comment: >
  
  Veganism Can Help to Prevent Zoonotic Diseases
context: I'm a railroad worker, and finding bird smashed by trains alongside of rails is a everyday occurence, but finding dead bird not smashed on the floor wasn't, and since last year, it's a crazy the amount of them i've found and they don't even looks in bad shape, it just look like they were fine and dropped dead in an instant.
  ​
  It's been 10 years i'm doing this job and i've never seen anything like that. >
  
  What kinds of birds are you seeing? All wild, I assume? >
  
  Yes all wild.
  Last one i've seen like 4 days ago was in the middle of a train station plateform and it was a definitely a common starling.
  Definitelly seen a carrion crow last week on the top of an electric cabinet, out of range, so it died there without someone moving him.
  The other are small and black, google say common blackbird but some didn't had that orange beak.
  ​
  Edit: Also my father found a golden pheasant right in front of his door like 3 weeks ago, also in perfect shape but alive like a rock, no idea where that lil dude was from, i'm from belgium, not sure if they're wild here ... >
  
  Thanks!
  ChatGPT: list bird species in belgium which are small, black, and don't have orange beaks >
  
  chatgpt is google on steroids minus the information after 2021 >
  
  It's also frequently wrong, but always answers with authority. It's very impressive, and useful, but I definitely wouldn't trust it as a source of information. >
  
  
  It's also frequently wrong, but always answers with authority
  
  That's its most human characteristic. The ability to confidently bullshit. >
  
  And it’s achilles heel. Humans don’t want bullshit from their computers >
  
  How long before some politician suggests we don't test the poultry as much in order to get the number of cases down? >
  
  Fox News ran a segment about how Democrats are trying to stop you from loving your chickens. Seriously. >
  
  Of course they did. 
  Biden could tell America not to shit on their dining table and Fox would frame it as an assault on our freedumbs. >
  
  BiDeN dOeSnT wAnT yOu SpEnDiNg TiMe WiTh YoUr FaMiLy!! >
  
  BIdEn hAtEs tHe ArIsToCrAtS ! >
  
  Last year Biden said he was 79
  This year he says 80
  Which is it, Biden ? >
  
  Cue tucker's stupid fucking face >
  
  “I’m just asking questions” -evil fucker carlson >
  
  Truly evil. I've only ever seen pictures until recently. Seth Meyers ran a short clip of the most outrageous shit I've ever heard and he made that signature dumb face. It was enraging and terrifying at the same time. >
  
  That face is the face of modern fascism in the US.  People mistakenly think Trump brought it on, but in actuality, tucker has been cultivating thos movement the entire time he's been on air, Trump just bumblingly benefited from it. >
  
  This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot)
  
  
  A lethal bird flu outbreak that has been circling the globe since 2021 peaked in Japan this week, as an agriculture ministry official said on Tuesday the country plans to cull more than 10 million chickens at risk of exposure to the virus.
  Europe is in the midst of its worst-ever spate of bird flu infections with 2,500 outbreaks on farms stretching across 37 countries from October 2021-September 2022.
  This outbreak marks the first time bird flu has been detected in Latin America with outbreaks in Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and Ecuador, posing a potential risk to farmed and wild birds including the unique species that inhabit the Galapagos.
  
  
  Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: bird^#1 flu^#2 farm^#3 infection^#4 outbreak^#5 >
  
