March 23, 2025 • 33 mins
Bird flu is here, and it’s not just for birds. How concerned should we be? With bird flu spreading across continents, it’s time to understand what’s at stake. Dr. Maurice Pitesky, veterinarian and epidemiologist at UC Davis, breaks down the science behind avian influenza, how it spreads, and what we can do to stop it. Learn about the growing risks, from poultry to public health, and the urgent need for better surveillance and prevention.
Stay up to date with us on Instagram at @DopeLabsPodcast and at DopeLabsPodcast.com
Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium.
Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors
To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today, we're talking about something that has been making a
lot of noise, and that's the bird flu.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
From wild birds to backyard chickens to the price of eggs.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Eggs are like.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Caviall right now, this disease is affecting millions, and it's
spreading faster than we can keep up with. This is
not just about the birds, though, There's a lot more
on the table, because as you know, we're all connected.
If you're drinking raw milk or you're feeding your pets
a raw meat diet, you need to listen to this
lab for some things to consider.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
That's absolutely right. This is a good one for everybody
to listen to because avian influenza or bird flu is
impacting food security, the economy, and potentially even human health.
I'm TT and I'm Zachiah, and this is Dope Labs.
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Arizekiah, this is your wheelhouse, and I can and see
you getting worked up. Let's not get ahead of ourselves,
and let's set the stage with the recitation.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
What do we know? I know, you know a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I don't know much.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, I'm gonna rent it down. Okay, we know that
the bird flu or avian influenza. You know, it's sometimes
called AI for short. That's not artificial intelligence. It's been
around for a long time. But the newest thing is
how quickly it's spreading, and that is spread to humans.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Now, okay, so what do we want to know?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, I know you got some things you want to know.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I've got a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Of things I want to know. Do I need to
be worried about getting the bird flu. I'm eating a
lot of chicken, and I'm eating a lot of eggs.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I love eggs. Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, I saw you know you had a lot of
quail eggs and brussels. No, I don't want to put
your business out there.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I don't know what it is about quail eggs, but
they had them a lot at the place I was
eating in Brussels, and I was sucking those things down.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Throwing them down.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I was eating them like popcorn. That's so bad.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's nobody's business. Well, maybe it depends. I also want
to know, is this something that the general public should
be thinking about, Like how much of a threat is
this to humans? And how contagious is it? If it
is a threat?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
And right, so I also want to know what's the
plan for prevention? Are we too late? I really hope
we're not. I mean, this is all feeling very familiar
to the pandemic that shall not be named.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yes, that's right, and these are big questions and we
should save these for our guest experts. So let's jump
into the dissection.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Our guest today is a veterinarian and an epidemiologist.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Hi, I'm doctor Maurice Potuski.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
I'm an associate professor at the UC David School of
Veterinary Medicine.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
You are actually very perfect for the questions that we
have about bird flu. Can you just bring us up
to speed with a general overview of what avian influenza
actually is?
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Yeah, so big picture, and when you think about avian
influenza and the bird flu and just tried putting it
into context. Homo sapiens, we're about three hundred thousand years old.
We were hunter gathers for about two hundred ninety thousand years,
and the last ten thousand years.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Or so we had that cultural revolution.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Humans became sedentary and we started domesticating animals, including poultry.
So if you look at the last ten thousand years
of animal domestication, no matter how you look at it,
this is the largest animal disease outbreak we've ever had.
So if you look at it geographically, it's on six
to seven continents, including Antarctica. If you look at it
(03:38):
species wise, it's in wild birds, it's in domestic birds,
it's in wild mammals, it's in domestic mammals. It's now
moving into humans. If you look at it in the environment,
it's in dairy lagoons, it's in wetlands, it's in human wastewater.
So from a kind of historic perspective, we've never seen
anything like this before.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
It's global nature.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Poultry is the most consumed animal protein on the planet,
so you know, when you think about it from a
food security perspective, there is a significant impact how that
this disease is having on our what historically has been
a relatively economically priced and stablely priced product, poultry, eggs, turkeys, chickens,
(04:20):
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Before we move on, I'm just going to go back
to a domestic chicken. What is a domestic chicken is
this chicken on leashes, chickens that you know you curl
up in bed with.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
A domestic chicken is an animal that's been domesticated.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Those are animals where we control the reproduction.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
But from a practical perspective, those are animals that we
either have as pets, so back our chickens, for example,
or animals that produce food for us, so dairy cows,
beef cattle, pigs, turkeys, broiler the chicken meat that you
and I might eat, and layers the.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Chickens that produce the eggs that you and might eat.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Wow, you said, this is the largest animal outbreak we've had,
And I want to understand, like, how worried should we
be about this? Because is this just for farmers that
should be concerned. I've been hearing and seeing the term
high path AI, which means high pathogenicity avian influenza, and
I know that means it's daily to the birds, But
what about us.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
From a human perspective, there is absolutely risk. It's primarily
occupational in the sense that the human that died in
Louisiana had some backyard chickens and was probably exposed from
wild birds that transmitted the virus to his chickens, and
he didn't have proper ppe personal protective equipment, and he
(05:47):
ended up being hospitalized and died from that. That gene type,
or that kind of type of the virus is the
most ubiquitous version of.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Hypath ai in the US and wild birds right now.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Okay, So the person who died to Louisiana, they did
have underlying medical conditions, right, So it's possible that it
was harder for them to fight the disease. But in
this economy and with this health system, the US health system,
who doesn't have underlying conditions, I mean, I feel like
everybody does.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Was there any other detection in humans?
Speaker 5 (06:20):
There was a situation on six Nevada dairies where the
virus spread from wild birds wild waterfowl into dairy workers.
Two reasons we actually even caught that virus because normally
the virus causes a drop in milk production and a
reduction in the movement of dairy cows. But this specific
(06:42):
strain didn't cause any clinical signs in the cows, but
did cause these very significant conjunctible eye infections. And I
think you know, historically we've looked at those eye infections
even like, oh, it's just conjunctivitis, and we kind of
just kind of poop potted a little. But I've seen
those pictures, and as a parent, if I saw anyone
(07:02):
that I knew with that eye infection like that, I'm like,
you need to be hostile. So it has gotten to
a stage where when you think about risk, sure, you
have occupational risks for dairy workers and poultry workers and
people that potentially have backyard chickens, but we're also seeing
now cats domestic cats that are infected that are most
(07:22):
likely getting exposed from the consumption of infected raw turkey
that's being sold to them.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Gosh, this is this is all just mind blowing for
me because these are all things that I've never heard of.
