"Eight years of research on H5N1 had convinced him that this cunning little Darwinian demon was capable of ecocide -- the wiping out of entire species."
- Kennedy Shortridge
Given the way that the Covid-19 pandemic was mishandled by the Trump Administration five years ago, it is fair to wonder how Americans might survive another major virus outbreak with DJ in charge and RFK, Jr. as his health secretary.
Bird flu, aka H5N1, is the global scourge many epidemiologists have feared for quite some time now. In 2005, the late Mike Davis put out The Monster at the Door that was meant to bring attention to the seeming imminence of a bird flu outbreak. From AIDS to Ebola to SARS to MERS to COVID-19, Davis cites scientists who say we've entered a new epoch of pandemics; from now into an indefinite future, we will face waves of these 'novel,' viruses: "The species-jumping versions are extraordinary shape-shifters that constantly alter their genomes to foil the powerful immune systems of human and mammalian hosts." Much of the book describes the hell to pay as powerful humans continue to embrace the anthropocene rather than be alarmed by it.
There have been concerning cases of H5N1 in the news of late. Recently, a 65 year old man died of spillover exposure to bird flu in Louisiana after handling dead chickens in his backyard. The case follows the reporting of outbreaks of bird flu among dairy cattle in the midwest over the last several months, as well as in California, resulting in the governor declaring a state of emergency there. According to the CDC, there is no need for panic just yet. "No person-to-person spread of H5 bird flu has been detected," says the CDC.
Still, as Davis warns in his follow-up book, The Monster Enters: Covid-19, Avian Flu and the Plagues of Capitalism (2020), person-to-person spread is just a matter of time. Davis writes,
The essence of the avian flu threat"is that a mutant influenza of nightmarish virulence-- evolved and now entrenched in ecological niches recently created by global agro-capitalism-- is searching for the new gene or two that will enable it to travel at pandemic velocity through a densely urbanized and mostly poor humanity.
What is being done to avoid the nightmare on the horizon? Vaccines are in development, including a WHO-supported mRNA version.
It has been largely under-reported that in the lead-up to the Covid-19 pandemic a DARPA program was underway whose purpose was to quickly develop a medical intervention of "any" within 60 days, "before it can develop into a pandemic." The Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3), begun in 2017 following Trump's first inauguration, largely eschewed the normal development time from years of trials to just weeks to develop a countermeasure to the virus. Two universities were working with DARPA -- Duke and Vanderbilt -- at the time of the Covid-19 outbreak, conducting what amounted to a wargame involving several viruses, including influenza, Zika, and MERS. Vanderbilt immunologist Dr. James Crowe acknowledged in an email that a pandemic preparation lab was underway in 2020. Crowe wrote, " We did conduct 'capabilities demonstrations' for rapid discovery of antibodies prior to COVID-19." Asked why SARS wasn't on the list being worked, he wrote, "Everyone thought avian flu the most likely next pandemic."
Crowe's team at Vanderbilt helped develop a mitigation to Covid-19 within the 60 day target -- a monoclonal antibody process that prevented the Covid-19 spike from attaching to cells in the body. Thus antibody approach worked to protect within days, but is not regarded as anything more than "a stopgap" on the way to developing a vaccine, which had never taken less than four years prior to the deluge that came after Covid-19. Still, monoclonal is safer and can be administered multiple times, and a DARPA spokeswoman acknowledged it was a viable alternative to vaccines.
Vanderbilt is now working on a response to bird flu. Describing the work, Crowe wrote in a follow-up email,
We have done a lot of work on human monoclonal antibodies for H5N1 in the past. And we are right in the middle of a sprint to make new ones that specifically recognize the new bovine avian H5N1 (which already has major escape variants!). We have some really promising leads and we're pushing them forward.
Crowe emphasizes monoclonal is his solution. Crowe wrote, rather diplomatically, "Both antibodies and vaccines are being developed for bird flu. They are complementary tools. But it's true there is a cognitive bias in which government and industry prioritize vaccines." I read that as the power of kachingalingadingdongding at work.
Mike Davis was convinced we had been lucky so far and that something like Covid-19 was an event from which humankind could learn to live better lives. As many have pointed out, in 2020, thanks largely to the quarantining, the climate catastrophe eased in such a way as to provide hope that a sustained effort could yet see humans overcome the seemingly imminent eschatological crisis ahead. But, instead, we went right back to our profligate polluting ways once we began forced vaccinations.
The worry is that the Trump 2 Administration will continue its indifference to impending catastrophes. What if he and RFK, Jr. decide to refuse mandatory vaccinations or quarantining, if deemed necessary? Is there a mediation for that eventuality?
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