Latest news with #birdflu
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Saga Of RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, And The Possibly Infectious Canadian Ostrich Wobble
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has brought us so much, including sext scandals, bulls**t citations (more on that below), and admittedly bad medical advice. Now, the gravelly voiced political scion wants to bless us with flightless birds that are quite possibly infected with a deadly virus. The birds in question are about 400 ostriches that are currently living on a farm in Canada's western British Columbia province. (I was today years old when I learned that a group of ostriches is apparently called a 'wobble.') This particular wobble was hit with a bird flu epidemic last last year that claimed the lives of 69 ostriches. Not very nice. Given concerns that bird flu, or H5N1, has spread to humans and could cause a major outbreak, officials in Canada have ordered the owners to kill the surviving members of the wobble. (I am taking every opportunity I can to use the word 'wobble' here because I find it inherently amusing.) Karen Espersen and Dave Bilinski, who run Universal Ostrich Farms — which is home to the aforementioned wobble — have pushed back and argued that studying the birds could be beneficial. Most veterinarians and experts do not agree with this take, and the Canadian courts have not either. The fact scientists see the wobble as a public health threat has not deterred the Canadian right, which has turned the ostriches into something of a cause célèbre. Over on Facebook (of course), Esperson has styled herself as a 'digital creator' and 'leader in the ostrich industry in Canada.' In between making posts about sleeping among the possibly infected birds, Esperson has tried to amp up her support. 'We need people to come and surround our farm,' Esperson wrote on May 13. The call to action has apparently resulted in flag-waving busloads reminiscent of the anti-COVID-mandate trucker convoy protests that galvanized the Canadian right prior to its losses in this year's elections, which were widely seen as a referendum on President Trump. It also inspired some members of the Trump administration to get involved in yet another example of their efforts to connect with the global right wing. Last week, Kennedy sent a letter to Canadian officials urging them to spare the wobble and study it. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the former reality television star who is Trump's administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, took things a step further and offered to house the animals on his massive Florida ranch. So far, Canada has seemingly remained unmoved by these appeals. For her part, Esperson has tried to co-opt liberal-coded language to bring them on board. Her posts about the standoff included one meme with a bold declaration: 'I IDENTIFY AS OSTRICH' — Hunter Walker A preview of what Republicans are up against as they prepare to wrestle the Big, Beautiful bill through the Senate. A look at the Trump administration's often comically misguided reliance on AI. A suggestion that we take the long view on society's recent lurch toward ultranationalism and isolationism. 'We're all going to die,' Sen. Joni Ernst reminds us. Let's dig in. The Senate is preparing to take up the House-passed reconciliation package starting next week. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) will have to coordinate opposing demands for changes to the bill from the senators in his caucus, just as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had to in the House. Some are asking for more spending cuts than what the House bill included in order, they say, to shrink the amount by which the bill would increase the deficit. Others are unhappy with the cuts to Medicaid and the rollback of the Biden-era clean energy tax cuts. Thune can only lose three votes, so he will have to walk a fine line to find a compromise for those in his caucus. But he will also have to avoid making major changes to the package, because those changes would then have to be voted on again by the House. Any change could backfire, breaking the delicate balance on which Johnson spent weeks building the bill. So far, it is unclear if Senate Republicans will hold committee markup hearings or take the package straight to the Senate floor, where senators would still have the opportunity to make changes. Markup hearings would also mean Democrats could force the members on each committee to take uncomfortable votes on amendments they propose to specific provisions, getting Republicans on the record for their stance around the unpopular cuts to the safety net programs. 'Why would we subject ourselves to a whole bunch of amendments from Democrats when the Republican members in various committees certainly have all the opportunity… to have their say without needing to go through the brain damage of an official markup?' Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said according to Punchbowl. We will know more in the coming days, but considering the pushback House Republicans received from the public during their hearings, Senate Republicans could very well skip that step and avoid the spectacle. — Emine Yücel In mid May, the Trump administration rolled out its 'MAHA report,' a purported effort to get to the bottom of America's poor health outcomes. The report was cast as a collaboration between various Cabinet secretaries and advisors, including, of course, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services. As you likely already know, it now appears that an AI chatbot was among the report's true authors. The DC news outlet NOTUS first determined on Thursday that many of the studies referenced in the report don't exist. The report misstated the findings of others. In some cases, the report cited real researchers, but claimed they had authored papers or come to conclusions they had not. The Washington Post soon sought an answer to the obvious question, and found Chat GPT appears to be at least partially to blame. Some of the URLs cited, the Post found, include 'oaicite,' a marker inserted into citations generated by OpenAI, the company behind Chat GPT. This isn't the first time the administration has turned to AI to help it complete its work on time, a move more expected of high school students than advisors to the president. DOGE reportedly used a Meta AI model to review federal workers' Elon Musk-demanded lists of the five things they had done that week. Trump's mathematically unsound 'liberation day' tariffs were widely speculated to be the work of artificial intelligence, making use of a formula that many AI chatbots recommend. 