Chickens with bronchitis, cats, cows with pink eye. It's a wild,
wild world, and I mean, I feel like so many
people don't know that these things are occurring. Can you
tell us a little bit more about the actual virus.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
The virus is an RNA virus. The virus is a
segmented virus, has this amazing potential to not only mutate
but reassort. You know, we have chromosomes, we have twenty
three pairs the chromosomes in our body. High path ai
has seven segments of nucleic acid RNA. And if you
have a co infection, So if you have, for example,
(08:10):
let's say I'm carrying a human influenza, and let's say
I get exposed to a chicken that.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Has hi path ai.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
Now one of my lung cells, for example, could be
coinfected with two types of influenza, and you can get
this reassortment. The worst get start is you get this
reassortment that creates a highly virulent, highly infectious type that
we've never been exposed to.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So if I have seasonal flu, and that's a normal
human flu we see peaking in the wintertime, maybe because
of where I work or my hobbies, I might have
chickens I'm exposed to high path ai. So now have
two flues, and those flues being in me together, you
know those viruses are close together, they're able to swap
their genetic information. Now you need exactly the right conditions
(08:55):
to happen. But I would consider that to be like
the genetic lottery. Well, I don't want to hit those lists.
I don't want to hit those numbers.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
But the worry is that the virus is so ubiquitous
that that these types of events are becoming less and
less rare, and eventually, you know, we're gonna we're gonna
roll snake eyes and we're gonna get something that we
didn't want it all.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Okay, we've talked about how this could happen and get worse,
But how do we prevent it? Can we stop it now?
Or is the toothpaste already out of the tube.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
We don't know how to control this, and a lot
of the approaches that are being used, just in my
you know, opinion for the half a penny that my
opinion's worth, are are really just kind of hashing that
the same ideas that we've done for the last three years,
and those haven't worked right, and we're you know, kind
of recycling some of those same ideas and in my
(09:50):
mind not thinking about.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
This a little more holistically.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
You have just the right background for thinking of this,
So more than half a penny for you thoughts. I'm wondering,
from your perspective as somebody who's experienced in surveillance, disease modeling,
preparedness planning, where are we like when I think about
rippling effects what you're talking about. There's a biology, yes,
(10:17):
but there are some social implications here, Like I'm also
thinking about what you just said about our cheapest proteins,
and when we think about where our economy is right now,
when we think about people who may be struggling financially,
how do they afford to eat if we take chicken, eggs, turkey,
and maybe dairy, when we take those things off the table,
if there's an infection, what does that mean for us?
Speaker 5 (10:40):
I mean, I'm not a historian, but but we've never
had something this ubiquitous in this many different species. If
you look at African swine fever, which is a virus
that hasn't come into North America yet, that has moved very.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Close to our borders.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Up until maybe a decade ago, swine was the most
consumed animal protein on the planet. And then China and
other parts of the world had an epic African swine
fever outbreak that I believe resulted in the depopulation or
ethanasia of about a third of the Chinese pig supply.
And then from that, you know, poultry became the most
consumed animal protein for two reasons. First of all, it's
(11:21):
a little less expensive to produce it, and second of all,
it didn't have the same risk because of African swine fever.
We're kind of at that point where it's like, Okay,
we're at about you know, eight billion plus people on
the planet. We need to figure out how to do that.
Poultry has a lower environmental impact from what we call
feed conversion ratio the amount of grain that we need
(11:41):
to feed a chicken to get to get protein out
of it than other food animals, but there's still an
impact there.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
So if we don't figure this out, we're.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Definitely going to have to move on to you know,
Plan B or Plan C when it comes to kind
of global food security.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
What are some of the other plants. If we can't
get bird flu under control, what else is on the table?
Speaker 5 (12:15):
So avian influenza the main reservoir, the main source of
the virus are wild waterfowl like ducks and geese, which
are are migratory, So swine flu also came from wildbirds
wild waterfowl. I'm from the Central Valley of California. That's
where we have a thousand dairies, That's where we have
six hundred poultry facilities and in the fall and winter.
(12:37):
That's also where six to eight million wild waterfowl migrate
down into that central valley, and those farms obviously don't
change locations, but because waterfowl our migratory, the risk around
those farms changes literally from day to day, week to week,
month to month, and.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Year to year.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
So one of the real challenges is trying to understand
where the risk is, and that's kind of a moving target.
We have in the United States about forty four thousand
commercial poultry facilities, about sixty thousand commercial swine facilities, over
twenty thousand dairies. Historically, we've never really thought about where
(13:17):
we put our farms other than we want our farms
to be in areas where the land's inexpensive. We want
our farms to be in areas that are flat because
it's just easier logistically, and we want our farms close
to train tracks so we can ship product and soybeans
and corn and eggs and meat back and forth. We
never really thought about putting our farms in geographies that
(13:39):
are somewhat isolated from waterfowl, and that's been one of
the real challenges to kind of address this.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Wow, this is feeling like a lot, you know, and
like from your vantage point, I don't know if it
feels like something we can get our arms around.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Like, how is all of this being tracked?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Is it tracked at the state level, is it tracked
at the federal level? Is wildlife included? Or is it
just the commercial cultry that you're talking about? Are you
do you feel confident about how things are being surveyed
or in tract?
Speaker 5 (14:15):
I think so, you know, you're getting to a question
that I'm really passionate about, but for most people is
really boring. Is kind of information networks, relational databases, how
we can connect the dots to your point, And that's
a real challenge.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
So this is a global disease.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
But if I go onto USDA's website for the Animal
Plant Health Inspection Service and hypath Ai, they don't tell
me anything about what's going on in Canada. So if
I'm a farmer in Minnesota, it behooves me to understand
what's going on in Canada, and vice versa. If I
go on to the Canadian Food Inspection Agencies website, they
don't have anything about what's going on in the US.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
So this is a perfect example of why.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
We need these information networks between farmers and governments and
different countries need to be connected to each other, and
they're not right.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
We're not talking to each other.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
So absolutely we have a real problem when it comes
to kind of sharing information and collaboration and trust and
all those things. And you know, I'm an epidemiologist and
a veterinarian, but I really want to drag more social
scientists and so what I do because ultimately it's like.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Why why is there this this friction?
Speaker 5 (15:28):
So we do have this kind of lack of information sharing,
and that is that is not an easy thing to
solve because that at some level is it goes to
you know, trust and relationship building and collaboration, and that,
to me is maybe the biggest frustration of all of
this is that we have this siloing of data. So
(15:49):
we're taking a good idea trying to protect farmers to
an illogical conclusion where that data is not being shared, integrated,
and leveraged in any kind of bust away.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
At this point, it's so interesting because like when I
think about something like this, I say, when I'm going
out of town, I tell my neighbor I'm not going
to be home, so that they could be on the lookout.
