Eyeing Potential Bird Flu Outbreak, Biden Admin Ramps Up Preparedness. The administration is committing an additional $306 million toward battling the virus and will distribute the money before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.#H5N1 #BirdFluhttps://t.co/S0CN1RALAW
— Ralf P. Loserth (@captainsnackbar) January 3, 2025
Cementing his status, as far as I’m concerned, as probably the best President of my lifetime. For which, to quote a mordant proverb from our people He will get his reward in heaven, since it certainly won’t happen down here.
Per the NYTimes, “Eyeing Potential Bird Flu Outbreak, Biden Administration Ramps Up Preparedness” [gift link]
The Biden administration, in a final push to shore up the nation’s pandemic preparedness before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, announced on Thursday that it would nearly double the amount of money it was committing to ward off a potential outbreak of bird flu in humans.
Federal health officials have been keeping a close eye on H5N1, a strain of avian influenza that is highly contagious and lethal to chickens, and has spread to cattle. The virus has not yet demonstrated that it can spread efficiently among people.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the current risk to humans remains low, and that pasteurized milk products remain safe to consume. But should human-to-human transmission become commonplace, experts fear a pandemic that could be far more deadly than Covid-19.
On Thursday, the administration said it was committing $306 million toward improving hospital preparedness, early stage research on therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines. About $103 million of that will help maintain state and local efforts to track and test people exposed to infected animals, and for outreach to livestock workers and others at high risk.
The Biden administration has already spent more than $1.8 billion battling bird flu since the spring of last year. Most of that, $1.5 billion, was spent by the federal Agriculture Department on fighting the virus among animals. The remainder, about $360 million, has been spent by the Health and Human Services Department on efforts to protect people, according to federal officials.
The additional funds will be distributed in the next two weeks, Dr. Paul Friedrichs, the director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, said in an interview Thursday…
The KFF / Scientific American article below is an excellent read, but not for the squeamish, especially over breakfast:
How America Lost Control of the Bird Flu, Setting the Stage for Another Pandemic kffhealthnews.org/MTk1OTA5OQ
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Potential bright spot:
A universal influenza #vaccine candidate from @OsivaxVaccines shows excellent results in a Phase 2a clinical trial and may be coming to us soon. No word if it works against #H5N1, but I'm cautiously optimistic it might. https://t.co/rZBU2fLvoA
— SkepticalRaptor (@skepticalraptor) January 3, 2025
Popular virologist Chise has an excellent explanatory thread on BlueSky, but she chooses not to enable embeds, so you’ll have to click over to read it.
On The Road – UncleEbeneezer – Eastern Sierra Fall Foliage 2024- Parker Lake (Part 8/8)
The Audacity of Krope
I had been assured this man was no longer capable of presiding.
TBone
Yesterday, on CNBC, the question was put to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who assured us that the avian flu is of absolutely no concern. Next question!
The “it’s not pee, it’s poop” interjection made me not change the channel.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/probably-in-the-peak-season-for-the-flu-covid-19-and-rsv-says-former-fda-commissioner-gottlieb/vi-AA1wQYTi
terraformer
One of the things that irks me in most any big-press/media article about viruses and potential pandemics is that most of them *completely elide* the fact that Republicans so fcked up the US’ COVID response that they needed a scapegoat to distract from it, and so they chose to attack science and scientists. And as a result, the mouth-breathing caucus predictably distrusts *everything* health-related. People who’d been taking vaccines their entire lives without issue suddenly about-faced.
This was a two-fer for Republicans, because they need to cast clouds on expertise, because by virtue of their expertise, experts are (or used to be) the only people who could call out bad policy and be believed
oldgold
@terraformer: !
TBone
@TBone: they cut off that video just before the bird flu portion I referred to, dang.
BlueGuitarist
Thanks AL!
For juicers looking to out in some work virtual phonebanking for Virginia special elections, (weird looking) link to Mobilize.us
https://www.mobilize.us/kannanforvirginia/event/745939/?utm_source=sdp-eml-20241218&link_id=9&can_id=43723216ba3d62e1640d341e9efba51b&email_referrer=email_2562828___subject_3092211&email_subject=in-case-you-missed-it-were-thrilled-to-endorse-kannan-srinivasan-and-jj-singh
Virginia special elections are Tuesday, Jan. 7.
Special election coming up 1/28 for Black Hawk County Iowa supervisor.
Kamala won the county, which includes Waterloo and Cedar Falls, by 1 percentage point.