'A number of X users have realized that if you ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Grok for an 'easy' way to solve trade deficits and put the US on 'an even playing field,' they'll give you a version of this 'deficit divided by exports' formula with remarkable consistency,' the Verge reported. (Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tried to laugh off the possibility AI was involved during a Face the Nation interview.) Tech CEOs flood us with increasingly dire warnings of what their products will do to our society: AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs in five years, Anthropic's CEO claimed in a round of media appearances this week. But, for now, it appears these products are not quite ready to replace government experts. At least, not with the prompts administration officials have been giving them. — John Light We might have imagined that, with the rise of the internet and the ability to communicate with anyone, anywhere, we'd move toward a more open, dynamic world. Yet, in 2025, the opposite appears to be the case: a cycle of contraction. In the United States, the Trump administration is clamping down on immigration in the name of border security, safety and 'Western values.' Italy's right-wing government recently restricted immigration, paring back its long-standing Jure Sanguinis policy through which someone — me, for example — could claim citizenship by demonstrating an unbroken chain from my great-grandpa, who emigrated to America, to myself. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Cabinet this week announced its intent to abolish a fast-track-to-citizenship program in an attempt to restrict migration into Germany. Earlier this month, the UK's Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the desire to end what he called the 'failed experiment in open borders.' Where to begin? Border security is a fraught issue and the concerns are not exclusive to the right, as Starmer illustrates. But, in the end, we all lose. The demonization of immigrants in the name of safety, or the even greater canard of 'protecting culture,' only serves to weaken the human spirit. It becomes more difficult to share wisdom and learn about the rich and glorious constellation of lifeways that exist. We doom people to lives they don't want to live and foreclose opportunities that may exist elsewhere. It's easy to forget that the 'nation state' as we conceive of it didn't exist until the 16th century. The indigenous peoples of America used to range for hundreds of miles, learning from and trading with others. It's not a given that the world will move, linearly, toward greater and greater interconnectedness and integration, as many predicted just a decade ago. As technological innovation expands our abilities to communicate and to travel, this thinking went, the world should get smaller. Cultures should synthesize and understanding of the other should deepen. But that progress — a word some may take issue with — is anything but linear. If you pick a point in time long ago and compare it to today, it may appear that way. But hidden within the millennia and centuries and decades are cycles of greater and lesser freedom of movement and greater and lesser acceptance of other cultures. In many ways, recent years see us trending toward a more static, staid way of life. I tend to believe these things are cyclical, this trend won't last forever. But that doesn't necessarily help in the short run for those of us alive right now. — Joe Ragazzo 'Well, we're all going to die.' That was Sen. Joni Ernst's (R-IA) response this week when she was confronted by constituents shouting at her during a town hall that cuts to Medicaid and SNAP would cause people to die. The Iowans were, of course, referring to the reconciliation package that the House passed last week, adding additional, last-minute Medicaid cuts to appease House Freedom Caucus members who were threatening to sink the bill without steeper cuts to shrink the amount by which the bill would increase the deficit. Ernst's response received raucous pushback from the crowd. 'For heaven's sakes. For heaven's sakes, folks,' Ernst continued. 'What you don't want to do is listen to me when I say that we are going to focus on those that are most vulnerable. Those that meet the eligibility requirements for Medicaid, we will protect. We will protect them.' But, as we've been reporting, the massive cuts in the bill will lead to millions losing their health care coverage. — Emine Yücel
Bloomberg
14 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
China Bans All Poultry Imports From Brazil on Bird Flu Case
China has banned imports of all poultry products from Brazil after a bird flu outbreak was detected in the world's top exporter, halting a trade worth more than $1 billion. Direct and indirect imports of all poultry and related products from Brazil are banned in order to prevent the importation of bird flu, China's customs agency said in a statement published late Friday. The agency also said all plants and animal waste arriving from Brazil must undergo disinfestation.
