you know. Sure. Charismatic megafauna. Yes. The reason, so I asked Seema that question. I asked why the cows matter.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
We've got cattle all over this country. We have people giving them medicine, helping them give birth, milking them, feeding them, tending them when they're sick.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
But there's also other reasons why scientists kind of freak out when the cows get it. And one of them is that as far as we knew, cows generally like did not get this kind of flu. So this bird flu belongs to this group of flus known as influenza A's, which just like are not much of a thing in cows.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, right. Yeah. What's different? What's different? That is an extremely fair question. I can say there are a few things that have kind of tipped things over the edge here. And for one thing, we have had like poultry farms being hit super, super hard.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
I mean, one virologist actually told me that people in his science community, they would like test cows for influenza A and he would like laugh at them because he was like, it was so dumb to think that a cow could get this kind of flu.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And because of this, it was like actually really impressive how scientists figured out that it was bird flu in the first place. So, Wendy, we were lucky to have some very clever nerds on the case. And yeah, and it basically started with some dairy cows in Texas that were looking a bit sick. They were eating less. They were like maybe pumping out a little bit less milk.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Okay, so these veterinarians, they ran their tests. They did their thing. They were like, okay, is it this? Is it this? It doesn't seem to be any of these infections we thought it was. Right. And they were like pretty confused.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Whoa. This is like house. This is like... Yeah. Like, right? It's super... Whoa. Detective work. Right. And then, of course, they work out that it's bird flu.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, right, which is like kind of crazy. And what's interesting here is that they didn't just like pop a swab up the cow's nose and swirl it around in there. They also tested the milk.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
The virus that is actually in the milk is alive. Are we drinking it? If you are drinking pasteurized milk... Pasteurization does seem to kill the virus. Okay. From everything I've found. Like there's already, there's been a lot of research on this where they're like the pasteurization process seems to make the milk safe.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Now, where you might run into problems, Wendy, is if you are drinking raw milk. Yes. Which is, the whole point of it is it's not pasteurized, right? Right. For real, it is like not a good idea to be drinking that right now. Like people are playing with fire because they could be straight up drinking bird flu. Got it.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Correct. If you take nothing else away, Wendy, take that away from this. Take it away. Yeah. And the same goes for unpasteurized cheese, by the way. Oh. Yeah. And we actually do know that eating bird flu virus, like it can get animals sick. Yeah. And in fact, it's one way that cats are getting it by drinking raw milk or eating raw pet food.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
And raw pet food, which can be like stuff like ground up chickens or turkeys, that has made some cats sick and some of them have died. Oh, and eggs.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, they say basically as long as you're, you know, cooking up your eggs well, they think eggs are safe.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Oh, my God. Five dozen eggs. Don't do it. Right. Don't Gaston your way to getting bird flu, please. The other thing that I would just want to point out is that it's showing up in cows and we're like really not doing all that much to stop it. Like definitely not to the level of what we do with other animals, chickens.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Since the outbreak started in 2022, the avian flu has impacted more than 135 million birds. We're hearing about these super high egg prices, you can't find eggs, which is partly because of bird flu.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, it kind of makes sense that we're not killing the cows because like what's reassuring is that a lot of the cows are surviving. It's not like they're getting super, super sick from this bird flu.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah, so once it gets into cows, it starts spreading among the cows like crazy.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
So it's so far been found in more than a thousand herds of cows in 17 states in the U.S., And I will tell you one more thing, Wendy. Oh, yeah.
Science Vs
Bird Flu: The Next Pandemic?
Yeah. So to go back to one of the big concerns here, that we end up in a situation where the virus gets in more and more animals, more and more animals. Now that the cows have it, we think... a whole bunch of new animals might also be at risk.