The H5N1 bird flu is still posing a “pandemic threat,” according to the European Union’s disease and food agencies. Mutations in the virus make is more likely to jump species, the authorities are warning.
The EU has asked its health authorities to improve testing while they attempt to convince countries under their jurisdiction to step up their surveillance and containment measures to prevent the virus from continuing to evolve and become more dangerous to people.
This news comes as the mainstream media laments President Donald Trump’s decision to stop the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly bird flu reporting. This will supposedly “stall” the release of bird flu studies.
According to KFF Health News, one of the studies would reveal whether veterinarians who treat cattle have been unknowingly infected by the bird flu virus. Another report documents cases in which people carrying the virus might have infected their pet cats. The studies were supposed to appear in the official journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The distinguished journal has been published without interruption since 1952.
Its scientific reports have been swept up in an “immediate pause” on communications by federal health agencies ordered by Dorothy Fink, the acting secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Fink’s memo covers “any document intended for publication,” she wrote, “until it has been reviewed and approved by a presidential appointee.” It was sent on President Donald Trump’s first full day in office. –KFF Health News
The “MMWR is the voice of science,” said Tom Frieden, a former CDC director and the CEO of the nonprofit organization Resolve to Save Lives. “This idea that science cannot continue until there’s a political lens over it is unprecedented,” said Anne Schuchat, a former principal deputy director at the CDC. “I hope it’s going to be very short-lived, but if it’s not short-lived, it’s censorship.”
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