CNN
a day ago
- Business
- CNN
Pfizer CEO: HHS claims of ‘concealed safety concerns' on mRNA vaccines are ‘completely inaccurate'
Pharmaceutical rivals don't often come to each other's defense. But after the US Department of Health and Human Services terminated a contract with drugmaker Moderna to develop an mRNA bird flu vaccine, claiming that 'mRNA technology remains under-tested,' Pfizer's chief executive is speaking up. 'MRNA probably is the most utilized vaccine in the history of humanity,' Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla said Friday, noting that there have been about 1.5 billion mRNA vaccine doses against Covid-19 administered worldwide from his company alone – not counting those from Moderna. 'So it is extremely well-tested.' HHS said Wednesday that it was canceling at least $590 million in federal funding the previous administration had granted for Moderna to use its mRNA technology to develop pandemic influenza vaccines, including those against H5 avian flu viruses. The H5N1 strain has infected at least 70 people and killed one in the US since last year. 'We concluded that continued investment in Moderna's H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable,' an HHS spokesperson said, claiming, 'the reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns from the public.' Asked his response to those comments, Bourla responded, 'both of them are completely inaccurate.' The pharma giant's chief spoke with CNN on Friday as Pfizer presented new data on a colorectal cancer drug at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, or ASCO, conference in Chicago, the world's largest meeting on cancer research. Pfizer's drug, Braftovi, was shown to double the length of time patients with an aggressive form of colorectal cancer lived with treatment: an average of 30 months compared with 15 in a clinical trial. It's a 'very, very important finding,' Bourla said, noting that colorectal cancer rates, 'particularly among younger people, are skyrocketing right now.' And while Pfizer is making big bets on cancer research, its CEO said he's not taking his foot off the pedal with investment in vaccines either, despite a 'very big gap' between the company and HHS – particularly Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – on their approaches to the subject. 'The science is proven,' Bourla said. 'The things they will do that will reduce, maybe, vaccination rates will come back and bite us.' Diseases will return, he said, and 'that will not take a long time.' Already, the US is experiencing one of its largest measles outbreaks since the disease was declared eliminated in this country in 2000, and rates of whooping cough, or pertussis, have increased as well. The recurrence of disease probably 'means that immediately they will have to reverse it,' Bourla said, suggesting that there will be public health efforts to increase vaccination rates in response, and 'they will go back to what every country in the world is doing.' Bourla worked with the first Trump administration to advance the company's Covid-19 vaccine through Operation Warp Speed in 2020, although he noted that Pfizer didn't accept federal funding to support vaccine development, only for the purchase of vaccines after the fact. He said that despite the gap on vaccines, 'when you speak with them, including Secretary Kennedy, I have found several topics that we are in, surprisingly, alignment.' Taking on cancer is one key area of agreement, according to the company. Bourla cited executive orders from President Donald Trump encompassing issues like addressing shorter market exclusivity for pills compared with injectable medicines under the Inflation Reduction Act – something the industry calls the 'pill penalty' – drug discounts to hospitals in a program known as 340B, and ratcheting up scrutiny on pharmacy benefit managers' role in drug pricing. 'We are working to address those things as we agree to disagree on the things that divide us,' Bourla said. He noted that he is against the administration's proposed 40% budget cut for the National Institutes of Health, emphasizing that the US is 'the dominant scientific force in biomedical sciences right now, and it is because we have created this ecosystem,' in which NIH funding supports academic research that can lead to new discoveries picked up by the pharmaceutical industry and made into medicines. 'If we break any link of this chain of this large ecosystem,' Bourla said, 'that's not good for us, and actually, it's a gift to our friends in China.' Bourla also took issue with HHS's actions on Covid-19 vaccines in the past two weeks: saying that the US Food and Drug Administration will change the way it approves updated shots for people who aren't in vulnerable groups and that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines to healthy children and pregnant women. In previous years, Covid-19 vaccines had been updated in a similar way to seasonal flu shots, based on evidence that they generate an immune response; clinical trials that are required to show a vaccine's effect in preventing cases of disease are thought to take too long, potentially, to be feasible every season. What's more, the FDA and its advisers had previously deemed the vaccine updates small enough to not change their safety profile. Asked whether Pfizer would be able to run clinical trials quickly enough to make updated vaccines available to everyone, not just those in vulnerable groups, Bourla said, 'You are raising some very real concerns that we have.' Bourla noted that the implications of the Trump administration's changes to US health agency policies aren't entirely clear. But 'the issue is that that is not based on any scientific data. It's just based on a belief.' 'The appropriate process has not been followed; this is not just: the secretary or someone at a high level issues, let's say, a new rule,' he said. 'You need to follow a process which is reviews, experts, professional staff of FDA and all of that.' Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at UC Law San Francisco, suggested that HHS's 'bad administrative procedure' in announcing the updated CDC recommendations 'will be an issue' if they're challenged in court. Would Pfizer consider filing a lawsuit? 'My initial reaction is that I would prefer to find solutions but not create tensions,' Bourla replied. 'But of course, if we feel that we have to, we will.' Overall, the CEO emphasized that he has found the administration willing to engage in discussions, noting that 'we maintain a very, very close relationship' with the White House. 'I can't complain they don't listen to us,' Bourla said.
