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Front Burner Transcript for February 14, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

[Music: Theme]

JAYME POISSON: Hey, I'm Jayme Poisson. So, dead Canadian geese have been turning up in southern Ontario quite a bit recently. Parks Canada confirmed last week that a goose in a park in Scarborough tested positive for bird flu, confirming a lot of suspicions and raising concerns that with more birds flying north for spring, the virus will spread. As you might remember, Canada did see its first and only human case in B.C. in November.

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REPORTER: Canada has what's believed to be its first human case of avian flu, caught by a teenager in B.C.'s Fraser Valley. What isn't known is how the young person got infected.

JP: Meantime, in the U.S., things are escalating even more. Bird flu has been spreading. More human cases are popping up in different states. The total is now at 68 people. One person has died. The dairy industry is now being hit quite hard. And of course, it has been hitting the poultry industry hard on both sides of the border for quite some time. In the last year, millions of birds have been killed to try to stop the spread. So, how worried should we all be about bird flu? NICHOLAS FLORKO: is a staff writer with The Atlantic. And we're going to talk about the virus, how it's spreading in the States, and why some people are worried that it could be the beginning of the next pandemic. Hey, Nick, thank you so much for coming on to the show.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Of course, thanks for having me.

JP: I wonder if we could start with the basics here, if you could just explain to me what bird flu is.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Sure. There's actually several kinds of bird flu. So, the one that we're talking about today is called H5N1. And H5N1 has been around, actually, for decades. But it's become an issue for us here in the U.S. where I am when it started showing up in wild birds in 2022. We saw it spread then to domestic poultry, and then, things got even more worrisome when we started to see this spreading to dairy cows, which here in the U.S. was documented in March of last year. Now, luckily, we haven't seen the virus spreading from human to human, but that's of course why everyone is paying attention to this virus. If we start to see consistent human-to-human transmission, that's when things really start being worrisome and we could be heading towards another flu pandemic.

JP: What do we know about how it spreads from animals to humans, though?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: So, infected birds can spread it through their mucus, their saliva, their feces. So, if a human is around a sick bird without protective equipment, they could potentially catch the virus. And the leading theory of how it spreads from cows to humans is through their milk. So, that means folks that are might be at risk or folks who might be consuming raw, unpasteurized milk or handling raw, unpasteurized milk.

JP: Are there any risks if you are just drinking, like, grocery store milk or, or, and sorry if this is a silly question, but what if you're eating, like, meat from one of these birds?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Luckily, it seems that pasteurization of milk especially has prevented the spread of the virus. So, milk that is in your grocery store is safe as long as you are not in a place where they are selling or allowed to sell raw milk, unpasteurized milk. We haven't seen any cases as far as I'm aware at all of, of someone eating potentially a sick bird. And I think that's just because birds are relatively symptomatic when this occurs. So, we wouldn't see those ending up in the meat supply.

JP: This idea that it could potentially spread from human to human, how could that happen?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Well, the virus would likely have to mutate, and that is the fear always when we're talking about a potential influenza. That is actually how we got the swine flu pandemic, if you remember that back in 2009. And so, the fear is that if we keep letting this virus spread unabated, that gives it more and more chances to pick up mutations and then, potentially it picks up a mutation that does allow it to actually spread readily from human to human.

JP: I mentioned in the intro that Canada saw its first and only domestically acquired human case in this B.C. teenager back in November. This 13-year-old girl is alright now, but she was quite sick for a while. She was hospitalized for two months. She was in respiratory distress, and she actually had to be intubated at one point. And I know the U.S. has seen dozens of cases in people and generally speaking, like what are the symptoms of how serious this can get?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Here in the U.S., most cases have been much more mild than the one that you just described. The most common symptom that we've actually seen is eye redness or conjunctivitis. That, in addition to, you know, some typical sort of flu-like symptoms. That being said, and you know, as you said in the intro, we have had one severe case here in the U.S. last month in the state of Louisiana. We did, unfortunately, have a death from the virus.

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REPORTER 2: Health officials confirming a patient in Louisiana is the first human to die from bird flu in the U.S. The Louisiana Department of Health saying the person was over the age of 65 with underlying health conditions and contracted the virus after being exposed through a flock of birds in a backyard. The CDC analyzed the virus in that Louisiana patient, and found concerning new mutations which could help the virus infect people more easily.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: And I think that just underscores how serious this, this can be. And frankly, we know from historical data that bird flu in the past has been, has been quite deadly. So, we want to be on guard here for any changes and potentially, you know, these more severe cases popping up.