  People sometimes gloss over this as being "an animal disease" and fail to understand the massive ticking time bomb this is.  
  Influenza has the ability to share gene segments between different strains. This is called Antigenic Shift. The danger here is that the more this H5N1 strain spreads, the greater the chance it goes through an antigenic shift that drastically alters it, potentially for the worst. All it could take is for the wrong bird to infect the wrong pig, where one of the pigs cells already infected with a different strain of influenza and is also simultaneously infected with the avian H5N1 strain. What could emerge from that cell could be a virus that makes COVID-19 feel like a mild case of allergies. The good news is that we've seen outbreaks of H5N1 in the wild before without it mutating into the strain we all fear. Chances are this outbreak will be no different, but give the virus enough opportunities to spread and it can eventually turn into the nightmare pandemic we fear.  
  H5N1 is a virus that has shown the ability to cause high levels of lethality in humans (the highly pathogenic strains), easily sitting above 50% and climbing as high as 80% in some outbreaks. So far these infections have been through direct contact with infected birds and has shown very limited human to human transmission, so low it could not become a sustained epidemic. But the effects on its victims is merciless. They drown in a pool of their own liquified lungs as their bodies immune system goes haywire trying to fend off the attacking virus. Other non highly pathogenic strains of avian Influenza have fortunately been less severe, and we'll be very lucky if one of these strains becomes the one to cause an epidemic. Even then, a virus with a 15-20% fatality rate as opposed to 50% or 60% will still be devastating. And the lethality rate doesn't necessarily impact how transmissable the virus is as Influenza can spread before a person even shows any symptoms. Once it has spread, it doesn't really matter if the infected host survived or not, hence the lesser impact the fatality rate has on transmissability.  
  Two "gain-of-function" research studies deliberately modified H5N1 to be transmissable between ferrets (a very close animal analog to humans) and found what would need to happen for it to spread easily between humans. All it took was for a few key mutations in the right places and you could have a very lethal and highly contagious strain of human-to-human H5N1. This was in a lab done with extremely secure measures, but nature is the ultimate biolab. If given enough opportunities, these very same or very similar mutations will eventually emerge naturally.  
  For decades the one virus that has kept many epidemiologists up at night has been Influenza. Coronavirus did catch us by suprise on a number of times, with COVID being the one pandemic that wasn't exactly expected. That was because the expected and greatly feared super pandemic had been and will likely always be highly pathogenic avian Influenza. Advances in vaccine and treatment research has shortened the time it would take to respond to a pandemic, and this will save millions of lives should the worst come to pass, but until those vaccines are ready and available in mass, our world will be at the mercy of what could be the worst pandemic in human history. >
  
  what could be the worst pandemic in human history... so far! >
  
  An optimist! >
  
  Also, if I can survive the next pandemic and don't die a horrible death, I might even be able to almost buy a house if the market crashes or enough of the population gets wiped out! >
  
  Well if it's 50% of the population, then i ain't buying, I'm just rolling in to the empty houses. Every other neighbor will be empty too so whose gonna tell? >
  
  i already have a house i want to take over in case of an influenza apocalyps. Some rich steel magnat decided to build his mansion in the poorest town of our province. >
  
  lol, why would you want to be so out of place like that? I always feel like you generally never want to be the most expensive or least expensive house on the block. >
  
  You can't make an omelette
  That's it.  That's going to be the saying now >
  
  You can’t make an omelette without cracking a few… breaks down in tears >
  
  Cracking open the plastic seal just isn't the same. You used to be able to offend people by putting omelettes in the microwave. Now, they barely have a scent. 
  [the reviews for the vegan egg replacement Just Egg have described it as matching the texture, but lacking the slight pungency that make eggs well, eggs] >
  
  Eh, shake some black salt over it and call it a day. >
  
  This should be a bigger story >
  
  Not until we have a story of how millennials won't pay for omelettes at IHOP or some shit >
  
  They put pancake batter in the eggs at ihop. “To make them more fluffy”. So don’t go there if you have gluten intolerance or celiac >
  
  Went there the other day after so long since the last time. I swear they're watering down their drinks too. >
  
  . . . Maybe I'll wait before rebuilding my flock I lost to bird flu years ago. >
  
  Where are you? How big was the flock?
  I've only got nine and we haven't had any local outbreaks, but I still worry enough to keep them under cover. >
  
  I'm in California, my flock was 15. This was back in 2017-18  I want to say. Just poof, all my girls and boy gone.  Figure it was all the wild birds that came to eat their food. >
  
  Same thing happened to my parents in SoCal during the 2019 winter. Turns out it was likely a result of crows or crow poop in their pen (per analysis). They lost 12 chickens and 2 ducks. >
  
