If Bird Flu Jumped to Humans, Could Past Flu Infections Offer Some Protection? (npr.org)
- Reference: 0176799551
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/23/2215232/if-bird-flu-jumped-to-humans-could-past-flu-infections-offer-some-protection
- Source link: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/03/19/nx-s1-5312998/bird-flu-h5n1-immunity-pandemic
> So far, the findings offer some reassurance. Antibodies and other players in the immune system may buffer the worst consequences of bird flu, at least to some degree. "There's certainly preexisting immunity," says Florian Krammer, a virologist at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine who is involved in some of the new studies. "That's very likely not going to protect us as a population from a new pandemic, but it might give us some protection against severe disease." This protection is based on shared traits between bird flu and types of seasonal flu that have circulated among us. Certain segments of the population, namely older people, may be particularly well-primed because of flu infections during early childhood.
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> Of course, there are caveats. "While this is a bit of a silver lining, it doesn't mean we should all feel safe," says Seema Lakdawala, a virologist at Emory University's School of Medicine whose lab is probing this question. For one thing, the studies can't be done on people. The conclusions are based on animal models and blood tests that measure the immune response. And how this holds up for an individual is expected to vary considerably, depending on their own immune history, underlying health conditions and other factors. But for now, influenza researchers speculate this may be one reason most people who've caught bird flu over the past year have not fallen severely ill....
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> Research [2]published this month is encouraging. By analyzing blood samples from close to 160 people, a team at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago were able to show that people born roughly before 1965 had higher levels of antibodies — proteins that bind to parts of the virus — which cross-react to the current strain of bird flu.
This week U.S. federal officials also "announced funding for avian influenza research projects, including money for new vaccine projects and potential treatments," [3]the Guardian report . The head of America's agriculture department said it would invest $100 million, as part of a larger $1 billion initiative to fight bird flu and stop rising egg prices, [4]according to the nonprofit news site Iowa Capital Dispatch .
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/03/19/nx-s1-5312998/bird-flu-h5n1-immunity-pandemic
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03599-6
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/20/bird-flu-vaccine-research
[4] https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/briefs/usda-announces-funding-for-bird-flu-research/
I want to say just get vaccinated (Score:2)
But the current administration is just batshit insane and they're not expecting to have elections in 2 years let alone four so they aren't just under funding vaccine development they've shut it down entirely.
If we get hit with a serious case of bird flu it's going to be three to five times more lethal than COVID at a minimum and we are going to be in much much worse shape politically and scientifically.
I suspect we'll lose about 15 to 20% of the population. I guess the survivors will thank us...
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Look at the positives, unvaxxed Republicunts will suffer the most, increasing the average iq.
COVID-19 would go away tomorrow (Score:2, Insightful)
If everyone understood the science of vaccines and got vaccinated its just that plain and simple but well here we are.
COVID was not started by a lab leak and vaccines are ultra safe and ultra effective. Only right wing nutbars doubt that.
Also, Abortion is a form of medical care. The American civil war was fought over slavery. I am tired of arguing these points with people who refuse to acknowledge reality. If you're a Republican vote or you're either somebody who is extremely low information, has stepped aw
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Trump has fears that someone will push for a 315th trimester Abortion on him. surely his parents must have considered it.
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Is it? It's about as perplexing as to how he was a pretty bog standard liberal most of his life, then he ran for President under the Republicans because they embraced him when he kept accusing Obama of being a secret muslim born outside the US (remember back then, when he was a major pushing of that?)
Republicans would not support someone who wasn't pro-life in 2015 so he changed his tune. Oh you maybe thought Donald Trump has given the issue due consideration of the implications and political nuance and at
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With the egg shortage sure to get worse if bird flu continues to get worse, the best vaccines will be the mRNA ones, which will surely get the most ire from the wingnuts. On the other hand, if the vaccine is widely available by some miracle despite the gutting of scientific support in this admin, it'll be the most politically polarized epidemic ever as far as impact. Masks will work better for flu than they did for COVID, too, so it'll be a wild ride.
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Don't forget: Pfizer for instance did not develop the mRNA vaccine. It was developed in Germany by BioNtech.
Likewise there are plenty of other Institutes and companies all over the planet. From where the USA can buy.
If you do not like mRNA, you can buy classic vaccines from China, cough, or Russia, cough cough!
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Yup, the article and the science behind it are simple reminders to go get the jabs.
They're not 100% effective, some people still get sick, this has always been true. Some years lots of people get sick. But that's not what efficacy is about.
If you get the jab you are less likely to get sick, not guaranteed not to get sick. If you get the jab and also get sick, you are much less likely to have a severe illness or be hospitalized. Even if you get sick, you get some amount of protection because you've exerci
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You're probably overstating the case. I remember the bird flu of the 1970's, and it was BAD. But I didn't hear about lots of people dying. (OTOH, part of the time I was so sick I might not have noticed if someone died. Yuck! Well worth avoiding at considerable effort. I seem to recall going unconscious half-way to the bathroom after spewing my guts from both ends.)
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> "I remember the bird flu of the 1970's, and it was BAD. But I didn't hear about lots of people dying."
Different flus are different. But another huge factor is- how many grossly overweight people did you see in the 70's? How many people had diabetes? These are huge risk factors for dying from infections that would not normally be deadly. We saw a lot of that with COVID-19, as well. The super-majority of those who died had lots of pre-existing health complications and major risk factors.
There have pr
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> "But the current administration is just batshit insane and they're not expecting to have elections in 2 years let alone four "
The actual insanity is the stuff you post like this.
but butt buttt (Score:1)
surely not from something that originated in a lab! silly goose
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The CDC has admitted that (Score:-1) comments by Anonymous Coward are as valuable as the UIDs attached to them.