If I get a package, take it off the doorstep.
If my house catches on fire, call nine one one
and call me, like, be on the lookout. That's how
we should be seeing ourselves as you know, citizens of
(16:24):
this globe, like, as neighbors, like we should be sharing
this information because it is to the benefit of everyone,
and it's just so it's so unfortunate that we're not there.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
This is a thing TT and I talk about a
lot around behavioral psychology. Even when we think about communication,
how we talk about these things affects how people think
about them, how they link them to themselves or if
they say that's for other people. We know these things,
We know our most vulnerable populations. When we protect them,
we protect all of us. What's the deal, doctor.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Petski, The USDA and the farmers are they need help?
And dairy workers right now, highest occupational risk dairy workers,
most of them are undocumented, They live in mixed generational homes,
mixed familial homes. So the reality is we're doing the
least amount of surveillance on the folks that are kind
(17:20):
of the tip of the you know, potential pandemic spear.
So God forbid, one of those guys or people comes home,
they're infected, and the virus continues to move around in
that in that physical home and mutates, and now it
goes you know, through an aerosol route human to human,
(17:40):
and we just don't have a surveillance system set up
to to kind of capture that before it gets out
of hand. At this point, I think, ultimately, if we're
not gonna be collaborative on how these problems are dealt with,
we're going to kind of go in circles. As far
as the solutions. We're not bringing in new concepts, new ideas.
(18:02):
We don't have people that are experts in social science,
we don't have people that are experts in wildlife biology,
remote sensing. I mean, there's just a lot of leverage
points that we could be integrating into the solutions, and
that's been a real challenge.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I love this point because I think that when folks
think about science, that they think of it in those
siloed ways where okay, this doesn't touch that, but it
all touches each other, because that means going to show
up in your grocery store. And even when we think
about the policy side of all of this, like all
of these things, you need people who understand who are
working in policy so that as the science is developing,
(18:41):
as you're learning more, as data is being shared, hopefully
you know there are people who can pull the right
levers to make sure that these regulations are passed so
that we have a healthier environment. I think these are
the things that worry folks. They worry about whether or
not they're going to be protected by our systems, our
(19:01):
supply chains, or if the bottom line is the one
that is going to be ruling the day.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Should folks be.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Worried about the chicken that they're buying from the grocery store.
Should they be worried about their eggs? Should they be
worried about their meat? Is this something that we should
be thinking about on a regular basis now?
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
When it comes to the food safety aspect of it,
so dairy products, unpasteuriz dairy products one hundred percent we
should be worried about.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
So in my mind, that's reason, you know, a million
and seven.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Why we shouldn't be consuming raw dairy products. I know
some people say, well, it's my risk and I can
do what I want. To that point, if we're dealing
with an infectious disease. We live in a culture where
we're interacting with you know, sometimes thousands of people every
single day. I know some people have said, well, we're
not seeing in raw dairy milk any kind of person
(19:56):
to person spread and we haven't seen in any significant,
you know, disease or anything like that, to which my
own personal feeling is like, Okay, we have feral cats
around dairy facilities that are dying from drinking being exposed
to this raw milk.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Cats are mammals, they're they're related to us.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
When diseases start spreading, they are much more difficult to
deal with than if we prevent them in the first place. So,
from an epidemiological perspective, from a public health perspective, the
the risks of consumption of raw milk, especially in a
state like California where we have hundreds of dairies that
are infected. At this point, we know the virus is
(20:38):
in the highest load in dairy milk, so I think
there's a risk there.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Now when you look at eggs.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Fortunately, when chickens get hypathai, they typically die. And I
say that fortunately from a food safety perspective, not from
a veterinary perspective, understand. Yeah, but they but they'll they'll
die and they'll stop producing eggs. And even if they
are producing you know, an egg or two before they
(21:05):
ultimately die, the reality is the egg is not really
the tissue compartment that the virus kind of localizes in.
So you know, I've had people say, well, can the
virus you know, be present on the feces that's outside
of the egg and then go through the pores into
the egg and all those things are certainly possible, but
it's just such a low risk that I don't really
(21:25):
see eggs. To me, the bigger risk with eggs is
still salmonilla. Same thing with like meat and stuff like that. Now,
for reasons of E. Coli and salmonella and Camplobacter lasteria whatever,
no one should be taking raw meat and rubbing it.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
On whatever on their eyes or mouth or whatever.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
But to me, you know, the major food safety risk
is still on the raw milk side. And then fortunately
we haven't had any situations happen or we don't think
there's a significant risk on any other animal food products.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Remember, like we would see it on like TV and
stuff like that, how they would put our raw steak
on someone's eye if they got a black eye.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yes, that's out of the question.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
We're not doing that. No more, no more, round me
on your face. That's done so so okay.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I don't know who could afford to put steak on
their face in this economy anyway. But is there anything
else we should avoid or be thinking about?
Speaker 4 (22:24):
You know, the only two things I kind of add
on people that are backyard chickens. They need to be careful.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
People should wear shoes and coveralls that are dedicated to
their coup. But now I think people should wear surgical
masks and some kind of a shield for their eyes.
And I also think it's really important to not have
bird feeders in homes that have backyard chickens, because you're
just tempting fate. You're bringing more and more wildlife to
(22:50):
your backyard, and that's how diseases, even influenza and others
can can can move from wild animals into backyard chickens.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
For example, before I started preparing for this lab, I
said to myself, maybe people are sharing more information and
I'm just not seeing it. But doctor Petski, it already
(23:21):
feels like no one said anything at all. Just based
on what you've said so far.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yeah, yeah, unfortunately.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
I mean, and if you're the poultry industry or the
dairy industry, I don't blame you, right, your job is
to make money and provide a safe product. If you're
the government, it's hard to stick your neck out, especially
right now for obvious reasons. So who's gonna say, like, hey,
we have to be careful, right, and these are the
things we need to start adding on to what we're doing.
It's kind of academics mission. And I mean that in
(23:48):
my opinion, Hopefully, like I said, six months or nine months,
everyone's like, eh, doctor Petski didn't know what he's talking about.
But we at least need to have some contingency plans
and thoughts about how we're we need to address this
because I don't think this is going to go away.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
I think we're dealing with an endemic virus at this point.