  It's awful.  We had to stop feeding the wild birds so they wouldn't linger in the yard. Very sad how empty the yard feels now ): >
  
  My neighbors have maybe a dozen chickens and I just got a bird feeder. Should I uhhh not be doing this? >
  
  Curious, it seems people haven't seen the egg shortage at the supermarket! >
  
  There’s no shortage at my supermarket. It’s just that the bargain eggs that used to retail at $0.98/dozen are now selling near $5/dozen. 
  Sucks because eggs were such a cheap and inexpensive protein to cook with and I had a lot of recipes with eggs. >
  
  Would you mind sharing one of your favourites? I'd like to be a vegetarian, but I don't know how to cook good meals without meat. >
  
  Here is one of the best burritos (including non-vegetarian) you’re going to eat:
  Refried Black Beans: sauté a quarter finely chopped onion in about a tbsp of canola oil on medium heat (add some chopped Jalapeño if desired). Then add about 1/2 a tsp of ground chipotle (preferably freshly ground), 1/2 a tsp of freshly ground cumin (fresh is essential here), 1/2 tsp of chili powder, 1/2 tsp of garlic powder.
  Then add 1 15oz can of black beans (drained and rinsed beforehand) to the pot along with just enough milk (whatever percentage you like) to leave about a 1/4-1/2 an inch before the milk covers the beans.
  Add salt/pepper and let simmer until milk reduces whilst stirring now and then. Then MASH! and taste.
  Mexican Rice: Add 1/2 a cup of long-grain white rice to about 2 tbsp of canola oil along with 1 chopped Jalapeño (on medium heat) to a sauté pan/skillet. Let the rice get golden/toasted (it’ll smell amazing) whilst stirring now and then. Then add a dash of freshly ground cumin and 1-2 cloves of fresh minced garlic and sauté for an additional 30 seconds.
  Then add 4oz of tomato sauce along with 1 cup of water. At this point add a few slices of onion and fresh tomato if desired. Add salt (but not too much; going for more of a subtle flavor here) /dash of pepper.
  Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to low.
  Take rice off of heat but leave covered for an additional 15-20 minutes when you no longer here it simmering (put ear close to pan in order to tell but not TOO close).
  Uncover/taste.
  Broil a poblano pepper in the oven until somewhat blackened/blistered. Take out of oven and put into sealed container for 15 minutes; then peel most of the skin away. Make a T-shaped incision on the upper half (the half nearer the stem) and cut the main membrane/seed away perpendicularly (to the stem) while being careful not to destroy the chile (it will be tender). Carefully shake out rest of seeds.
  Cook a scrambled egg.
  Cover the bottom of a skillet with canola oil and set to medium heat.
  Assembly: Get a large (Grande) flour tortilla and place poblano across on the lower third of the tortilla. Then stuff the poblano with the refried beans. Top with rice and scrambled egg. Add shredded cheese (your preference). Then wrap/fold tortilla (tutorials abound on YouTube). Seal the edge with additional shredded cheese.
  Once oil is hot and ready place burrito in the the skillet (CAUTION: hot oil) and let brown/crisp (about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes per side) on all 4 sides.
  Enjoy with Tabasco/sour cream/greek yogurt/etc. >
  
  Just reading through the recipe is making me hungry. Thanks for this; I'm looking forward to making it! >
  
  No problem! That’s one I’ve been refining for a little while haha.
  Can post others I enjoy later if interested. >
  
  Oh for fuck sake >
  
  for ~~fuck~~ flock sake >
  
  Oh for cluck's sake >
  
  Oh for bok's sake >
  
  The puns have run a-fowl >
  
  Oh for cock's sake >
  
  Oh for the sake of cock >
  
  i just want to let my chickens into the garden again :( >
  
  Serious question. If they aren’t in the garden, where do you keep them? >
  
  hutch in my shed currently >
  
  You can’t let them out bc some rando bird may give them the flu? >
  
  Not OP, but yes.  It’s spread primarily by wild bird populations to backyard flocks.  Incredibly contagious, and this latest strain is especially lethal.  It could wipe out the entire flock :(. >
  
