How Bird Flu, Big Ag, & The Climate Crisis Are Interrelated – CleanTechnica

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Remember how nearly five years ago, Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic? Now bird flu is on the short and serious watch list for health organizations. This is a national situation in the US that could have been avoided, or at least reduced, if the federal government had required Big Agriculture to test its animals, animal handling, and animal products according to rigorous and regular scientific protocols. Instead, agriculture industry lobbying prevailed. When the outbreak began, many in Big Ag feared financial setbacks from lost milk production. They declined to test their herds, monitor their employees for illness, or allow health officials to inspect their herds.

Meanwhile, the backstory about bird flu and its connection to the climate crisis is only now becoming transparent. Climate change can negatively affect human health, making people more vulnerable to extreme weather, and it remakes animal interactions and migration patterns that can lead to pathogen spillover.

Experts warn that should human-to-human transmission become commonplace, a pandemic with its origins in climate change could be far more deadly than Covid-19.

USDA Didn’t Attack the Problem with Big Ag Head-On

The H5N1 is a strain of avian influenza that is highly contagious and lethal to chickens and has jumped to cattle. KFF Health News has revealed in an exposé how the US has likely found itself in the midst of another public health emergency. The investigation outlines how more than 60 people in the US have been infected, mainly by cows or poultry, but “cases could skyrocket if the virus evolves to spread efficiently from person to person.”

After the USDA announced the dairy outbreak on March 25, state and federal agencies assumed control. No longer were local farmers, veterinarians, and officials monitoring the situation on the ground, and collaboration disintegrated almost immediately. The USDA didn’t respond to veterinarian’s urgent requests to support studies on dairy farms — and for money and confidentiality policies to protect farmers from financial loss if they agreed to test animals.

Milking equipment was a likely source of infection, and there were hints of other possibilities, such as through the air as cows coughed, or in droplets on objects like work boots. By quickly identifying infected cows and taking measures to keep their infections from spreading, the 875 herds across 16 states that have now tested positive could have been spared.

Last month, California declared a state of emergency over bird flu in dairy cows.

Of the total, about $103 million of the recent federal funding will be directed to state and local efforts to track and test people exposed to infected animals and for outreach to livestock workers and others at high risk.

With more than $1.8 billion spent battling bird flu since the spring of last year, the Biden-Harris administration is now committing an additional $306 million toward battling the virus and will distribute the money before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office. The goal is to ward off a potential outbreak of bird flu in humans — while the legislative eyes are still on the prize of everyday citizens.

Meanwhile, the incoming Trump administration has threatened to eviscerate the budgets of agencies including the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. His nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said while he was running for president that he would “give infectious disease a break for about eight years.” House Republicans and conservative think tanks, however, have repeatedly suggested refocusing the CDC on infectious disease — setting up an apparent conflict between the two camps, Politico reports.

Because the $306 million total comes from funds that have been appropriated but not spent by the Health and Human Services Department, many insiders have concluded that the money cannot be rescinded, regardless of any actions the next administration takes to restrict the mission of health agencies.

A Deep Dive into Climate-Related Causes of Bird Flu

Climate change can have a complex impact that also influences animal and human health. For example, climate change alters the conditions for pathogens and vectors of zoonotic diseases. Climate change causes variations in temperature, rainfall patterns, and climate disaster incidence, influencing the global population’s transmission of diseases and affecting the transmission rates of various vector-borne diseases.

The spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 among animals is unprecedented having been found on all continents — except Oceania — with the United Nations calling it “a global zoonotic animal pandemic.” Wildlife, humans, their domesticated pets, and the environment are closely connected via their various roles in maintaining and spreading contagious maladies.

The discoveries of H5N1 on farms, alongside recent analysis of viral dispersal patterns, reinforce the immediacy of climate change shifting the migratory patterns of birds in the spread of viruses around the globe.

There are various factors associated with the emergence of zoonoses, such as globalization, international trade, land-use changes, and, increasingly, climate change associated with vector-borne zoonoses. Furthermore, the acceleration of zoonotic pathogens is attributable to changes in climate and ecology due to human impact and vector transportation rates that are faster than their incubation periods.

Bird-human contact: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) acknowledges that H5 bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and US dairy cows. There have been several recent human cases in US dairy and poultry workers. While the current public health risk is low, CDC is watching the situation carefully and working with states to monitor people with animal exposures. The CDC is using its flu surveillance systems to monitor for H5 bird flu activity in people. Human infections with bird flu viruses have most often occurred after close or lengthy unprotected contact (i.e., not wearing gloves or respiratory protection or eye protection) with infected birds or places that sick birds or their saliva, mucous and feces have touched.

Temperature changes: Extreme heat may be a crucial factor behind the biggest bird flu outbreak in humans in the US as officials continue to track the virus’ spread. Climate change has caused temperature changes in various geographical regions, meaning that areas previously free from certain diseases now see rises in infection prevalence. The northern regions were not much affected by zoonotic diseases in the past; however, recent evidence suggests that climate change has accelerated the spread of infections in northern countries.

For instance, climate change has resulted in the early onset of winters characterized by increased wet conditions, correlated to the increased spread of diseases via the amplified intensity of pathogens rather than increased host abundance or distribution. This indicates that the global climate crisis also can alter the nature of zoonotic infections through its effect on temperature and precipitation.

Poorer health, more susceptibility: Climate change is causing people’s general health to deteriorate, making it easier for zoonotic infection to spread. Changes in climate conditions may help to increase the resistance of microbes, such as bacteria and viruses, making treatment more difficult and contributing to an increase in the disease spread.

Change in migratory patterns: Every spring, migratory birds arrive in the continental US from south and central America to breed. But precisely when they arrive each spring varies from year to year. In a NASA-led study scientists linked this variability to large-scale climate patterns originating thousands of miles away. The scientists analyzed 23 years of bird migration data.

• They found that variability in the west region was strongly linked to regional air and sea surface temperature in the adjacent Pacific Ocean.
• Variability in the east region, however, was more strongly linked to large-scale atmospheric disturbances that form due to the Earth’s rotation and geography. These waves help transfer warm air from the tropics poleward and cold polar air to the lower latitudes. Flowing east to west, they can be thousands of miles long and impact weather and climate patterns.

A 2022 report on the state of wild birds in the US estimated that over three billion birds have been lost in part due to climate-related factors.