A new strain of bird flu is spreading rapidly.
It began in Asia in 2020, reached Canada in 2021 and the United States a year later, killing tens of millions of birds and tens of thousands of marine mammals.
So far, bird flu has only been transmitted from animals to humans, with a human mortality rate of up to 50%.
However, avian flu DNA has been found in 20 percent of milk sold in the United States, and if it mutates, it could potentially spread from person to person.
Avian flu is not the only threat to global health at the moment.
Monkeypox is raging again across the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the pathogen far more deadly than the 2022 outbreak.
Health officials may be vigilant about these viruses, but Americans should be vigilant about their own health officials.
Because if public health officials treat this outbreak the same way they treated the last, their response to the new pandemic could be worse than the virus itself.
The problem starts with the tendency of authorities to distort risk.
For example, during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, health officials predicted that as many as 120 million people would die.
Governments stockpiled vaccines, but the pandemic ended as quickly as it began.
The vaccine has expired.
The deaths were attributed to mild seasonal influenza.
A decade later, when the new coronavirus hit, things only got worse.
Media coverage across America was showered with images of the devastation.
The pessimistic skew had the desired effect: By March 2020, a University of Southern California tracking study of coronavirus perceptions in the United States showed that the average American thought the risk of death from COVID-19 was 25%, on par with the Ebola virus.
Just a month ago, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Robert Redfield announced Genuine The mortality rate was less than 1%.
But when then-President Donald Trump tried to correct the record (declaring “only 1%” in a March 2020 interview), he was accused of “spreading misinformation.”
Months later, Americans still believed COVID had a 20% mortality rate, and Dr. Fauci's response was, “People need to be more afraid.”
Lockdowns and school closures were quickly implemented and promoted as if they were something every country had to implement.
But however everyone Agreed: In March 2020, nearly 1,000 experts, including future CDC director Rochelle Walensky, warned in an open letter to Mike Pence about the uncertain benefits of lockdowns.
Things got even worse the following year, when CDC Director Walensky touted vaccines as completely blocking the virus and “ending the pandemic,” despite clear evidence to the contrary, while adverse events from vaccines were ignored and mask-wearing was mandated despite scientific evidence proving it to be unnecessary.
The results were disastrous.
Lockdowns likely caused millions of deaths and massive economic disruption, school closures slowed children's development, and vaccination mandates and misinformation increased vaccine hesitancy and destroyed trust in public health.
A similar pattern was followed in the short-lived monkeypox outbreak in 2022. Gay and bisexual men made up 96% of all cases, but health officials insisted that “anyone can get monkeypox” to reduce potential stigma. In the end, the CDC prioritized emotion over disease prevention, and cases rose.
During the COVID-19 and monkeypox epidemics, policies were made first and then data was distorted to justify them.
A recent House of Representatives report found that prominent scientists who questioned this approach were denounced and punished, while tech giants censored dissenting voices.
We are already seeing the media following the same storyline with regards to bird flu.
Fewer than 1 percent of infected cattle die from the disease, and scientific experts say the actual risk of human death is almost certainly much lower than that dire 50 percent figure..
The CDC continues to act strangely as well.
Earlier this month, officials recommended that dairy workers wear N95 masks and goggles, but N95s are ineffective against seasonal influenza, which has the same viral structure as bird flu.
Goggles tend to fog up, increasing workers' risk of injury, said Michael Osterholm, a professor at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
Regarding vaccines, the Ministry of Health and Human Services recently assured reporters that stockpiles of avian influenza vaccines are ready for deployment.
However, only a few clinical trials have been conducted so far, and they have involved the older 2020 version of the vaccine.
Making the system scientific again requires accountability. Some progress has been made: NIH officials faced bipartisan criticism and disciplinary action over the origins of COVID-19.
But elsewhere, pandemic response leaders continue to receive praise, pensions, and prestigious new jobs. The Biden Justice Department also continues to block criminal investigations into the mismanagement of COVID-19.
But change is not coming fast enough to combat bird flu, the disease and the misinformation that comes with it.
Earlier this month, the CDC detected elevated levels of influenza A, a subtype of avian influenza, in wastewater in the United States.
What wasn't reported was that these levels were still, on average, lower than normal.
Misrepresenting data just to write a story — Sound familiar?
Meanwhile, a second case of avian influenza linked to dairy products was reported in Michigan last week, and it was also reported that rapid progress is being made in the development of an mRNA avian influenza vaccine.
Anticipation of potential financial benefits caused shares of mRNA vaccine pioneer Moderna Inc. to soar by 50% in May alone. Again, sound familiar?
Kevin Bass is a scientist and author. X: @kevinnbass
