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H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

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Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#221

Post by swatcoder »

triceratops wrote: post #151
ethbr1 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what a key source of protein is in chicken feed? Crab/fish meal. Which is to say leftovers after processing, dried and ground. https://www.feedipedia.org/node/664 At the end of the day, non-pasture food animal raising boils down to getting enough nutrients and time into them to hit your target slaughter weight, subject to feed conversion ratio for the species. Cheaper nutrients = higher margins or lower prod…

Chickens eat worms. Feeding them crab or fish meal is fine. Cows are herbivores. Feeding them meat is abhorrent.

On the facts, cows are grazers with incredibly robust digestive systems. They're too lumbering to hunt, but they're biologically prepared to extract nutrients from pretty much anything that ends up in their mouth while they're eating: grasses, insects, carcasses, rodents, etc. Ultimately, feeding them animal byproducts wouldn't be viable or cost-efficient (ugh) if that were not meaningfully the case.

As others are noting, it's the wacky industrial modernity doing its grossly myopic hyper-optimization thing that's the problem (and not just in animal husbandry or agriculture...).

Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#222

Post by linearrust »

3l3ktr4 wrote: post #81

It's crazy to see people denying that (meat) factory farming is a problem. You'd expect most of the public of this website to be rationalists in one way or another. Of course factory farming is an aggravating factor for the spread of diseases. Of course we can thrive with less meat consumption or none. How is that even a question?

> Of course factory farming is an aggravating factor for the spread of diseases.

Modern industrial farming has been the greatest source of limiting disease, parasites and sickness. Before modern industrial farming, human life was rife with food-born parasites, disease and sickness. So much so that it severely limited people's physical and intellectual development.

> Of course we can thrive with less meat consumption or none.

We can survive without meat. But being omnivores, we probably need meat to thrive. Though too much of a good thing can be harmful.

> How is that even a question?

As a self-proclaimed rationalist, why does that surprise you? Rational people question things.

Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#223

Post by snakeyjake »

refurb wrote: post #115
bayindirh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. Unless you have ulcers or open wounds in your mouth/trachea, virus will be digested and destroyed in stomach acid.

Not really. There are several examples of oral vaccines.

Even oral vaccines containing live viruses see the virus being destroyed in minutes by stomach acid.

Rapid inactivation of rotaviruses by exposure to acid buffer or acidic gastric juice: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2999315/

The annihilation of the virus and the absorption of all of the wreckage is what gives humans immunity without actually becoming infected.

Generally speaking, the only viruses that make it past the stomach do so in people who already have an illness or are taking medications that raise stomach pH.

Many "stomach viruses" that are transmitted orally actually infect the body at the pharynx and then make their way down to the intestines where they go wild.

Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#224

Post by giantg2 »

londons_explore wrote: post #204
giantg2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar theory with ground meat, or even where you're buying individual cuts. People are now consuming hundreds of thousands of animals throughout their lifetime rather than hundreds or thousands .

Plenty of studies have shown "processed food" (ie. hotdogs) leads to poorer health outcomes. Processed food, in general, comes from far more individual animals than other foods.

I'm talking about infectious vectors. Hotdogs and other processes foods are generally paturized or cured. That could still be a vector for things like prions though.

Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#225

Post by drewcon »

NewJazz wrote: post #206
drewcon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if a significant amount of people are being directly infected by the cows and a mutation occurs in a person to allow spread to other humans. So seems like the chance is low, but not zero. The real worry is pigs. If it makes its way to pigs, we are in trouble. From what I understand, pigs contain a mix of avian and human receptors that make them the ideal mixing ground for crossover. Cows do not.

It has already transferred to humans from dairy cows. https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20240408/cdc-issues-...

Yes, but that's just an opportunistic infection of cow flavored H5N1. It's not a new strain that will transmit human to human.

With pigs...the risk is a mutation occurs within a pig that then transmits to humans that allows humans can transmit to other humans.

Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#226

Post by malermeister »

pc86 wrote: post #166
malermeister wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not, but I have a lot of respect for people who are. Personally, I'm too selfish and animal products taste too good.

Maybe you should stick to plant-based food and lab grown meat before telling other people to stop eating animals and go to plant-based food and lab grown meat.

Why?

Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#227

Post by scruple »

anArbitraryOne wrote: post #11

Let's keep livestock in poor conditions and give them antibiotics to survive, then complain about the consequences

I recently learned of the term "progress trap" [0] and now I see it everywhere. In essence, when you invent the car you also invent the car crash.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_trap

Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#228

Post by Dalewyn »

lm28469 wrote: post #209
Dalewyn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me put it in terms of tech so the audience here can relate better: The computers we have at home and in our pockets are inferior in quality to enterprise servers and mainframes, but everyone has computers and nobody is willing to go back to simple Casio calculators and slide rules. The meats we have at home are inferior in quality to artisan meats, but everyone has meats and nobody is willing to go back to eating…

You're countering arguments I never made. If you think the only choices we have are modern industrial farming or starving on porridge you seriously lack imagination. Also you're completely ignoring the externalities and the long term consequences both on the environment and on human health, if the question was just about having meat or not having meat we wouldn't have this discussion. > and rightfully noone is willin…

>If you think the only choices we have are modern industrial farming or starving on porridge you seriously lack imagination.

It's not easy to feed so many people so many different kinds of food at a price most people can afford. When I said the past century dramatically democratized our diets, that was achieved by improving the efficiency of production and transport of food to such an extent that was only possible with modern industrial innovations.

>Also you're completely ignoring the externalities and the long term consequences both on the environment and on human health,

And likewise I would argue you guys are ignoring the benefits to and desires of humanity.

>if the question was just about having meat or not having meat we wouldn't have this discussion.

Except that usually is ultimately the question, because inevitably the discussion degenerates into "we can eat instead of ". I'm saying that such conversations will convince noone because it ignores the reality of humans desiring to eat something and whatever else specifically.

>Your analogy is plain wrong because there is 0 trade off in your example,

The trade off is having a limited diet, possibly enforced from the top down. As I said previously, humanity has striven to widen its diet for as long as humanity has existed. This is a trade off that simply will not receive consensus.

Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#229

Post by kelipso »

lm28469 wrote: post #219
kelipso wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don't see any alternatives being discussed, like say, sky scraping towers of factory farmed cows that take up a square block and can feed hundreds of thousands. Like apparently the only solution is abstention or restriction. Where are the crazy visions of feeding tens of billions of people through some high tech magic whatevers.

What you call "abstention or restriction" in 2024 would be the dream diet of anyone before the 1930s. We're supposedly smart monkey, we should be able to eat 25% less bacon if it means avoiding all these long term issues. Even pigs know when to stop eating

There is a reason people in the 1930s grew up stunted and were shorter than people today. Why in the world would I want to follow their example?

Re: H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread

#230

Post by mattmaroon »

addicted wrote: post #147
mattmaroon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just such a shame all 8 billion earthlings are so addicted to food!

Animal agriculture uses up 80% of the land and provides humanity 20% of its protein. All those addicted people will be able to satisfy their food addiction at significantly lower costs and consumption of resources by switching to a plant based diet. Drastically reduced spread of diseases, reduced overuse of antibiotics, environmental benefits are just bonuses. Not to mention the fact that your grandkids won’t think y…

Meh, I’ve been hearing that for like 30 years (and much of it is empirically correct) but meat consumption has just steadily, slowly increased. I’d bet literally everything that two generations from down from me (which would be basically kids being born starting around now) most people will still be eating meat.
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