ABC News
a day ago
- Health
- ABC News
Authorities try to protect Australia's vulnerable wildlife as H5N1 bird flu approaches
Karl Hillyard is a busy man. As the South Australian Department for the Environment and Water's bird flu preparedness coordinator, he has been working with colleagues across the country and the world to prepare for the arrival of the H5N1 bird flu in Australia. The flu has had a devastating effect on birds and wildlife across much of the world, but has not yet reached Australia or New Zealand. However, it has been identified in most of the seal species in Antarctica. Dr Hillyard said he had a soft spot for the common and sometimes maligned ibis, but much of his work at the Cleland Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills was for the protection of rare birds. He said planning could be difficult when dealing with an evolving situation which had affected "mind-boggling" numbers of water birds and marine mammals. "Overseas in wildlife, there are some really tragic stories and impacts on particularly vulnerable and threatened species," Dr Hillyard said. A trial has started in the US to see if a vaccine against the flu has been effective in protecting the rare California condor. Research has also been carried out by the CSIRO to see if the vaccine could be used in small Australian bird species. Meanwhile, the first line of defence at Cleland will be social distancing of a sort, by making sure captive birds at the park are kept separate from wild birds as much as possible. Dr Hillyard said the "tyranny of distance" had protected Australia so far. "Effectively, sick birds, sick animals are going to struggle to make it here," he said. "And that's really sad. "But it's also what's probably been helping us out so far in Australia." He said work was also being done to assess where the virus might first arrive in South Australia. Wayne Boardman, from the University of Adelaide, said the virus had taken a circuitous route around the world since emerging in China in 1996. He said more wild bird and mammal deaths became apparent in Europe after a 2020 mutation which had spread to Africa and then North and South America. Dr Boardman said the virus would "almost certainly" arrive in Australia at some stage, potentially via islands in the sub-Antarctic or by migratory birds coming through the shorebird flyways from China and Southeast Asia. Dr Boardman said the virus had already caused a devastating loss of Peruvian pelicans and sandwich terns in Europe, and had occurred in more than 500 species of birds and more than 60 species of mammals. "We hope that these species will recover in time, but it could be that the virus is going to circulate for some time and will continue to cause mortality over the next five, 10, 15 years," he said. Dr Boardman said there were concerns that the disease could affect endangered species to the point where recovery would take a long time or could even lead to extinction. One of Dr Boardman's biggest concerns was for the remaining Australian sea lion population, which numbered less than 14,000 and lived mainly around South Australia's coastline. Dr Boardman's concern for the sealions is shared by Independent Member of the Legislative Council, Tammy Franks. Ms Franks has called for the state government to co-fund a field research station in the Coorong, where many thousands of migratory birds arrived each year. She said a 2024 outbreak of avian cholera in the wetland was only able to be confirmed because a fisherman delivered fresh carcasses to biosecurity officers within hours of the birds' death, when useful test samples could still be extracted. She said without the ability to sample and test on the ground in the Coorong, the opportunity to identify the arrival of avian flu could be missed. Coorong Environment Trust Board member Faith Coleman said a suitable property for a laboratory facility was available at Woods Well, on the banks of the south lagoon. She estimated the total cost of purchasing and establishing the facility would be about $1 million. "They [the state government] would only need to contribute a portion," she said. "It would be really helpful if they could meet us halfway." The Minister for the Environment and Water has been contacted for a response.