It's everywhere.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
Wow, So I think we need to kind of have
a different mindset when we as we move forward.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Okay, you brought up a really great point about folks
you know who work for the government who don't want
to stick their next out because of obvious reasons. When
COVID was first brought to our mind, Donald Trump was
the president, and there have been lots of information that
shows like how it kind of messed up our response
(24:33):
and possibly people died as a result of that. Do
you have concerns because of the current administration, like policies
about how we're going to respond to the bird flu
and what should we be telling our congressmen and women
when we call and we say, hey, this is something
that's important and you need to talk about it and
(24:55):
do the right thing.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
But I heard someone describe what happens when you start
reducing kind of the amount of resources that you have
to respond to a public health emergency, And it's like
taking the batteries out of your smoke alarm.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
If I took the batteries.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Out of my smoke alarm at our house, probably nothing
happens for a day or two or seven or ten
or whatever, but at some point you need to have
your smoke alarm. We're kind of reducing the quality of
those batteries, and a lot of different smoke alarms across
our government that are focused on vaccine development, on response,
(25:33):
on knowledge of what's going on with avian influenza humans
and occupational risks, so all of those efforts have been
mitigated either financially or via you know, kind of this
general sense of despair by you know a lot of
really smart people that work in a lot of these agencies.
(25:54):
So you wonder, you know, as we kind of strip
all that away, that we're kind of we're increasing the
potential for something if it does happen, just kind of
spiral out of control.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
In my opinion, you brought.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Up something that I'm really interested in. You mentioned vaccine
efforts for poultry and dairy. Are we on pace with
the vaccine efforts if something does happen or do you
think we're behind.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
I'm definitely not expert in vaccines, but vaccines are interesting
and complicated. So, as we know from our COVID experience,
vaccines in general protect against disease, not against infection.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
So from a.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
Biological perspective, the worry is that you're going to have
flocks or herds that are vaccinated and infected, and then
how do you prevent further transmission from those flocks and herds.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
That's a real challenge. That being said, there's countries.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
China, Egypt, Vietnam that have had eveian influenza vaccines for
probably decades at this point, and that are you know,
kind of looking at us like, wait, what are you
waiting for?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Oh, so we're late to the party in the United States.
Ain't no party in the USA, No Miley embarrassing, What
are we waiting for now?
Speaker 5 (27:14):
The politics of vaccination is complicated in the sense that
the broiler industry, which hasn't been hugely affected by this outbreak,
would prefer not to have a vaccine to be available
because once a country starts vaccinating, that potentially affects trade,
and the broiler industry is very international in their in
(27:36):
their trade. The Turkey and layer industry, which have been
much more affected by by the virus, don't have as
many international trading opportunities or or they just don't trade
as much. They're much more keen to vaccinate. Think that
the livestock industry, especially the dairy industry, is keen to
vaccinate because they're having significant effects on milk production and
(27:59):
the economics of dairy there's very thin margins already, so
I get the sense that there's this hope that vaccination
can can kind of reduce the economic impact and the
potential for spread, but vaccines are interesting. My worry on
the vaccine side is that we don't have robust enough
surveillance in wild birds. But if we have a vaccine,
(28:23):
we want to make sure that we're vaccinating against the
dominant strain and the wild.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Birds, and that can be very regional, that might be hyper.
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Local, that might be continental. We do surveillance, but our
surveillance isn't really set up to align where the poultry
industry has their interests and farms and where the wild
birds are. We have a system, but it's not probably
aligned well enough to really kind of link those two
together and make sure that we're ultimately vaccinating against the
(28:53):
dominant strains are in that region or environment or flyway.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I think we need to have one big beer and
we need a lot of groups at the table.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I think the thing that that I want to stress
is we're in uncharted territory.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
We don't know what's going to happen, and I don't
fully think that we're utilizing all the technology that we
should be using. And I think we need to start
investing now also in this kind of relationship building. And
that's a really hard thing to do during you know,
the equivalent of a whoultry pandemic already. Unfortunately, I think
if this goes away, it'll be in spite of us,
(29:28):
not because of us.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
At this point.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Wow, So basically, everybody cross your fingers.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, that said, that's the best we can do.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
This was a lot to wrap my brain around. Yes,
and there were so many different points. But if there's
a single takeaway from this episode, I think is that
we need surveillance because all this stuff is connected cats,
raw meat, diets, your quail legs potentially. I mean, I
feel like I have a better understanding of the threats
(30:00):
of bird flu and the things that aren't threat so
eating eggs that's okay.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, And I mean if this has been hard for
you to wrap your mind around, and this is like
your bread and butter, it was, Yeah, it just you know,
was completely out of my wheelhouse, and so I learned
out back. It pulled everything back, no edges, nothing's left. Okay,
I'm just walking out here, ball ahead. But I think
it just brings us back to the importance of basic research,
(30:27):
community based research, and so much more so. Some of
this work is hyper local. So you may say, oh,
they're wasting time tagging ducks. They're just enthusiasts.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Listen.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Those bird watchers may be into the beautiful plumes, but
they also may be the smoke alarm that says, hey,
there's twenty dead birds in the local pond, and that
lets you know bird flu is in your area.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
This is so important, And I don't even know where
to start. Like I'm looking at all of this. I
just know I feel like I'm about to take my
out because there's a lake near my house and I'm
about to start tracking the birds, the ducks, the hair
and is all of it, because I need to know
what's going on.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I'm looking at all these birds. Funny now, I'm like, hey,
don't come too close.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Woody. I had a woodpecker that was coming to my
house literally every spring.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I hope he doesn't come back. He drives us nuts,
he pecks on our what's the thing called a storm drain?
Speaker 6 (31:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Is it middle?
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Yes, they said they signing to his mates. Hey, I'm
not wishing bird flew on. No birds, No, but but
this little little pecker he needs to find something else
to do.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Oh you don't want him to play the high hat? No,
he's playing the drums at your house.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
I know, right.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Did you see that lady that had the mad put
a paper plate on the bottom of some sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yes, you're putting birds on the front because she wanted
to see the birds eating up close. You can't do
that anymore.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
You can't do that.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
That was already high risk. Okay, yes, yes, but now
you got to keep those birds far, far, far away.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yes. H well, a lot learned and a lot to consider.
Speaker 6 (32:06):
Yes, you can find us on X and Instagram at
Dope Labs.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Podcast CT is on X and Instagram, at d R
Underscore t s h O, and you can find Zakiya
at Z said So.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate
producer is Usara Savez.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Dope Labs is sound designs edited and mixed by James Barber.