JP: What would be the reason for why some people get, like, conjunctivitis and other people might have to be intubated?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah. I mean, we still have such few human cases of bird flu that what we know and what we can say definitively about different, different strains of the virus are limited. But the one thing I do want to note is both the teenager in Canada and the person here in the U.S. that, that unfortunately passed, they actually were both in--, infected with a strain of the virus known as D11. That is not the predominant strain that's been spreading throughout the dairies here in the U.S. And so, there's this question of whether D11 might be more dangerous and if that becomes a prominent strain, does that cause issues? But we have so few cases right now, we really can't say definitively like, yes, this is more deadly or this is more dangerous, this strain versus this one.

JP: You mentioned that bird flu had, has been quite deadly in the past. And I wonder if you could just tell me a little bit more about how it's popped up in, in history and what happened.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah, I mean, so the case fatality rate historically for bird flu, I believe, is above 50 per cent. So, we have seen some really worrisome outbreaks occurring in the past. And I think scientists are still grappling with figuring out why.

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REPORTER 3: As concern grows into anxiety in Hong Kong, hundreds of people have been calling special government hotlines, worried about a new strain of a potentially deadly flu that comes from chickens. Health officials say so far there have been six confirmed cases and now this. In four of those, the virus may have been transmitted from person to person.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: This time around, we very luckily, are not seeing this much higher death rate because, I think if you talk to anybody who has studied bird flu for some time, you know, if bird flu gets into the respiratory system, there's a lot of, you know, fears that this could cause severe illness and, and widespread death. But luckily, we haven't seen that yet. And I really do think scientists are still grappling with why that is. I don't think we know yet.

JP: Have you heard any of them take an educated guess?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Various scientists have various theories. So, I mean, one hypotheses is that people are just less susceptible to infection from H5N1 than we used to be. That would be, you know, an interesting if that is what ends up playing out. And there's also a theory that the way the virus is transmitted and the amount of virus that folks are being exposed to is limiting, sort of, the severity of the disease. So, I think there's this, this theory that, you know, workers are contracting the virus through contact with milk, maybe that the milk droplets are splashing into their eyes or they're rubbing their eyes. And, you know, that is not sort of a large enough exposure to create this really serious illness in folks. And then, there's just a thought, too, that, you know, this version of the virus is just inherently less dangerous to people than the ones we've seen spreading previously.

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JP: I want to ask you about the poultry industry specifically. So, the biggest tool in fighting H5N1 is containment and then, generally culling, right? Killing the birds. Here in Canada, 57 farms in Ontario have been impacted by the virus, 59 in Quebec. But B.C. has had the most infections, more than 200. I just want to play this clip of this guy for our listeners, Mark Siemens, who's an egg farmer there whose entire flock of 30,000 hens had to be wiped out.

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MARK SIEMENS: We started down that journey of the difficult journey of. First of all, watching the birds immediately deteriorate, and get incredibly sick over the course of 24 hours. And then, and, and inevitably and quite quickly had the CFIA on site and ready to depopulate the farm. This is our livelihood. And not only that, like, you know, we, we farm because we love taking care of the animals and we take a ton of pride in it.

JP: Maybe you could just tell me a little bit about the effects that you've seen on the poultry industry in the U.S.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah, it has just been disastrous here in the U.S. for the poultry industry. The last I looked, we were at 150 million birds that had been culled here. So, I mean, it's having a dramatic impact. I'm sure we'll probably get into it. But it's starting to trickle down to consumers who are, who are feeling the fact that, you know, 150 million birds here have been lost.

JP: Wow, wow. Tell me more about that. You know, I've also seen these videos from Costcos and stuff in the U.S. where people are limited to a carton or two of eggs, right?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah. It's funny you bring up Costco because I was going to share my own personal story. You know, I went to a Costco this weekend and I mean, the one that I typically go to has essentially a walk-in industrial fridge full of eggs. And they were limiting people to five cartons each, and they were completely wiped out this weekend. I mean, bird flu has been spreading unabated for, for months here in the U.S. But I think we really only started to hear everyday people talking about it until we started to see this impact on, on eggs.

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REPORTER 4: At Wagon Wheel Farm in upstate New York, farmer Jason Touw knows his eggs are expensive.