Tom Levenson
The vaccine news is good, or rather promising, but it’s important to note that these are early candidates, and many pharmaceuticals can look promising even into phase 2 trials and still fail. The potential vaccine Chise talks about is very early in the process: it’s at the animal and glassware phase—a long way to go. (The human tonsil organoid approach is wicked cool, but the molecule in question is still a drug-in-a-dish compound.)
The Osivax vaccine is much further along of course, and I don’t mean to be a downer: success through phase 1 is genuinely promising. But it’s going to be a little while yet
And yes—I am working on a book (nearly out) that goes deep into the history of microbes, infectious disease, and, not coincidentally, hangs out a little in the vaccine story as well. Why do you ask?
The Audacity of Krope
The great thing about Balloon Juice is it’s always after dark somewhere.
lowtechcyclist
@Tom Levenson:
Let us know when we can pre-order it!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
Good morning!
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
artem1s
Biden already has his reward. His life view is that the work itself is it’s own reward. He’s had a life well lived and will go to his grave knowing he did what he could. He’s not chasing money or medals. He didn’t want to be POTUS because he thought he deserved it or for adulation but because he wanted to the work and responsibility. Being knocked down and getting back up again was his duty and honor. Only Carter matched him in a life well lived. I thoroughly believe if Carter had spent a dozen or more years in Congress before he ran for President he probably would have been able to build a comparable DC network and accomplish a lot more and probably get reelected.
Unfortunately he didn’t have Joe’s experience in circumventing the DC Village insiders who torpedoed Carter’s presidency just because he had the audacity to jump ahead of the next Ivy League good hairdo in line. Biden was following in Jimmy’s (and Clinton’s) footsteps when he made his cabinet and judge nominees and staff look like American instead of a 1950’s board room or Augusta National membership.
Wag
I read Chise’s thread describing the immunology behind the new vaccine and the science behind it is very strong. This has the potential to be a complete game changer in terms of influenza vaccines, and the concept might also translate into universal vaccines for other rapidly mutating viruses like Covid. Excellent news.
HinTN
@artem1s:
Let us not forget Reagan’s treasonous dealings with Iran regarding the hostages.
satby
@HinTN: which was just one more step on the path of the Republicans becoming the full treason party that they started on in the 1960s.
H.E.Wolf
@The Audacity of Krope:
As Cheryl Rofer pointed out when she was a front-pager here, sarcastic contra-factual statements help a negative/false story establish a stronger foothold.
Folks who like to employ sarcasm when deploring something, thus find themselves with a dilemma to resolve.
I don’t have an answer for anyone else. But for myself, I decided not to use sarcasm in those contexts.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you. Quoting it because we sure could use some excellent news – and improvements in public health are always worth celebrating!
TBone
Interesting read.
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/01/stand-out-how-to-prevent-obeying-in-advance.html
I have lots of practice but a skills brushing-up is always a good idea.
Suzanne
Another interesting book on the general topic of pandemics that I can recommend is The Topography of Wellness: How Health and Disease Shaped the American Landscape. Easy to read for non-disease ecologists like me.
The Audacity of Krope
Well, that ship has sailed and there’s no catching it at this point. So I’ll continue on my default sarcastic way, thank you very much.
wvng
Yesterday, a FB post for availability of covid and flu vaccines at the Hardy County (WV) Health Dep’t drew a large number of angry and dismissive comments saying it is all b.s. As jaded as I am, I found the vehemence shocking. The disinformation about these vaccines has poisoned public discourse about essential public health.
eclare
@Suzanne:
I would add The Coming Plague, by Laurie Garrett. Fascinating.
https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Plague-Laurie-Garrett/dp/1250796121
Belafon
My urge to prevent a problem Republicans will screw up badly comes into conflict with the fact that they never learn anything unless they’ve felt the pain for a while. It’s like when the 2008 recession happened late in Bush’s presidency and Obama fixed it, or Covid in the late part of Trump’s term that Biden responded to it properly, vs the 1929 crash happening early enough in Hoover’s term that people got to see and feel the Republican response.
Suzanne
@eclare: Ooooh thanks for sharing. Looks terrifying and important.
Humans ever-encroaching into natural landscape is….. a crisis that is slow-moving, right up until it isn’t.
sab
@H.E.Wolf: Agreed. In particular, written sarcasm can too easily be taken out of context, and be interpreted or quoted to have the opposite meaning from what was intended.
eclare
@Suzanne:
The parts about field work, even in a hotel for Legionnaires disease, are very interesting. Some of the later chapters were not as gripping to me. I’m sure your library has it.