Lamanada Media's Vice President of Partnerships and Production is Jackie Danziger.
Executive producer from iHeart podcast is Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead
is Alison Canter.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzala and Alex
sugi Ura, with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Labs
is executive produced by US T T Show Dia and
Pakia Wattley.
Today, we're talking about something that has been making a
lot of noise, and that's the bird flu.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
From wild birds to backyard chickens to the price of eggs.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Eggs are like.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Caviall right now, this disease is affecting millions, and it's
spreading faster than we can keep up with. This is
not just about the birds, though, There's a lot more
on the table, because as you know, we're all connected.
If you're drinking raw milk or you're feeding your pets
a raw meat diet, you need to listen to this
lab for some things to consider.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
That's absolutely right. This is a good one for everybody
to listen to because avian influenza or bird flu is
impacting food security, the economy, and potentially even human health.
I'm TT and I'm Zachiah, and this is Dope Labs.
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Arizekiah, this is your wheelhouse, and I can and see
you getting worked up. Let's not get ahead of ourselves,
and let's set the stage with the recitation.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
What do we know? I know, you know a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I don't know much.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, I'm gonna rent it down. Okay, we know that
the bird flu or avian influenza. You know, it's sometimes
called AI for short. That's not artificial intelligence. It's been
around for a long time. But the newest thing is
how quickly it's spreading, and that is spread to humans.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Now, okay, so what do we want to know?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, I know you got some things you want to know.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I've got a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Of things I want to know. Do I need to
be worried about getting the bird flu. I'm eating a
lot of chicken, and I'm eating a lot of eggs.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I love eggs. Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, I saw you know you had a lot of
quail eggs and brussels. No, I don't want to put
your business out there.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I don't know what it is about quail eggs, but
they had them a lot at the place I was
eating in Brussels, and I was sucking those things down.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Throwing them down.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I was eating them like popcorn. That's so bad.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's nobody's business. Well, maybe it depends. I also want
to know, is this something that the general public should
be thinking about, Like how much of a threat is
this to humans? And how contagious is it? If it
is a threat?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
And right, so I also want to know what's the
plan for prevention? Are we too late? I really hope
we're not. I mean, this is all feeling very familiar
to the pandemic that shall not be named.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yes, that's right, and these are big questions and we
should save these for our guest experts. So let's jump
into the dissection.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Our guest today is a veterinarian and an epidemiologist.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Hi, I'm doctor Maurice Potuski.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
I'm an associate professor at the UC David School of
Veterinary Medicine.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
You are actually very perfect for the questions that we
have about bird flu. Can you just bring us up
to speed with a general overview of what avian influenza
actually is?
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Yeah, so big picture, and when you think about avian
influenza and the bird flu and just tried putting it
into context. Homo sapiens, we're about three hundred thousand years old.
We were hunter gathers for about two hundred ninety thousand years,
and the last ten thousand years.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Or so we had that cultural revolution.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Humans became sedentary and we started domesticating animals, including poultry.
So if you look at the last ten thousand years
of animal domestication, no matter how you look at it,
this is the largest animal disease outbreak we've ever had.
So if you look at it geographically, it's on six
to seven continents, including Antarctica. If you look at it
(03:38):
species wise, it's in wild birds, it's in domestic birds,
it's in wild mammals, it's in domestic mammals. It's now
moving into humans. If you look at it in the environment,
it's in dairy lagoons, it's in wetlands, it's in human wastewater.
So from a kind of historic perspective, we've never seen
anything like this before.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
It's global nature.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Poultry is the most consumed animal protein on the planet,
so you know, when you think about it from a
food security perspective, there is a significant impact how that
this disease is having on our what historically has been
a relatively economically priced and stablely priced product, poultry, eggs, turkeys, chickens,
(04:20):
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Before we move on, I'm just going to go back
to a domestic chicken. What is a domestic chicken is
this chicken on leashes, chickens that you know you curl
up in bed with.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
A domestic chicken is an animal that's been domesticated.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Those are animals where we control the reproduction.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
But from a practical perspective, those are animals that we
either have as pets, so back our chickens, for example,
or animals that produce food for us, so dairy cows,
beef cattle, pigs, turkeys, broiler the chicken meat that you
and I might eat, and layers the.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Chickens that produce the eggs that you and might eat.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Wow, you said, this is the largest animal outbreak we've had,
And I want to understand, like, how worried should we
be about this? Because is this just for farmers that
should be concerned. I've been hearing and seeing the term
high path AI, which means high pathogenicity avian influenza, and
I know that means it's daily to the birds, But
what about us.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
From a human perspective, there is absolutely risk. It's primarily
occupational in the sense that the human that died in
Louisiana had some backyard chickens and was probably exposed from
wild birds that transmitted the virus to his chickens, and
he didn't have proper ppe personal protective equipment, and he
(05:47):
ended up being hospitalized and died from that. That gene type,
or that kind of type of the virus is the
most ubiquitous version of.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Hypath ai in the US and wild birds right now.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Okay, So the person who died to Louisiana, they did
have underlying medical conditions, right, So it's possible that it
was harder for them to fight the disease. But in
this economy and with this health system, the US health system,
who doesn't have underlying conditions, I mean, I feel like
everybody does.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Was there any other detection in humans?
Speaker 5 (06:20):
There was a situation on six Nevada dairies where the
virus spread from wild birds wild waterfowl into dairy workers.
Two reasons we actually even caught that virus because normally
the virus causes a drop in milk production and a
reduction in the movement of dairy cows. But this specific
(06:42):
strain didn't cause any clinical signs in the cows, but
did cause these very significant conjunctible eye infections. And I
think you know, historically we've looked at those eye infections
even like, oh, it's just conjunctivitis, and we kind of
just kind of poop potted a little. But I've seen
those pictures, and as a parent, if I saw anyone
(07:02):
that I knew with that eye infection like that, I'm like,
you need to be hostile. So it has gotten to
a stage where when you think about risk, sure, you
have occupational risks for dairy workers and poultry workers and
people that potentially have backyard chickens, but we're also seeing
now cats domestic cats that are infected that are most
(07:22):
likely getting exposed from the consumption of infected raw turkey
that's being sold to them.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Gosh, this is this is all just mind blowing for
me because these are all things that I've never heard of.