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The CDC has admitted no such thing. Further, the "childhood illnesses" that I grew up with in the 60s and 70s, have largely been wiped out thanks to vaccines. Smallpox, polio, measles, mumps were common diseases in past generations, but no more, thanks to vaccines. At least, they were wiped out, until people started refusing vaccines, allowing some of these long-dead diseases to return again.
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Another conspiracy theory that was proven correct, though the bureaucracy is still covering it ass.
[1]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/c... [cbsnews.com]
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-covid-likely-originated-lab-low-confidence-assessment/
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Proven correct by a "low confidence assessment" by the CIA in contrast to most other agencies then sure, "conspiracy proven", the bars are dropping everywhere around us, most of us can just skip over them nowadays they're so low.
I do appreciate how amongst the many conspiracies out there, how many involve the CIA but this one they are totally on the straight and narrow. I see no reason to ever distrust the CIA from here on out.
Too speculative to be meaningful (Score:2)
I am dismayed that a virologist would say such things, as I would expect them to know better. The truth is that we simply do not know. There is insufficient evidence to predict whether or not the current human population has any clinically significant immunity to this H5N1 subtype. We do not even know whether or not it will mutate to become more transmissible from human to human.
Yes, there are some basic principles at work that might suggest that preexisting infections and vaccinations for human influenz
Some economics input needed (Score:2)
Serious question - and nothing to do with vaccines per se :
> The head of America's agriculture department said it would invest $100 million, as part of a larger $1 billion initiative to fight bird flu and stop rising egg prices, according to the nonprofit news site Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Is the US egg industry big enough to justify so much expenditure? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just stop eating eggs? It's not as if they're irreplaceable nutritionally (just moderately convenient). I spent 15 year without eating
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Eggs are in like a ton of things outside of just eatin' them eggs It's like 90 billion eggs a year for a $17B industry. .
Most baked desserts use eggs, most breaded dishes start with an egg bath, ice cream, fresh pasta, mayonnaise, my moms meatball recipe. Plus we are American's so while you are spot on that we could definitely cut back egg consumption but that's not how we do things, or at least, not how we usually do. Like sure I eat a decent amount of eggs, they're good and usually affordable but a singl
Vaccines and selection (Score:2)
Endogenous immunity due to selection has proven susceptible to break out biological threat events. and yet, that is how we adapt and adjust to the ever-changing biome.
pandemics prove this. the remaining members of the species are fitter, largely or wholly immune to the once-virulent pathogen.
vaccines abandon this sliding window of pathogenic fitness updates. in return they offer a house of cards scenario where multiple pathogen keys are able to attack multiple vector points simultaneously. all because se
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> that vaccines are largely unnecessary and may actually do more harm than good. Thankfully, the adults are in charge now. Expect things to be handled much more intelligently the next time we have a pandemic.
Hopefully the under-educated follow that advice, and reduce their influence (based on dying in increasingly sad numbers) based on, well, simply, dying. And nothing of any value will have been lost.
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The problem is, if the under-educated refuse to be vaccinated in sufficient numbers, all of us will suffer due to losing herd immunity.
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Um, no. The surviving population will have an increased herd immunity because, well... they're already immune!
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"The problem is, if the under-educated refuse to be vaccinated in sufficient numbers, all of us will suffer due to losing herd immunity."
That doesn't follow. if you're vaccinated that the disease can't infect you. That's the whole point of vaccination. If the disease can still infect you then there was no point to the vaccination.
More specific to this case, H5 and N1 variants of the flu have been around for ages. If you've had them or a shot that actually worked you will have some resistance to this one too
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> if you're vaccinated that the disease can't infect you. That's the whole point of vaccination. If the disease can still infect you then there was no point to the vaccination.
Ignorant reasoning like that killed a whole lot of people only a few years ago. Let's not go there again.
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No vaccination is 100%. Take the measles vaccine, one of the more effective ones, 93% for one shot, 97% percent for 2 shots. This still leaves 3-7% of people who can catch measles with 100% vaccination. If those 93-97% can't catch measles, then they can't give it to the 3-7%.
Most vaccines aren't as effective but the same thing happens if enough are vaccinated that they don't spread it to those who the vaccine didn't work as well.
The flu generally kills the young and the old. The young often don't have any n
Re:This is proof (Score:4)
They'll just spread it to my immunocompromised mother or sister.
Like most things in this world, responsible people have to clean up after the idiot ne'er-do-wells.
Re: This is proof (Score:5, Insightful)
100 percent correct. Do not get vaccinated. Do not let your family or friends get vaccinated. Remember, if you do, the libs win.
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exactly, Really OP should be fully encouraged to take his advise from the Adults RFK and Trump. I fully support the OP getting his Bleach injection which will 100% prevent him from getting this or any other disease or virus in future.
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Parents Whose Unvaccinated Child Died From Measles Say They Remain Anti-Vaccine
Please vaccinate those other children to prevent them from getting stupid.
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Waiting - fascinated - to see when someone from the NRA designs a way of injecting someone with a vaccine from a distance - possibly several hundred metres ; and since it's an NRA member doing it, the system developed would be hard to distinguish from a rifle. Or maybe, a shotgun.
When (not if) other NRA members decide to suppress this technology using high velocity metal neural network disruptors, nobody is going to be surprised. Or, on a global average, upset.
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> Please vaccinate those other children to prevent them from getting stupid
Doesn't work. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was vaccinated when he was younger.