BlueGuitarist
@Suzanne:
@eclare:
thanks!
Alas, a Dylan lyric I did not expect to quote:
“right now, I can’t read too good” (Desolation Row)
Suzanne
Ooooh, Biden announced that he’s blocking the U.S. Steel merger. Cue the exploding heads.
Not sure why he’s not leaving this one to TFG. TFG implied that he would allow it, and then, after the election, said he would block it.
mrmoshpotato
@TBone: Sue them!
gene108
The KFF article linked above rips the USDA, CDC, etc. a new asshole for bungling the bird flu response in dairy herds and especially among farm workers.
Seems it’s luck we don’t have a highly contagious human to human pandemic on our hands. One day luck may run out.
eclare
Has anyone noticed an incredible increase in misspellings over the past couple of weeks? Not here, but in media in general. People relying too much on AI/ChatGPT?
I am a stickler for correct spelling.
Chris Johnson
@wvng: Can’t be surprised at that, though. It’s war.
People doing that are effectively at war against America, with their weapon being the ability to be angry at health measures. They are utter fools to be jockeyed into that position, but that’s what they are, and that’s why they’re so mad.
They are literally fighting to kill more Americans because they’re so dazed and confused they think they must. It’s like hypoxia or something: these people have to be maintained at near fatal levels of hysteria and stupidity. It takes a lot of work.
It took seizing control of pretty much all mainstream media: just the MAGA sources wasn’t enough to get there.
Suzanne
@eclare: A few of us commiserated a few days ago about how an iOS update has increased errors dramatically.
Baud
I havn’t ntoced more speling mistakess.
mrmoshpotato
@eclare:
Well, when trying to suck their own cocks over the upcoming shitshow, some spelling mistakes will slip through.
eclare
@Suzanne:
Ahhh…thanks. I didn’t see that.
eclare
@Baud:
Hahaha…
Chief Oshkosh
@eclare:
Incredible? No…not incredible.
https://youtu.be/nwrvDBmoaXo?si=SidUw4jvUuvkwK2n
Anyway
@artem1s: there’s a huge hit piece in New York magazine on how WH staff and Biden aides worked to “cover up” his weakened mental and physical state. Author is Ross Barkan – don’t know where he lands on the L-R continuum. Made me so mad. If this is in a MSM publication can only imagine what the RW puke funnel is coughing up.
** Still ignoring all news – I was looking for things to watch on FREE AppleTV weekend.
Harrison Wesley
Going to get a COVID booster on the 16th, since I don’t know when, where, or if I’ll be able to get another after the 20th.
eclare
@Harrison Wesley:
Smart.
BlueGuitarist
@Suzanne:
in other current presidential news, per Nyt
“President Biden is expected to permanently ban new oil and gas drilling in large sections of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as other federal waters, in a way that could be difficult for the Trump administration to unwind, according to two people familiar with the plans.
Mr. Biden intends to invoke an obscure provision of a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, that would give him wide latitude to withdraw federal waters from future oil and gas leasing, said the people.”
TBone
@mrmoshpotato: hahaha I cannot follow the examples set by the “free” speech advocates!
rodwell
@Suzanne:
Thanks for the book recommendation. I will add it to my reading list. Based on what happen in the first Trump administration, when John Bolten discontinued the Obama pandemic response team. Alot of what Joe is doing could be dismantled by Spring. This could accelerate the issue. Fortunately, I lived in NJ where there is still some semblance of Public Health.
TBone
@TBone:
Kay
My friend Clete died yesterday, of bone cancer. He was 82. Clete was a signal maintenance person for a railroad and the Democratic county chair for 25 years, retiring from that role in 2000. He was also a volunteer firefighter.
I borrowed his truck once years and years ago and the only CD he had for the CD player was “Silly Songs for the Very Young”, for his grandchildren. He adored them.
TBone
@Chief Oshkosh: pithy!
(That’s misspelled with a lisp.)
TBone
@Kay: the word condolences is not enough. Hugs.
gvg
@artem1s: Um no. I remember Carter and he ran and arrived in Washington with the attitude that he did not want anyone with Washington experience cooties on them. People liked that, but it guaranteed failure and inefficiency. It was in fact an earlier version of the current blame experts that people are so prone to. All peoples have had multiple versions of this populist backlash. There is sometimes justification for it and sometimes not.
Carter deliberately made a point of not hiring anyone from Washington. There is a Doonesbury cartoon I remember which had Carter saying he had only been to Washington once to pick up a peanut subsidy, and he kept his eyes closed so it didn’t count.