Chickens with bronchitis, cats, cows with pink eye. It's a wild,
wild world, and I mean, I feel like so many
people don't know that these things are occurring. Can you
tell us a little bit more about the actual virus.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
The virus is an RNA virus. The virus is a
segmented virus, has this amazing potential to not only mutate
but reassort. You know, we have chromosomes, we have twenty
three pairs the chromosomes in our body. High path ai
has seven segments of nucleic acid RNA. And if you
have a co infection, So if you have, for example,
(08:10):
let's say I'm carrying a human influenza, and let's say
I get exposed to a chicken that.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Has hi path ai.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
Now one of my lung cells, for example, could be
coinfected with two types of influenza, and you can get
this reassortment. The worst get start is you get this
reassortment that creates a highly virulent, highly infectious type that
we've never been exposed to.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So if I have seasonal flu, and that's a normal
human flu we see peaking in the wintertime, maybe because
of where I work or my hobbies, I might have
chickens I'm exposed to high path ai. So now have
two flues, and those flues being in me together, you
know those viruses are close together, they're able to swap
their genetic information. Now you need exactly the right conditions
(08:55):
to happen. But I would consider that to be like
the genetic lottery. Well, I don't want to hit those lists.
I don't want to hit those numbers.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
But the worry is that the virus is so ubiquitous
that that these types of events are becoming less and
less rare, and eventually, you know, we're gonna we're gonna
roll snake eyes and we're gonna get something that we
didn't want it all.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Okay, we've talked about how this could happen and get worse,
But how do we prevent it? Can we stop it now?
Or is the toothpaste already out of the tube.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
We don't know how to control this, and a lot
of the approaches that are being used, just in my
you know, opinion for the half a penny that my
opinion's worth, are are really just kind of hashing that
the same ideas that we've done for the last three years,
and those haven't worked right, and we're you know, kind
of recycling some of those same ideas and in my
(09:50):
mind not thinking about.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
This a little more holistically.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
You have just the right background for thinking of this,
So more than half a penny for you thoughts. I'm wondering,
from your perspective as somebody who's experienced in surveillance, disease modeling,
preparedness planning, where are we like when I think about
rippling effects what you're talking about. There's a biology, yes,
(10:17):
but there are some social implications here, Like I'm also
thinking about what you just said about our cheapest proteins,
and when we think about where our economy is right now,
when we think about people who may be struggling financially,
how do they afford to eat if we take chicken, eggs, turkey,
and maybe dairy, when we take those things off the table,
if there's an infection, what does that mean for us?
Speaker 5 (10:40):
I mean, I'm not a historian, but but we've never
had something this ubiquitous in this many different species. If
you look at African swine fever, which is a virus
that hasn't come into North America yet, that has moved very.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Close to our borders.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Up until maybe a decade ago, swine was the most
consumed animal protein on the planet. And then China and
other parts of the world had an epic African swine
fever outbreak that I believe resulted in the depopulation or
ethanasia of about a third of the Chinese pig supply.
And then from that, you know, poultry became the most
consumed animal protein for two reasons. First of all, it's
(11:21):
a little less expensive to produce it, and second of all,
it didn't have the same risk because of African swine fever.
We're kind of at that point where it's like, Okay,
we're at about you know, eight billion plus people on
the planet. We need to figure out how to do that.
Poultry has a lower environmental impact from what we call
feed conversion ratio the amount of grain that we need
(11:41):
to feed a chicken to get to get protein out
of it than other food animals, but there's still an
impact there.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
So if we don't figure this out, we're.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Definitely going to have to move on to you know,
Plan B or Plan C when it comes to kind
of global food security.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
What are some of the other plants. If we can't
get bird flu under control, what else is on the table?
Speaker 5 (12:15):
So avian influenza the main reservoir, the main source of
the virus are wild waterfowl like ducks and geese, which
are are migratory, So swine flu also came from wildbirds
wild waterfowl. I'm from the Central Valley of California. That's
where we have a thousand dairies, That's where we have
six hundred poultry facilities and in the fall and winter.
(12:37):
That's also where six to eight million wild waterfowl migrate
down into that central valley, and those farms obviously don't
change locations, but because waterfowl our migratory, the risk around
those farms changes literally from day to day, week to week,
month to month, and.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Year to year.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
So one of the real challenges is trying to understand
where the risk is, and that's kind of a moving target.
We have in the United States about forty four thousand
commercial poultry facilities, about sixty thousand commercial swine facilities, over
twenty thousand dairies. Historically, we've never really thought about where
(13:17):
we put our farms other than we want our farms
to be in areas where the land's inexpensive. We want
our farms to be in areas that are flat because
it's just easier logistically, and we want our farms close
to train tracks so we can ship product and soybeans
and corn and eggs and meat back and forth. We
never really thought about putting our farms in geographies that
(13:39):
are somewhat isolated from waterfowl, and that's been one of
the real challenges to kind of address this.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Wow, this is feeling like a lot, you know, and
like from your vantage point, I don't know if it
feels like something we can get our arms around.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Like, how is all of this being tracked?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Is it tracked at the state level, is it tracked
at the federal level? Is wildlife included? Or is it
just the commercial cultry that you're talking about? Are you
do you feel confident about how things are being surveyed
or in tract?
Speaker 5 (14:15):
I think so, you know, you're getting to a question
that I'm really passionate about, but for most people is
really boring. Is kind of information networks, relational databases, how
we can connect the dots to your point, And that's
a real challenge.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
So this is a global disease.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
But if I go onto USDA's website for the Animal
Plant Health Inspection Service and hypath Ai, they don't tell
me anything about what's going on in Canada. So if
I'm a farmer in Minnesota, it behooves me to understand
what's going on in Canada, and vice versa. If I
go on to the Canadian Food Inspection Agencies website, they
don't have anything about what's going on in the US.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
So this is a perfect example of why.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
We need these information networks between farmers and governments and
different countries need to be connected to each other, and
they're not right.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
We're not talking to each other.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
So absolutely we have a real problem when it comes
to kind of sharing information and collaboration and trust and
all those things. And you know, I'm an epidemiologist and
a veterinarian, but I really want to drag more social
scientists and so what I do because ultimately it's like.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Why why is there this this friction?
Speaker 5 (15:28):
So we do have this kind of lack of information sharing,
and that is that is not an easy thing to
solve because that at some level is it goes to
you know, trust and relationship building and collaboration, and that,
to me is maybe the biggest frustration of all of
this is that we have this siloing of data. So
(15:49):
we're taking a good idea trying to protect farmers to
an illogical conclusion where that data is not being shared, integrated,
and leveraged in any kind of bust away.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
At this point, it's so interesting because like when I
think about something like this, I say, when I'm going
out of town, I tell my neighbor I'm not going
to be home, so that they could be on the lookout.