  I have family who live in a rural area and plan on getting a few chickens because eggs are so expensive.
  They don't "believe" in the bird flu outbreak.
  They think Biden is somehow intentionally making eggs expensive. On a global scale, apparently.
  So... can you eat a chicken after it dies from bird flu? Asking for a relative, probably... >
  
  It's unwise to eat animals that were infected and or killed by a zoonotic disease. >
  
  I’m sure it can’t be anything to do with the billions of industrially reared broiler chickens routinely fed unnecessary antibiotics that we don’t need as part of our diet and contributing to illegal deforestation in the Amazon like every other major zoonotic disease outbreak, if only there was something we could do to stop these things >
  
  Stop supplying a third or more of the global population with cheap protein?
  Fair enough. It's really only been in the last 120 years, and REALLY SO in the last 60 years, that majorities of populations in "first world" countries were no longer food insecure and below poverty. I'm not a doomer, but maybe.... we have reached peak civilization for a couple of decades.
  Since we didn't dial back growth and efficiency on our own, the chain of systems that created this bountiful world are starting to crack. I personally don't think we are headed to complete collapse, but a second great depression is very much a possibility, and a very long, difficult period of recession with high-priced, out of reach goods and widespread poverty is already happening. >
  
  It's cheap because governments subsidize it, how can something yield a cheaper product than its input? >
  
  140 Million farm birds had been culled in a 12 month period. Wild birds are dropping in unknown numbers. The scale is huge. >
  
  What is done with all these millions of euthanized chickens? Seriously inquiring. >
  
  I'm not sure, but my guess is they burn them. Cheaper than digging a hole and it keeps other wildlife from scavenging. >
  
  I have a feeling that mrna vaccines will suddenly become very prevalent in the world. We’re going to need faster responses to all kinds of diseases. >
  
  Poor chickies >
  
  They’re all being killed anyway >
  
  Awesome, this decade has been boring so far... >
  
  Bruuh we started it off with a pandemic and a war. what is your standard for not boring >
  
  I want at least a year where there's no looming threat of war, famine, economic collapse, a climate disaster, etc >
  
  You’re gonna need a time machine for that >
  
  What are the studies about the likelihood of this jumping to mammals/people? (Yes I know people are mammals I have hair on my ass) >
  
  People get infected with bird flu occasionally, and it is very deadly. Almost 900 cases since it showed up over half of which ended in death.
  The biggest threat would be human to human spread which thankfully hasn't happened yet. >
  
  It would probably have to lower how severe it is as well in humans. The reason covid became such a problem because so many people can have mild symptoms and spread it around to 100 people before they even know they’re sick >
  
  It depends on how the disease progresses. If people are infectious with a light cough before getting very ill they can spread it just as well even if the final mortality rate is very high. Think of the plague, which was both deadly and spreads easily. >
  
  What do you expect when you shove billions of animals together and let them live in their own shit and piss while being abused then killed? Ofc we're gonna get more pandemics. You have to be braindead not to see the problem here. >
  
  but people “need” “their” eggs/flesh/milk etc >
  
  Yep, we do. >
  
  Really though? >
  
  Upvoting for visibility. People are not aware of this disaster. >
  
  Wow, 140 million dead chickens. RIP birdies 😢 >
  
  Holy moly, that's a lot of dead birds 💀 >
  
  Yep it’s depressing. We kill something to the tune of trillions of animals a year (counting sea life). Just straight up cruel. >
  
  Our decendents are going to look back at us in disgust. >
  
  Bird up >
  
  I know this sucks for humans, but I just learned how factory farm animals are put down en masse and it's intensely cruel and awful. It edged me closer to giving up meat. This might edge the whole world closer >
  
  I remember seeing the pig pits during the swine flu epidemic. Bulldozing living animals into a giant hole where they eat the dead below them. >
  