JASON TOUW: I never thought I'd see the day where a dozen eggs cost more than a bale of hay.

REPORTER 4: The five and a half dollars he charged for a dozen back in May became $7 in October, and now, it's $8 a dozen.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: I mean, here in a in a major city, I'm in Washington, D.C., a dozen eggs can go for $9. And sometimes, the stores just won't have them like the Costco. And so, that's really been, I think, the most immediate impact on consumers.

JP: Wow. Nine, nine bucks. Wow. Well, I'll just note for our listeners here in Canada who might be wondering why they might not be seeing themselves restricted when it comes to eggs. I think the argument here is that our farms are a lot smaller. So, up until this point, the outbreaks have actually been easier to, to manage and control. If we could talk about the dairy industry a little bit as, as well, Nick, the state of California declared a state of emergency because of outbreaks on dairy farms in December. That state makes up about 20 per cent of the country's dairy industry. There haven't been any cases detected in Canadian dairy farms yet, and the government is trying to keep it that way. There are now import controls around cows brought in from the States. They need to test negative for the virus, and they can't come from a farm that has had an exposure. But how is this affecting the dairy industry down south?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah, I mean, the first good thing to say is that unlike in poultry, dairy cows don't need to be culled or killed after infection, and they can recover. However, the virus does result in a decreased milk, milk yield and infected milk is now actually allowed to be sold. And so, you know, that can really impact dairies financially if a large portion of their cows are and be able to produce milk that can actually be sold for a profit. That being said, at least at this point, we haven't seen the type of really noticeable price spikes and shortages for milk that we've seen for eggs.

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JP: In Canada, our National Public Health Agency has increased its risk assessment for the bird flu, introducing a new protocol for human surveillance on farms. And what is the government response been to date in in the U.S.?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: I mean, it's been kind of scattershot if I'm, if I'm being honest with you. So, I will say our CDC, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, they do say that the risk to humans is still low, but we've seen this virus essentially spread unabated on farms and we've seen there really be lag in, you know, testing protocols to make sure that, that farms are not spreading this virus. I mean, we have, it seems like we've essentially taken the approach of hoping this burns out and doesn't spread to humans, which is really rolling the dice. You know, I talked to a lot of infectious disease experts who for months now, have been saying we need to be doing more, we need to be doing more. We are starting to see some mitigation measures like a bulk milk testing program that the U.S. government set up about a month ago. And that, of course, is being used to try to detect more cases. But we've just sort of seen this just spreading and spreading on farms. And I think just because, you know, humans generally, at least here, have only gotten conjunctivitis, that we haven't seen this sort of major backlash and outrage calling for more mitigation measures.

JP: The people that are saying to you, we need to do more, we need to do more, what are some of the things that they think should be happening right now?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: The first thing, of course, is that we need to be doing more testing on farms of both animals and of the people that are working on those farms. And then I think there is, of course, also to make sure that that farm workers have appropriate PPE and they aren't being penalized for, say, reporting symptoms. I think it's important to note, too, that a large portion of our dairy industry here in the U.S. is undocumented workers, meaning that they, there's a fear and suspicion that if folks go to the hospital or they report this, that there could be some sort of impact on their immigration status. That's made it really difficult as well. And then, I think there's a debate right now, a healthy debate on whether we should be vaccinating a certain portion of folks, maybe the folks that are most at risk, like the folks that work in dairies, for example, whether we should be preemptively vaccinating those folks against, against bird flu.

JP: Right. Because there is a vaccine for it. And so, why not just do that?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah, I mean, the U.S. has been stockpiling vaccines for a potential outbreak and I think as of right now, I think they really are just taking a cautious approach again, because we haven't seen this causing severe illness in most people. There's a thought that, you know, we shouldn't be just willy nilly, I think, giving folks this vaccine. So, so far, the CDC here in the U.S. has essentially been telling dairy workers, get the seasonal flu vaccine and then, protect yourself from, from bird flu with, with protective measures. And the reason why they're saying get the seasonal flu vaccine is because we really want to avoid a situation where someone gets infected with both viruses simultaneously, because when that happens, we have a higher likelihood of mutations occurring. We could actually see the two viruses infect a cell together, trade some of their genetic material, and then, we have a situation where we might get a bird flu virus that has the transmissibility of something like a seasonal flu. That's a really big worry. And so, the CDC has been really focusing on just these efforts to get folks that are at high risk vaccinated against the typical flu.