If I get a package, take it off the doorstep.
If my house catches on fire, call nine one one
and call me, like, be on the lookout. That's how
we should be seeing ourselves as you know, citizens of
(16:24):
this globe, like, as neighbors, like we should be sharing
this information because it is to the benefit of everyone,
and it's just so it's so unfortunate that we're not there.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
This is a thing TT and I talk about a
lot around behavioral psychology. Even when we think about communication,
how we talk about these things affects how people think
about them, how they link them to themselves or if
they say that's for other people. We know these things,
We know our most vulnerable populations. When we protect them,
we protect all of us. What's the deal, doctor.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Petski, The USDA and the farmers are they need help?
And dairy workers right now, highest occupational risk dairy workers,
most of them are undocumented, They live in mixed generational homes,
mixed familial homes. So the reality is we're doing the
least amount of surveillance on the folks that are kind
(17:20):
of the tip of the you know, potential pandemic spear.
So God forbid, one of those guys or people comes home,
they're infected, and the virus continues to move around in
that in that physical home and mutates, and now it
goes you know, through an aerosol route human to human,
(17:40):
and we just don't have a surveillance system set up
to to kind of capture that before it gets out
of hand. At this point, I think, ultimately, if we're
not gonna be collaborative on how these problems are dealt with,
we're going to kind of go in circles. As far
as the solutions. We're not bringing in new concepts, new ideas.
(18:02):
We don't have people that are experts in social science,
we don't have people that are experts in wildlife biology,
remote sensing. I mean, there's just a lot of leverage
points that we could be integrating into the solutions, and
that's been a real challenge.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I love this point because I think that when folks
think about science, that they think of it in those
siloed ways where okay, this doesn't touch that, but it
all touches each other, because that means going to show
up in your grocery store. And even when we think
about the policy side of all of this, like all
of these things, you need people who understand who are
working in policy so that as the science is developing,
(18:41):
as you're learning more, as data is being shared, hopefully
you know there are people who can pull the right
levers to make sure that these regulations are passed so
that we have a healthier environment. I think these are
the things that worry folks. They worry about whether or
not they're going to be protected by our systems, our
(19:01):
supply chains, or if the bottom line is the one
that is going to be ruling the day.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Should folks be.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Worried about the chicken that they're buying from the grocery store.
Should they be worried about their eggs? Should they be
worried about their meat? Is this something that we should
be thinking about on a regular basis now?
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
When it comes to the food safety aspect of it,
so dairy products, unpasteuriz dairy products one hundred percent we
should be worried about.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
So in my mind, that's reason, you know, a million
and seven.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Why we shouldn't be consuming raw dairy products. I know
some people say, well, it's my risk and I can
do what I want. To that point, if we're dealing
with an infectious disease. We live in a culture where
we're interacting with you know, sometimes thousands of people every
single day. I know some people have said, well, we're
not seeing in raw dairy milk any kind of person
(19:56):
to person spread and we haven't seen in any significant,
you know, disease or anything like that, to which my
own personal feeling is like, Okay, we have feral cats
around dairy facilities that are dying from drinking being exposed
to this raw milk.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Cats are mammals, they're they're related to us.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
When diseases start spreading, they are much more difficult to
deal with than if we prevent them in the first place. So,
from an epidemiological perspective, from a public health perspective, the
the risks of consumption of raw milk, especially in a
state like California where we have hundreds of dairies that
are infected. At this point, we know the virus is
(20:38):
in the highest load in dairy milk, so I think
there's a risk there.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Now when you look at eggs.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Fortunately, when chickens get hypathai, they typically die. And I
say that fortunately from a food safety perspective, not from
a veterinary perspective, understand. Yeah, but they but they'll they'll
die and they'll stop producing eggs. And even if they
are producing you know, an egg or two before they
(21:05):
ultimately die, the reality is the egg is not really
the tissue compartment that the virus kind of localizes in.
So you know, I've had people say, well, can the
virus you know, be present on the feces that's outside
of the egg and then go through the pores into
the egg and all those things are certainly possible, but
it's just such a low risk that I don't really
(21:25):
see eggs. To me, the bigger risk with eggs is
still salmonilla. Same thing with like meat and stuff like that. Now,
for reasons of E. Coli and salmonella and Camplobacter lasteria whatever,
no one should be taking raw meat and rubbing it.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
On whatever on their eyes or mouth or whatever.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
But to me, you know, the major food safety risk
is still on the raw milk side. And then fortunately
we haven't had any situations happen or we don't think
there's a significant risk on any other animal food products.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Remember, like we would see it on like TV and
stuff like that, how they would put our raw steak
on someone's eye if they got a black eye.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yes, that's out of the question.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
We're not doing that. No more, no more, round me
on your face. That's done so so okay.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I don't know who could afford to put steak on
their face in this economy anyway. But is there anything
else we should avoid or be thinking about?
Speaker 4 (22:24):
You know, the only two things I kind of add
on people that are backyard chickens. They need to be careful.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
People should wear shoes and coveralls that are dedicated to
their coup. But now I think people should wear surgical
masks and some kind of a shield for their eyes.
And I also think it's really important to not have
bird feeders in homes that have backyard chickens, because you're
just tempting fate. You're bringing more and more wildlife to
(22:50):
your backyard, and that's how diseases, even influenza and others
can can can move from wild animals into backyard chickens.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
For example, before I started preparing for this lab, I
said to myself, maybe people are sharing more information and
I'm just not seeing it. But doctor Petski, it already
(23:21):
feels like no one said anything at all. Just based
on what you've said so far.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yeah, yeah, unfortunately.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
I mean, and if you're the poultry industry or the
dairy industry, I don't blame you, right, your job is
to make money and provide a safe product. If you're
the government, it's hard to stick your neck out, especially
right now for obvious reasons. So who's gonna say, like, hey,
we have to be careful, right, and these are the
things we need to start adding on to what we're doing.
It's kind of academics mission. And I mean that in
(23:48):
my opinion, Hopefully, like I said, six months or nine months,
everyone's like, eh, doctor Petski didn't know what he's talking about.
But we at least need to have some contingency plans
and thoughts about how we're we need to address this
because I don't think this is going to go away.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
I think we're dealing with an endemic virus at this point.
