California declared a state emergency over bird flu, with ONE confirmed case. And why did Australia just invest $1 billion to prepare for H5N1 bird flu outbreaks? Officials justify the large investment by saying avian influenza poses a significant risk to the nation’s industry and wildlife. They’ve created a task force across government departments and have done outbreak simulation exercises. That sounds familiar.
However, not only is bird flu not significant, it is actually non-existent Down Under. Australia is the only continent to have not detected H5N1. Even Antarctica has detected it. But not Australia, so what gives?
Months earlier, the US made a similar investment of $1 billion for bird flu preparedness. The funding was part of Biden’s $1.2 trillion omnibus spending package.
Additionally, Ceva will produce 8 billion doses of poultry vaccines annually in its Hungarian plant. Ceva is the fifth largest animal health company in the world; they have a presence in 110 countries.
All of this smells fishy (or fowl-y). Something is for the birds, that is for sure. We’ll keep our eye on this one.
In fact, we’ve been following bird flu closely for a while. It’s our Throwback Thursday topic for the week, and you can read all our past articles here. Special thanks to Tenpenny Report guest author Jon Fleetwood for bringing the Aussie investment to light. Read his full substack here.