Kay
@TBone:
They were giving him radiation and he called me during that period to ask me why we didn’t have the big Harris signs up yet on 49. How did he know?!?
Spies.
Suzanne
@Kay: I’m so, so sorry. Hugs.
TBone
@Kay: If I love that guy so much from so afar, I can only imagine the enormity of the loss you’re feeling right now. Goddamnit
UncleEbeneezer
@Anyway: Is that the one where they cited Biden saying he wanted to go to mass on Saturday and staffers were like “OMG, he’s so old and confused” not realizing that older Catholics sometimes do Saturday Mass? If so, from what I understand there’s really nothing much new in the reporting that we didn’t already know and it’s a bunch of bullshit, bad-faith assumptions presented as evidence.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’m sorry for your loss, that’s tough. He sounds like a great guy.
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: My husband says he went to Mass every day when he was in Catholic school!
Betty Cracker
@Anyway: If you’re looking at series to binge, “Shrinking” is pretty good, imo.
schrodingers_cat
Happy New Year, Morning Juicers.
I just finished this!
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: Pre-Covid, my mother generally went to Saturday evening services at her Lutheran church. Unless it conflicted with Bucks or Brewers game. Priorities, you know.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I love that, it’s pretty!
Baud
@Kay:
My condolences.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Aw, he sounds like a great guy. Condolences.
TBone
Damnit I just clicked out of curiosity which killed the cat.
Ohio Mom
@Anyway: I don’t think anyone was covering up that Biden has become frailer, physically. That’s obvious to me from videos. At the same time, it’s clear that he still has all his marbles.
Anyone who has elderly friends and relatives has known oldsters with weak bodies but strong minds, others with strong bodies but fraying minds. Everything is on a continuum.
satby
@Anyway: This guy: An award-winning journalist and former candidate for office, he is a columnist for The Guardian and Jacobin, as well as a contributing writer to The Nation.
From his campaign: “I am the non-establishment, progressive candidate running for State Senate in District 22 in South Brooklyn. I am a member of Bay Democrats, Bay Ridge Democrats, United Progressive Democratic Club, DSA, and Yalla Brooklyn”
Agenda much?
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: Thanks, I am glad you like it.
kindness
@gvg: With all due respect, Carter picked people he trusted. He didn’t know or trust most of inside Washington folk. I’m not sure how much it mattered. Sally Quinn decided it was her life’s mission to paint Carter as a woeful hick and Sally’s husband’s paper (the WaPo) dutifully carried out Sally’s wishes.
Miss Bianca
@Tom Levenson: Can’t wait to read it!
Ohio Mom
@Kay: My deepest sympathies. Sounds like Clete had a life well-lived, maybe there is comfort in that.
I’m getting old enough that 82 sounds young to me for shuffling off this mortal coil.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
His wife was from this tiny town in Ohio that was settled by Germans who lived on the border with France. They spoke mostly French in the town until the 1930s or so. They have dark hair and brown eyes – you can still see it in the descendants. He just loved that she was “French”. She would roll her eyes when he said it :)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kay:
Bon voyage Clete, thanks for your work and friendship.
And for having an awesome name.
Juju
@Suzanne: Would you take Trump’s word on that or any other issue except tax cuts for billionaires ?
Soprano2
@Ohio Mom: My husband looks frail but he’s pretty strong. It surprised the physical therapist when she tested him. People in his family have strong constitutions. My niece said her DNA test showed that she has the kind of muscle fiber that highly accomplished athletes often have. Hubby probably has that, too.
lowtechcyclist
@gvg:
Cyrus Vance, Joe Califano? Not from Washington?
Suzanne
@Juju: Well, Trump hinted that he would allow it before the election, and he made his white working-class steel union guy base really happy. Possibly one of the factors for Trump winning PA. And then he came out and said he would stop the sale after the election, and there was uproar and complaints of “betrayal” from said white working-class steel union guy base. There’s a case to be made that leaving it to Trump would have let him take the political damage, rather than the Dems.
But, to answer your question, do I trust that Trump wouldn’t have changed his mind again? Absolutely not.
Anyway
@satby: Thanks for looking him up. As I said total hit piece.
it was the “cover-up by everyone around him” that really enraged me.