It's everywhere.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
Wow, So I think we need to kind of have
a different mindset when we as we move forward.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Okay, you brought up a really great point about folks
you know who work for the government who don't want
to stick their next out because of obvious reasons. When
COVID was first brought to our mind, Donald Trump was
the president, and there have been lots of information that
shows like how it kind of messed up our response
(24:33):
and possibly people died as a result of that. Do
you have concerns because of the current administration, like policies
about how we're going to respond to the bird flu
and what should we be telling our congressmen and women
when we call and we say, hey, this is something
that's important and you need to talk about it and
(24:55):
do the right thing.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
But I heard someone describe what happens when you start
reducing kind of the amount of resources that you have
to respond to a public health emergency, And it's like
taking the batteries out of your smoke alarm.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
If I took the batteries.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Out of my smoke alarm at our house, probably nothing
happens for a day or two or seven or ten
or whatever, but at some point you need to have
your smoke alarm. We're kind of reducing the quality of
those batteries, and a lot of different smoke alarms across
our government that are focused on vaccine development, on response,
(25:33):
on knowledge of what's going on with avian influenza humans
and occupational risks, so all of those efforts have been
mitigated either financially or via you know, kind of this
general sense of despair by you know a lot of
really smart people that work in a lot of these agencies.
(25:54):
So you wonder, you know, as we kind of strip
all that away, that we're kind of we're increasing the
potential for something if it does happen, just kind of
spiral out of control.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
In my opinion, you brought.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Up something that I'm really interested in. You mentioned vaccine
efforts for poultry and dairy. Are we on pace with
the vaccine efforts if something does happen or do you
think we're behind.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
I'm definitely not expert in vaccines, but vaccines are interesting
and complicated. So, as we know from our COVID experience,
vaccines in general protect against disease, not against infection.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
So from a.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
Biological perspective, the worry is that you're going to have
flocks or herds that are vaccinated and infected, and then
how do you prevent further transmission from those flocks and herds.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
That's a real challenge. That being said, there's countries.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
China, Egypt, Vietnam that have had eveian influenza vaccines for
probably decades at this point, and that are you know,
kind of looking at us like, wait, what are you
waiting for?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Oh, so we're late to the party in the United States.
Ain't no party in the USA, No Miley embarrassing, What
are we waiting for now?
Speaker 5 (27:14):
The politics of vaccination is complicated in the sense that
the broiler industry, which hasn't been hugely affected by this outbreak,
would prefer not to have a vaccine to be available
because once a country starts vaccinating, that potentially affects trade,
and the broiler industry is very international in their in
(27:36):
their trade. The Turkey and layer industry, which have been
much more affected by by the virus, don't have as
many international trading opportunities or or they just don't trade
as much. They're much more keen to vaccinate. Think that
the livestock industry, especially the dairy industry, is keen to
vaccinate because they're having significant effects on milk production and
(27:59):
the economics of dairy there's very thin margins already, so
I get the sense that there's this hope that vaccination
can can kind of reduce the economic impact and the
potential for spread, but vaccines are interesting. My worry on
the vaccine side is that we don't have robust enough
surveillance in wild birds. But if we have a vaccine,
(28:23):
we want to make sure that we're vaccinating against the
dominant strain and the wild.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Birds, and that can be very regional, that might be hyper.
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Local, that might be continental. We do surveillance, but our
surveillance isn't really set up to align where the poultry
industry has their interests and farms and where the wild
birds are. We have a system, but it's not probably
aligned well enough to really kind of link those two
together and make sure that we're ultimately vaccinating against the
(28:53):
dominant strains are in that region or environment or flyway.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I think we need to have one big beer and
we need a lot of groups at the table.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I think the thing that that I want to stress
is we're in uncharted territory.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
We don't know what's going to happen, and I don't
fully think that we're utilizing all the technology that we
should be using. And I think we need to start
investing now also in this kind of relationship building. And
that's a really hard thing to do during you know,
the equivalent of a whoultry pandemic already. Unfortunately, I think
if this goes away, it'll be in spite of us,
(29:28):
not because of us.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
At this point.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Wow, So basically, everybody cross your fingers.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, that said, that's the best we can do.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
This was a lot to wrap my brain around. Yes,
and there were so many different points. But if there's
a single takeaway from this episode, I think is that
we need surveillance because all this stuff is connected cats,
raw meat, diets, your quail legs potentially. I mean, I
feel like I have a better understanding of the threats
(30:00):
of bird flu and the things that aren't threat so
eating eggs that's okay.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, And I mean if this has been hard for
you to wrap your mind around, and this is like
your bread and butter, it was, Yeah, it just you know,
was completely out of my wheelhouse, and so I learned
out back. It pulled everything back, no edges, nothing's left. Okay,
I'm just walking out here, ball ahead. But I think
it just brings us back to the importance of basic research,
(30:27):
community based research, and so much more so. Some of
this work is hyper local. So you may say, oh,
they're wasting time tagging ducks. They're just enthusiasts.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Listen.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Those bird watchers may be into the beautiful plumes, but
they also may be the smoke alarm that says, hey,
there's twenty dead birds in the local pond, and that
lets you know bird flu is in your area.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
This is so important, And I don't even know where
to start. Like I'm looking at all of this. I
just know I feel like I'm about to take my
out because there's a lake near my house and I'm
about to start tracking the birds, the ducks, the hair
and is all of it, because I need to know
what's going on.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I'm looking at all these birds. Funny now, I'm like, hey,
don't come too close.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Woody. I had a woodpecker that was coming to my
house literally every spring.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I hope he doesn't come back. He drives us nuts,
he pecks on our what's the thing called a storm drain?
Speaker 6 (31:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Is it middle?
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Yes, they said they signing to his mates. Hey, I'm
not wishing bird flew on. No birds, No, but but
this little little pecker he needs to find something else
to do.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Oh you don't want him to play the high hat? No,
he's playing the drums at your house.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
I know, right.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Did you see that lady that had the mad put
a paper plate on the bottom of some sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yes, you're putting birds on the front because she wanted
to see the birds eating up close. You can't do
that anymore.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
You can't do that.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
That was already high risk. Okay, yes, yes, but now
you got to keep those birds far, far, far away.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yes. H well, a lot learned and a lot to consider.
Speaker 6 (32:06):
Yes, you can find us on X and Instagram at
Dope Labs.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Podcast CT is on X and Instagram, at d R
Underscore t s h O, and you can find Zakiya
at Z said So.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate
producer is Usara Savez.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Dope Labs is sound designs edited and mixed by James Barber.
Lamanada Media's Vice President of Partnerships and Production is Jackie Danziger.
Executive producer from iHeart podcast is Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead
is Alison Canter.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzala and Alex
sugi Ura, with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Labs
is executive produced by US T T Show Dia and
Pakia Wattley.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.