Mary Wilson
Well-known member
February 12, 2025
BY BRANDON KEIM
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, few scientific questions have received as much public attention as the origin of the deadly virus: people or nature. It was the subject of journalists’ investigations and government hearings and academic recrimination; it became part of the culture war. It is perhaps strange, then, that little attention is paid to the role people have played in another potential pandemic virus: H5N1 avian influenza, a creation of modern poultry production systems.
The earliest forms of H5N1 were identified nearly three decades ago in Guangdong, China, a region rapidly adopting the industrial husbandry practices common to North America and western Europe. A subsequent outbreak in Hong Kong infected 18 people, six of whom died; the virus did not transmit easily between humans and was soon contained, but H5N1 was not extinguished. Since then, it has spread around the planet, leaving mountains of chicken carcasses in its wake, and also silent seabird colonies and beaches covered with dead seals. H5N1 has killed 464 people so far—not a large number, but the possibility of it becoming better at infecting humans is ever-present. The historical precedents are grim. ...
https://nautil.us/the-unnatural-history-of-bird-flu-1189930/
BY BRANDON KEIM
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, few scientific questions have received as much public attention as the origin of the deadly virus: people or nature. It was the subject of journalists’ investigations and government hearings and academic recrimination; it became part of the culture war. It is perhaps strange, then, that little attention is paid to the role people have played in another potential pandemic virus: H5N1 avian influenza, a creation of modern poultry production systems.
The earliest forms of H5N1 were identified nearly three decades ago in Guangdong, China, a region rapidly adopting the industrial husbandry practices common to North America and western Europe. A subsequent outbreak in Hong Kong infected 18 people, six of whom died; the virus did not transmit easily between humans and was soon contained, but H5N1 was not extinguished. Since then, it has spread around the planet, leaving mountains of chicken carcasses in its wake, and also silent seabird colonies and beaches covered with dead seals. H5N1 has killed 464 people so far—not a large number, but the possibility of it becoming better at infecting humans is ever-present. The historical precedents are grim. ...
https://nautil.us/the-unnatural-history-of-bird-flu-1189930/