didn't cats already get the virus from drinking the raw milk? honestly at this point if only they wouldn't end up infecting a bunch of other likely non-retarded individuals, I'd be inclined to just let them kill themselves with this and pass on beleiving that they proved their point. More realistically, they will probably spread it and kill a bunch of other people that way then still act like they have uncovered some great fucking secret, while somehow being the only survivors of the incident.

this is a certified Darwin award moment

You say that like it's a way tuberculosis spreads.

The problem is they infect the rest of us.

It’ll only be a matter of time until the virus mutates and successfully transmits from human to human.

The institute's founder, Mark McAfee, told the Los Angeles Times this weekend that his customers are, in fact, specifically requesting raw milk from H5N1-infected cows. According to McAfee, his customers believe, without evidence, that directly drinking high levels of the avian influenza virus will give them immunity to the deadly pathogen.

It's like the "facemasks are causing COVID-19" thing.

directly drinking high levels of the avian influenza virus will give them immunity to the deadly pathogen

It's like homeopathy but even stupider

Well it will give immunity, to the ones that survive.

I know there are also conspiracy theories around pasteurization. Supposedly it doesn't work and you don't need it. Oh and viruses are a hoax. Or at least that's what my very self educated husband of my cousin believes.

I’ve assumed for some time that that Venn diagram was nearly a circle.

I think I may have long COVID or something... I got COVID in November, recovered, then caught a cold in January and have been sick since. I just want to be healthy. Why do the stupidest among us have to fuck everything up?

When someone catches it from drinking raw milk with the virus in it, it might affect other people too.

What we really do not want to happen is for human-to-human transmission to start, and every time a human gets infected, it helps create a risk for a mutation that starts that going. We know that the virus is in the milk supply right now, so it's not just some distant hypothetical.

If you remember, we had a lot of criticism for China over the role that wet markets with live animals might have played in starting the jump to humans on COVID-19. I'd rather not turn right around and have us be responsible for creating a window for a new pandemic due to doing something similar.

At this point Biden could summon a genie to grant everyone in America three wishes and people would still blame him for not giving them six wishes.

We have made H5N1 avian flu vaccines many times before. We have one developed as recently as 2020 that's been approved by the FDA for use in humans, not sure how great it is against the current incarnation though. Flu is quite good at evading vaccines, hence the need for frequent updates.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H5N1_vaccine

The US government funds vaccine development for viruses that might become a problem at some point. There's also work into expanding rna vaccine technology, which can allow for very quick updates as viruses change. We need way more work and funding on pandemic prep and surveillance. We've all seen how devestating a global pandemic can be. Even if the vast majority developed never end up needing use, one of them may save millions of lives.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccine-makers-are-preparing-for-bird-flu/

Anyways, if an H5N1 pandemic started tomorrow, there's a vaccine that would probably be helpful already made. Would need to be scaled up massively in production of course though.