CNN
a day ago
- Business
- CNN
Pfizer CEO: HHS claims of ‘concealed safety concerns' on mRNA vaccines are ‘completely inaccurate'
Pharmaceutical rivals don't often come to each other's defense. But after the US Department of Health and Human Services terminated a contract with drugmaker Moderna to develop an mRNA bird flu vaccine, claiming that 'mRNA technology remains under-tested,' Pfizer's chief executive is speaking up. 'MRNA probably is the most utilized vaccine in the history of humanity,' Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla said Friday, noting that there have been about 1.5 billion mRNA vaccine doses against Covid-19 administered worldwide from his company alone – not counting those from Moderna. 'So it is extremely well-tested.' HHS said Wednesday that it was canceling at least $590 million in federal funding the previous administration had granted for Moderna to use its mRNA technology to develop pandemic influenza vaccines, including those against H5 avian flu viruses. The H5N1 strain has infected at least 70 people and killed one in the US since last year. 'We concluded that continued investment in Moderna's H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable,' an HHS spokesperson said, claiming, 'the reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns from the public.' Asked his response to those comments, Bourla responded, 'both of them are completely inaccurate.' The pharma giant's chief spoke with CNN on Friday as Pfizer presented new data on a colorectal cancer drug at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, or ASCO, conference in Chicago, the world's largest meeting on cancer research. Pfizer's drug, Braftovi, was shown to double the length of time patients with an aggressive form of colorectal cancer lived with treatment: an average of 30 months compared with 15 in a clinical trial. It's a 'very, very important finding,' Bourla said, noting that colorectal cancer rates, 'particularly among younger people, are skyrocketing right now.' And while Pfizer is making big bets on cancer research, its CEO said he's not taking his foot off the pedal with investment in vaccines either, despite a 'very big gap' between the company and HHS – particularly Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – on their approaches to the subject. 'The science is proven,' Bourla said. 'The things they will do that will reduce, maybe, vaccination rates will come back and bite us.' Diseases will return, he said, and 'that will not take a long time.' Already, the US is experiencing one of its largest measles outbreaks since the disease was declared eliminated in this country in 2000, and rates of whooping cough, or pertussis, have increased as well. The recurrence of disease probably 'means that immediately they will have to reverse it,' Bourla said, suggesting that there will be public health efforts to increase vaccination rates in response, and 'they will go back to what every country in the world is doing.' Bourla worked with the first Trump administration to advance the company's Covid-19 vaccine through Operation Warp Speed in 2020, although he noted that Pfizer didn't accept federal funding to support vaccine development, only for the purchase of vaccines after the fact. He said that despite the gap on vaccines, 'when you speak with them, including Secretary Kennedy, I have found several topics that we are in, surprisingly, alignment.' Taking on cancer is one key area of agreement, according to the company. Bourla cited executive orders from President Donald Trump encompassing issues like addressing shorter market exclusivity for pills compared with injectable medicines under the Inflation Reduction Act – something the industry calls the 'pill penalty' – drug discounts to hospitals in a program known as 340B, and ratcheting up scrutiny on pharmacy benefit managers' role in drug pricing. 'We are working to address those things as we agree to disagree on the things that divide us,' Bourla said. He noted that he is against the administration's proposed 40% budget cut for the National Institutes of Health, emphasizing that the US is 'the dominant scientific force in biomedical sciences right now, and it is because we have created this ecosystem,' in which NIH funding supports academic research that can lead to new discoveries picked up by the pharmaceutical industry and made into medicines. 'If we break any link of this chain of this large ecosystem,' Bourla said, 'that's not good for us, and actually, it's a gift to our friends in China.' Bourla also took issue with HHS's actions on Covid-19 vaccines in the past two weeks: saying that the US Food and Drug Administration will change the way it approves updated shots for people who aren't in vulnerable groups and that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines to healthy children and pregnant women. In previous years, Covid-19 vaccines had been updated in a similar way to seasonal flu shots, based on evidence that they generate an immune response; clinical trials that are required to show a vaccine's effect in preventing cases of disease are thought to take too long, potentially, to be feasible every season. What's more, the FDA and its advisers had previously deemed the vaccine updates small enough to not change their safety profile. Asked whether Pfizer would be able to run clinical trials quickly enough to make updated vaccines available to everyone, not just those in vulnerable groups, Bourla said, 'You are raising some very real concerns that we have.' Bourla noted that the implications of the Trump administration's changes to US health agency policies aren't entirely clear. But 'the issue is that that is not based on any scientific data. It's just based on a belief.' 'The appropriate process has not been followed; this is not just: the secretary or someone at a high level issues, let's say, a new rule,' he said. 'You need to follow a process which is reviews, experts, professional staff of FDA and all of that.' Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at UC Law San Francisco, suggested that HHS's 'bad administrative procedure' in announcing the updated CDC recommendations 'will be an issue' if they're challenged in court. Would Pfizer consider filing a lawsuit? 'My initial reaction is that I would prefer to find solutions but not create tensions,' Bourla replied. 'But of course, if we feel that we have to, we will.' Overall, the CEO emphasized that he has found the administration willing to engage in discussions, noting that 'we maintain a very, very close relationship' with the White House. 'I can't complain they don't listen to us,' Bourla said.