JP: That's interesting. It's a little scary, but interesting. I'm also thinking about some of the people who we're seeing step into leadership positions with federal health, health agencies in the U.S. right now. I wonder if we could spend a little bit of time before we go talking about that. There's of course, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has just been confirmed as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. He's claimed that there is, quote, "No evidence the vaccine will work," and suggested that they're dangerous. In a post on X, he also said, quote, "With so much money on the table, is it conceivable that someone might deliberately release a bioengineered bird flu?" He was grilled at his confirmation hearing over some of his comments on avian flu, which he basically denied, I guess. What concerns have you heard in your reporting about what that leadership means for the response to H5N1?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah, I mean, there's a huge concern. And I will say that the, Mr. Kennedy has previously downplayed the risks of other pandemic influenza threats as well. And so, it's really hard to imagine him taking this issue seriously and sort of increasing the U.S.'s response in a meaningful way. At the same time, though, there is news that the Trump will name, President Trump will name Doctor Gerald Parker to lead the White House office here that coordinates the bird flu response. And I think if you're concerned about bird flu, that's welcome news, because Dr. Parker is an expert, first of all, on the interplay of human and animal health. And at least from his previous statements, he really understands the potential risk here and would take it seriously. But the question really is, though, you know, there's this tug of war between, you know, Parker on one side and Kennedy on the other, who wins? We really just don't know yet. But that's the really the concern is that, you know, we put folks in that are skeptical of vaccines and a pandemic influenza, that we continue this approach of essentially just rolling the dice and hoping this doesn't get worse.

JP: Trump also signed an executive order to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

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DONALD TRUMP: So, we paid $500 million to World Health when I was here, and I terminated it. China with 1.4 billion people, we have 350. It seemed a little unfair to me. So, that wasn't the reason. But I dropped out.

JP: A W.H.O. spokesperson said this week that the withdrawal has caused communication challenges on bird flu. And are people concerned about the downstream effects of that?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah. I mean, what you just named, those communication challenges, I think, are one of the biggest worries here. The W.H.O. from member states is, it gives people eyes and ears on all different potential outbreaks that could be occurring around the world. And if you're another country, another member state, and now the U.S. is not communicating what is going on with bird flu here, you're going to be concerned because you use that information to prepare and sort of measure your own risk in other countries. And, you know, without that communication, it's an open question of how folks get that intelligence.

JP: Before we go, Nick, you know, I have heard experts talk about how this could be the next pandemic. And I know that this is something that you've been, like a thread you've kind of been pulling on throughout this conversation. But I wonder if you could just tell me how bad that this could potentially get. I think a lot of people hear the word pandemic and trigger something quite visceral in them. Right now, there's a lot of anxiety around that, obviously. How bad could this get?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: So, the first thing I'm going to say is every pandemic flu expert that I've ever spoken to says that if someone can predict or claims to be able to predict whether something will turn into a pandemic influenza and how bad it will be, they're lying. I say that because it's really, really, really difficult to predict this. But I think the thing that is most important is that folks don't lose sight of the fact that a pandemic doesn't have to be as bad as something like COVID for it to still cause real issues. I think, for example, of the swine flu pandemic in 2009. You know, we did see thousands of people dying from that virus, including young people. And that was nowhere near the size of COVID, but it was still some an issue that we needed to deal with. And so, I think we just need to keep that in mind here. A pandemic really doesn't need to be a Covid for it still to be an issue. And, you know, it's really hard to predict how this virus might mutate and how that might impact people's sickness, and sort of how quickly they can recover and all these different things. So, there's so many different unanswered questions now. But I think we just need to keep in mind any pandemic, we're going to want to try to prevent. And that's why we should be trying to prevent the bird flu pandemic.

JP: OK. Nick, I want to thank you so much for this. I learned a lot. It was really great to have you on. Thank you.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me.

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JP: Alright. That is all for this week. Front Burner was produced this week by Joyita Sengupta, Allie Jaynes, Lauren Donnelly, Cecelia Armstrong, Matt Amha, Mackenzie Cameron, and Marco Luciano. Our YouTube producer is Jon Lee, and Evan Aagaard is our video producer. Music is by Joseph Shabason. Our Senior Producer is Elaine Chau. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Lokos. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next week.

For transcripts of this series, please visit this page.

Bird flu is spreading faster. Should we worry? - Transcript

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