  Time to invest trillions in a global effort to kick cell based meat production into action big time. Factory farming is going to kill us all and the fact we have to kill millions upon millions of birds (outside of factory farming, I mean the fact we have to kill innocent birds not even for food just to curb this virus) is such a travesty on part of humans. So much death for no reason. >
  
  What if I told you we can start today without investing a dime and even saving money and at the same time reduce pollution and diseases? >
  
  It's almost as if the Earth is telling us something. >
  
  Stop eating chicken? >
  
  Stop factory farming it. >
  
  Monkey paw wish granted, no more factory farming. It's now matrix style farming >
  
  I mean.. Yeah... Kinda >
  
  I doubt that would have panned out but it's kinda funny >
  
  This is crazy to read, along with all the comments 😯 >
  
  Fuuuuuuh I gotta get my flu vaccine >
  
  If this jumps to humans we are back to 1918…it will be highly contagious and lethal and the Covid years will be considered the good times…ever bird that is infected has the possibility or producing the variant that jumps and those numbers are slowing down so it’s only a matter of time.. >
  
  This may have more to do with the price of eggs than Joe Biden. 🤔 >
  
  Don’t examine dead birds please >
  
  The bird flu? Yeah they tend to do that. >
  
  So…chicken gonna be $50 a pound soon? >
  
  Meat chickens haven’t been affected as hard as the egg laying ones from what I’ve heard >
  
  Stupid omnis >
  
  Right? >
  
  Sounds like we need to rethink chicken farms to be smaller and more local >
  
  No?  We need to rethink chicken farming... but smaller and more local isn't the way.
  The bird flu spreads via... birds.  Just about any bird can get it.  And birds can fly.... and they migrate.... and then they can spread bird flu all around the world.
  Canada has a system called supply management.  Each Canadian province has a certain supply that local chicken farmers have to produce called a "quota."  Farmers can sell quota space between each other.  It makes our chicken the most expensive in the world.
  And despite all this, we still have the bird flu.
  Because it's a migratory disease.
  What we don't have is the mass spread that's hitting other nations.
  Because we have... regulations.  Every farm is required to test for it if a chicken dies or if chickens test positive in the general area.
  What the chicken (and beef) farming industries need is regulatory and institutional support to prevent the spread of disease.
  But small and local?  No, the first chickens to get infected will always be the organic free roam chickens. >
  
  
  the first chickens to get infected will always be the organic free roam chickens
  
  Not true. >
  
  I mean at least provide information showing otherwise if you’re going to say it’s wrong >
  
  why doesn't somebody provide information showing it's true? >
  
  How bas is this bird flu? Does it kill chicken right away, or some bird can survive after catching it? >
  
  Some can survive, like any flu, but it's very contagious >
  
  Are there some oral vaccines against it? Antibiotics? What is survivability rate? >
  
  No vaccines.  Antibiotics are expensive, over-used in general, and prevent the birds being used for their intended purpose.  Flu also spreads very very fast so really you'd have to dose all of the birds forever.  Can't sell their eggs or meat while they're being treated (and for some time thereafter) so they just eat and drink and don't pay their way.
  Now, that's for factory farms.  The culls that are making the news.  For a backyard flock, yes, antibiotics might help, depending.  I had 20 chickens and dosed them if there was a problem.  I had no problem paying to feed and house them and not use any eggs etc for months.  Small flocks can be managed in a pandemic easier than hundreds of thousands living in warehouses and factories.
  Oh!  And all of that is just in the US.  In Asia in particular they flood their birds in antibiotics all the time so any illness they get is immune to our drugs.  Antibiotics aren't just for killing illness, if you feed chickens antibiotics their whole life they grow larger, and faster.  US farms did it until a law was passed against that shit because it creates antibiotic-resistant illness in the people who eat the eggs and birds.  So if bathing them in antibiotics would help this outbreak we would see the proof in Asia.  Instead their birds are getting it at an alarming rate >
  
  That is sad. I know antibiotics are overused in farming animals, it is so stupid for a short time profit we humanity risks to creat all antibiotics resistant bacteria that would send our medicine 100 years behind. >
  