I was out of the US – Europe and Asia – in December and the lack of respect for Ds and Biden was so galling. From people that should know better. Got me really mad and depressed. (Sorry to annoy the stay cheerful section)
lowtechcyclist
@gvg:
The ‘Carter’ in that strip was actually Kim Rosenthal, the baby Vietnamese refugee, who had apparently absorbed too much of Jimmy Carter while watching TV.
Took me about two minutes to find it in my ancient copy of Doonesbury’s Greatest Hits, his mid-1970s collection. On the way, I tripped over this classic from the summer of 1976:
https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1976/08/18
tam1MI
@Tom Levenson: Please note, I am most definitely not a scientist, but this is what drives me nuts about science journalism. They are always churning out these wildly over hyped “ZOMG!!! CURE FOR CANCER FOUND!!!” type stories, they when you read in to it even a little bit, turn out to be, “one experiment that hasn’t even been peer reviewed yet showed some promise”. It’s just so misleading and scammy.
rdldot
@Soprano
@Soprano2: So did I. By the time I got out of grade school I decided I’d had enough of church to last me a lifetime.
Suzanne
Here’s a piece from the WaPo that did a pretty good job explaining more of the local politics around the merger. In short: union leadership opposed the merger, but lots of the workers and locals in those towns south of Pittsburgh (the Mon Valley) supported it.
I will note that I don’t have a position on it.
Kay
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
We had a very divisive local fight in our county Democratic group about Clinton v Obama. I was Obama, Clete was Clinton. So I asked him – as kind of an older statesman with no official role- if he would come over to Obama to bring us together since it was clear O was the nominee. He said yes. That evening I finally read my email and there was a mean message from Clete about how O couldn’t win, sent prior to our agreement. I teased him about it the next time I saw him “btw, I got your email” and all he said was “shit – I thought I deleted that” :)
Anyway! He did, in fact, bring us together and Obama went on to win almost 45% in this blood red county.
tam1MI
The legacy media can’t die fast enough. Village Delenda Et was right.
tam1MI
@Kay: May his memory be a blessing to you.
MomSense
@Kay:
My mom was in Ohio for that election. She reconnected with a guy she dated before my Dad and they lived together at his home in Akron. He had been a sacrificial lamb and ran for Congress because no one else would. He was very Clinton and my mom was very Obama. They used to pretend fight about it.
UncleEbeneezer
@satby: I’m shocked that a DSA member is still fucking the Biden-was-too-old chicken…
rikyrah
@Baud:
BWA HA HA HA HA AH AH HA
rikyrah
@Kay:
Sorry for your loss, Kay.
Geo Wilcox
@UncleEbeneezer: Back in the days when I bothered to go to church, Saturday evening masses counted the same as Sunday masses.
JML
@kindness: there’s certainly plenty of history of the WaPo and the DC media elites trying to wreck anyone who they don’t feel meets their standards (see also, Clinton, Bill). But for all that carter was a good person and right on so many issues, he also was poor at dealing with a legislative body, whether it was Congress as president or the GA legislature. He didn’t have the patience for the courting of votes and treated all deal-making on issues as being corrupt. He thought he didn’t need to do it, and as a result despite large Democratic majorities, he did a poor job in getting legislation passed.
Picking many outsiders as advisers didn’t help, but he also simply wouldn’t do the work. carter was always something of a lone wolf, even in his later diplomatic work overseas. Sometimes that worked, but sometimes he messed up things as well.
Obama had some similar flaws legislatively. he didn’t really know how to deal up there, thought that his popularity was enough, and thought that bipartisanship on a big issue was worth far more than it actually was. Clinton figured it out better as he went along, and it’s been one of Biden’s greatest strengths.
Kayla Rudbek
@UncleEbeneezer: dude, Saturday evening vigil Mass to count for Sunday has been around for almost fifty years now (I don’t remember a time without it being an option at most Catholic parishes, and I am a stone cold GenXer). Are these people radical tradCaths, or have they stepped out of a time machine from the pre-Vatican II era? But I repeat myself.
dc
@Harrison Wesley: I got the Novovax booster a couple of weeks ago. Aside from a bit of a sore arm at the injection site that lasted not even a few hours, I had no side effects.
Another Scott
@Tom Levenson: Neato.
I hope you’ve got a catchy title, maybe something like:
What They Don’t Want You To Know About One Weird Trick That Will Protect You And Yours From Thousands of Deadly Diseases!!1
???
;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Another Scott
@wvng: While there are actual people like that out there, it’s far too easy for online monsters and bots to make humanity look worse than it actually is.
“Never read the comments!!1”
[ who realizes he’s leaving a slow curveball out over the plate ]
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.