The PVV is currently in formation with a right wing party, a moderate/Christian democrat right wing party, and a farmers party. Voting pro animal welfare would have complicated the formation.

In addition, I doubt that many far right voters are more pro animal welfare than pro-rural/pro-farmers. To me, this seems like it was a legitimate belief held by a few people high in the party they had to give up for strategic reasons.

I don't think it was a way to screw over Muslims.

I am concerned about the H5N1 situation in dairy cows and have written and overview document to which I occasionally add new learnings (new to me or new to world). I also set up a WhatsApp community that anyone is welcome to join for discussion & sharing news.

In brief:

• I believe there are quite a few (~50-250) humans infected recently, but no sustained human-to-human transmission
• I estimate the Infection Fatality Rate substantially lower than the ALERT team (theirs is 63% that CFR >= 10%), something like 80%CI = 0.1 - 5.0
• The government's response is astoundingly bad - I find it insane that raw milk is still being sold, with a high likelihood that some of it contains infectious H5N1
• There are still quite a few genetic barriers to sustained human-to-human transmission
• This might be a good time to push specific pandemic preparedness policies

Here's Carnegie's publications on AI: https://carnegieendowment.org/programs/technology/ai/

I'm personally pretty concerned given the many rumors of farm workers falling ill and looking to join a discussion group.

In case it doesn't exist, I've started a WhatsApp community that you can join via this link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/LD6OAM32PgF7WdJ51ABVsl

Btw, I don't think the virus has a high mortality rate in its current form, based on these reported rumors

More links:

April 22, Science:

But Russo and many other vets have heard anecdotes about workers who have pink eye and other symptoms—including fever, cough, and lethargy—and do not want to be tested or seen by doctors. James Lowe, a researcher who specializes in pig influenza viruses, says policies for monitoring exposed people vary greatly between states. “I believe there are probably lots of human cases,” he says, noting that most likely are asymptomatic. Russo says she is heartened that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has “really started to mobilize and do the right thing,” including linking with state and local health departments, as well as vets, to monitor the health of workers on affected farms. https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-government-hot-seat-response-growing-cow-flu-outbreak

April 29, Daily Mail:

Experts have warned that human transmission of bird flu may be far more widespread than thought, as farmers in Texas and Wisconsin are reported to have symptoms of the virus but are avoiding testing.

Dr Barb Petersen, a dairy veterinarian in Amarillo, Texas, explained that workers at a local farm where cattle have tested positive for the virus are suffering tell-tale symptoms.

[...] Meanwhile, veterinary researchers in Wisconsin — where the virus has infected cows — have reported multiple cases of local farmers suffering bird flu-like symptoms.

But farmers are notoriously reluctant to seek medical help, meaning 'a lot of cases are not documented', according to Dr Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13363325/bird-flu-outbreak-humans-texas-farm-worker-sick.html

in This Week in Virology, Vincent Racaniello says that he had visited Ohio farmers, and said that farm workers were getting specifically conjunctivitis rather than respiratory infections. He mentioned this really casually.

This Week in Virology TWiV 1108: Clinical update with Dr. Daniel Griffin

Also this:

"every dairy that I've worked with has – with the exception of one – had sick human beings at the same time they had sick cows.” https://www.bovinevetonline.com/news/industry/message-ag-industry-about-h5n1

From this opinion piece by Zeynep Tüfekçi in the NY Times: It's not like there's any at-scale human testing

the agency told me, it is aware of only 23 people who have been tested.

However, I don't think these cases are likely to lead to sustained human-to-human transmission, of it's true that most have only conjunctivitis.

It's in line with the one confirmed case, which only had conjunctivitis and no other symptoms: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/p0401-avian-flu.html

It's also in line with Fouchier et al., 2004

The same virus was detected subsequently in 86 humans who handled affected poultry and in three of their family members. Of these 89 patients, 78 presented with conjunctivitis, 5 presented with conjunctivitis and influenza-like illness, 2 presented with influenza-like illness, and 4 did not fit the case definitions. Influenza-like illnesses were generally mild, but a fatal case of pneumonia in combination with acute respiratory distress syndrome occurred also.

It spreading to pigs farms seems the biggest risk at the moment, and not unlikely.

Given how bird flu is progressing (spread in many cows, virologists believing rumors that humans are getting infected but no human-to-human spread yet), this would be a good time to start a protest movement for biosafety/against factory farming in the US.

Thanks

Maybe quite some people don't like random ideas being shared on the Forum?

Ah, I wasn't aware that that wasn't the conventional definition. Thanks for the correction.

Still, I think it's important to somehow manage both sets of people and we can probably do better, though my idea is quite random.