  And you though egg prices were outrageous now… >
  
  Who had bird flu resurgence on their 2023 bingo card? >
  
  I just worked in the organic free range and pasture raised egg laying production for over a year. The area I work in is the most dense population of poultry in the United States, ama >
  
  Happy to have a backyard flock. They just started laying again (winter is tough). Got 3 eggs yesterday! I have 6 birds and i average about 4 to 6 eggs a day once they start laying. I did the calculation and I pay about $4.25 a dozen. Any report of this flu hitting backyard chicks? I hope not! >
  
  Maybe it’s time to reevaluate how we farm animals >
  
  Earth: Hurry up and die, pls. >
  
  1945-2019: Unprecedented global progress fueled by debt (climate change, mass production, dependency on long-distance trade, and financial borrowing)
  2020-2023: Bill’s due. >
  
  "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid." >
  
  Will i get a few more months paid off of work over this? >
  
  It depends if you are fowl, or not. >
  
  I bet it began in Turkey. >
  
  Alfred Hitchcock crap going on. Nature is fighting back with COVID and now we have something like this to contend with? >
  
  1945-2019 may well go down as an anomalous period of progress. >
  
  It tipped before then, just wasn't as obvious.
  1950-2000 is about it. Maybe even back it up to about Reagan. >
  
  Depends on country. India, Colombia, much of mainland China and South Korea, Kenya, and Ethiopia among others saw positive progress well into the 2010s. >
  
  Ya know, we probably wouldn't have so many disease outbreaks if we didn't shove tens of billions of animals into filthy, gigantic warehouses. >
  
  Remember kids: No touching feathers on the ground whatsoever unless you want to die a painful death. >
  
  
  Columbia
  
  Sigh. >
  
  Factory farming is an unnatural atrocity that is and will lead to the death of our planet in many ways, is just a matter of time. >
  
  Sighs ill go get the facemasks... >
  
  Is this the same outbreak as it was uh, a year ago or two years ago? My mental timeline is screwed ever since Covid, but I know around here there was a mass culling to help stop the spread semi recently. >
  
  This is different. I think you’re thinking of the mass culling from about 2 years ago when factory workers were getting Covid at high rates which caused a supply chain shutdown. Farmers had to kill their herds because there were no workers to process and package the meat. >
  
  Aigh 2023 bingo card let's go >
  
  I stg if this turns into the conservatives saying the dems are behind this somehow I’m gonna lose it >
  
  Another added benefit of cultured meat.
  I look forward to being able to buy affordable cultured chicken. >
  
  guess its time for covid round 4. >
  
  Yayy, now the eggs are gonna be cheap... >
  
  Right after my parents started keeping free range chickens, of course.... 
  There's also a wild pheasant who hangs out, and my folks are wondering if they should keep the chickens penned up for their own safety. >
  
  Is it bad for humans to consume a cooked chicken with Bird Flu? >
  
  Eggs bout to hit $20 for a dozen >
  
  ME Ma has had to build outdoor enclosures for her ducks.
  The ducks hate it. They were "inside" for nearly 5 months last year cos of this. By the end they were all fighting each other daily. When they are out they are lovely friendly animals. >
  
  Fuck. >
  
  Fun fact: the global biomass of chickens outweighs that of all wild birds combined by a factor of 3:1.
  A deadly virus among chickens can very well spell disaster for many bird species. >
  
  animal pandemics will get worse including us because of less biodiversity and the 1% of the 1% of viruses/diseases that survive a medical purge being stronger next time around. I really think plant based stuff like fake eggs and burgers will end up gaining more ground due to climate change >
  
  so eggs are going to cost even MORE??? maybe yard chickens are a good idea after all >
  
  NOW OUR BIRD’S HEAD IS FALLING OFF?!! >
  
  Started in China. What a surprise. >
  
  We really need to turn back to small poly cultural farms. 10s of thousands of animals living in close proximity is just insanity.