{"id":2470,"date":"2023-02-09T11:11:05","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T17:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=2470"},"modified":"2023-02-09T11:11:07","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T17:11:07","slug":"bird-flu-got-to-the-minks-are-humans-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/02\/09\/bird-flu-got-to-the-minks-are-humans-next\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird Flu Got to the Minks. Are Humans Next?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Bloomberg – Opinion<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zombie Minks<\/strong> Seriously, what is it about minks?\u00a0These animals are\u00a0always<\/em>\u00a0causing trouble<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last October, a mink farm<\/a> in northwestern Spain was infected with a deadly bird flu, H5N1. More than 50,000 minks<\/a> were euthanized as a result. Then there was Denmark\u2019s Great Mink Disaster of 2020<\/a>, when more than 15 million minks were culled to prevent the spread of coronavirus, only to rise from their graves<\/a> shortly thereafter. Thanks to that catastrophe<\/a>, I now have a recurring nightmare in which hordes of radioactive minks come back from the dead and wipe out human civilization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although mutant weasels are more likely to appear in a new HBO show than in real life, animal viruses pose a major risk to humanity<\/a>, Faye Flam<\/strong> writes. The mink problem is a direct result of our desire to consume mass quantities of meat, eggs and other dairy products. That has encouraged farmers to crowd their farms with animals. But claustrophobic chickens are not<\/em> good at fending off the flu. They literally are \u201cgenetically identical, have no immunity to influenza and make easy kindling for viral bonfire,\u201d according to this investigation<\/a> from The New Republic. And so we get outbreaks of H5N1<\/a>, causing egg prices to skyrocket<\/a> and mink farms to become hotbeds of infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution to our MCDD (Mink Chicken Disease Disaster) is two-fold, Faye explains:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Stop crowd-crushing our chickens, even if it means paying more for eggs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Re-evaluate our love for mink fur<\/a>, which might be responsible for the next pandemic<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Your mom\u2019s grumbling about the cost of her ham and cheese omelette<\/a> at the local diner is the least of our worries<\/a>. Bird flu can now reach all sorts of new hosts, from seals<\/a> to grizzly bears<\/a>. It\u2019s not clear whether H5N1 can be transmitted to people, but if the minks keep stirring up trouble, we may soon find out.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    (Bloomberg – Opinion) Zombie Minks Seriously, what is it about minks?\u00a0These animals are\u00a0always\u00a0causing trouble. Last October, a mink farm in northwestern Spain was infected with a deadly bird flu, H5N1. More than 50,000 minks were euthanized as a result. Then there was Denmark\u2019s Great Mink Disaster of 2020, when more than 15 million minks were culled to prevent the spread of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-influenza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2471,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470\/revisions\/2471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}