The persistent threat of Avian Flu
And why you should go buy Creatine
Some readers who subscribed to this Substack for at least a few months will be aware, but many new ones won’t, about one of my major interests since 2020, besides SARS-CoV-2.
In the substack above you can find most of what I wrote so far, and how further back I have been tracking this, truly this was until very recently, a forgotten pandemic, as African Swine Fever was, but ASF doesn’t present a threat to humans. So in an effort of continuing the work whenever I see the need to write a sort of update, I do it.
The Rampaging Avian Influenza Is Entering Unknown Territory
Highly lethal and spreading widely, the avian flu outbreak has scientists wondering what it will do next.
For months, I have been following the media coverage of the devastating outbreak of avian influenza as it’s killed thousands of seabirds in Scotland. In the summer of 2022, gannets and skuas on Scotland’s remote isles started behaving oddly. They walked in circles as if intoxicated. Their heads swelled. They dragged their limp wings at their sides, feathers grazing the ground. At a time when they should have been breeding and raising new life, they were dying. Scientists and birdwatchers had a front-row seat to an ecological disaster. More than two-thirds of the world’s gannets and great skuas—birds that migrate across the Atlantic Ocean from eastern North America to western Europe—are feared to have been lost.
As the influenza tore through seabird colonies near my home, it also spread over the Atlantic into eastern Canada, through the United States, and, most recently, into South America, jumping into new hosts as it went. Eagles, pelicans, and even mammals such as red foxes, seals, and bears have died after coming into contact with infected birds.
It is now pretty easy to find news articles for the absurd amount of birds being affected by the bird flu this year alone. Almost 500.000 in Missouri, tallying at the end close to 50 million birds death, I could bore you to death by citing the many counties, states, and countries being affected by it, but a picture or graphic, in this case, is worth a thousand words. This is how big of an outlier this event is so far.
Given the scope of 2022 outbreaks across much of North America, there's concern the virus is now establishing itself on this continent.
"Historically, North America hasn't had tons of problems with avian influenza," said Louise Moncla, an assistant professor of pathobiology at the University of Pennsylvania school of veterinary medicine.
"This outbreak has been a little bit different because it's been going on for a long time. And unlike the past outbreaks, detections haven't stopped."
The scale of global spread of this H5N1 strain has been enormous, with tens of millions of deaths, either through the spread of the virus itself or the preventative culling of farmed birds.
The scale of global spread of this H5N1 strain has been enormous, with tens of millions of deaths, either through the spread of the virus itself or the preventative culling of farmed birds.
More than 70 countries have reported cases, said Gregorio Torres, head of the science department at the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH). This severe form of the disease also spread further south this year into regions where infections weren't previously reported, including Colombia and Peru.
The U.S. also hit a grim new record for birds lost to avian influenza, at more than 50 million in 2022, surpassing the largest previous outbreak in 2015 — while the number of states impacted this year is also more than double those affected seven years prior.
The other element making this outbreak different from prior ones isn't just the sheer numbers of birds being killed, but the number of species affected, Moncla said.
On farms, turkeys and chickens are being impacted. But cases have also been reported among cranes in Israel and hawks and bald eagles in parts of Canada and the U.S.. In Stratford, Ont., the virus likely claimed the lives of several of the theatre city's iconic swans.
If you read the entire article referred to above, or if you read any of my prior substacks on the subject, you will be aware of what I have been fearing and tracking down for over 2 years, and now what “experts” are begging to fear.
The only way for both healthcare and the public to know about human cases of avian flu is similar to other “unknown” or forgotten diseases, only when someone gets severely sick or died atypically too fast do we start getting information. And I suspect different strains of Avian Flu have been slowly, very slowly, but surely adapting to mammals, and here and there to humans.
So much so that now we see a convergence of experts talking to the media stating exactly the above.
B.C. warns doctors to watch for avian flu spreading to humans after spike in cases in birds
Centre for Disease Control says human cases are very rare, but outbreaks increase chances of transmission
"While HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza] does not typically infect humans, the increase in detection among birds over the last two weeks increases the potential for exposure and transmission to humans who, if infected, may experience symptoms of varying severity," the advisory says.
"Exposure to novel influenza viruses is concerning because of the potential for human adaptation and associated pandemic risk. Such risk may be considered a 'low probability, high impact' event.
The Hindu Times published a similar article 7 days prior to the above. Given how we now have an endemic coronavirus that can flip the immune systems of many (vaccinated or not) like a light switch, and has many unique properties, this is of major concern. Regardless of opinions on the cause, the worse got “wrecked” by respiratory viruses this year, and the trends to 2023 look anything, but better, and we still have no clue where SARS-CoV-2 and its hybrid variants will shift towards, and as referred here many times, any infection, but especially a SARS infection has a cost to our bodies, both from resources and physiological, and of course the long-term microbiome shift is also of concern.
But finally, a paper was published talking about this highly pathogenic influenza.
The entire paper is a really interesting read, it doesn’t merely cover mutations and evolution but the geographical shift too which in itself is a clue for me.
In summary, up until 2018 Asia was the primary focus for the resurgence of HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza), with a shift in viral evolution occurring in 2019, with an explosion of cases and widespread contagion of this specific strain, globally, later in 2020.
The virus responsible for the 2020/21 avian flu pandemic originated from low pathogenic avian flu, and went through reassortment (recombination, mixture) between themselves in 2019, until a high pathogenic clade was born and caused large-scale outbreaks in wild animals, and shortly after domestic animals.
I find it fascinating that many viruses went through accelerated evolution a little prior to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic official narrative.
Why did so many viruses go through an explosion in evolutionary capacity between 2019 and very early 2020, monkeypox was the same, a current strain of Strep A is the same (novel mutations), and other pathogens also had uncharacteristic evolution. The authors themselves state that the virus was circulating a year prior to the 2020 resurgence.
What happened in 2019 that nobody was looking or is aware of that put the molecular biological world upside down, and now we have to defy orthodox beliefs to attempt to find an answer ? The authors themselves state the growing risk of human infections.
For the first time, human infections have been detected in areas where the gs/Gd H5 virus is not endemic in domestic birds, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia. At the same time, 2.3.4.4b HPAI H5N1 continues to spread to new countries, with the most recent reports emerging from Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela in November 2022.
The irony of the following paragraph in this paper is not lost on me.
By analyzing sequence data and outbreak records, we identified the origins of ongoing epizootics as being 2.3.4.4b HPAI H5N8 viruses detected in poultry in Egypt following a major wild bird resurgence event in 2016/17 that originated in China. The acquisition of HA mutations in domestic birds in Egypt, where vaccination is used, that may facilitate endemicity in poultry and allow escape of potential immunity in the wild bird population reinforces evidence that novel HPAI H5Nx variants with significant resurgence potential are repeatedly generated in poultry. Although the viruses show greater persistence in wild birds, our results suggest that continual elimination of HPAI H5Nx in poultry remains a high priority and provides evidence that new HPAI viruses are now emerging outside regions previously thought to drive virus emergence. These results reveal major changes in HPAI H5 ecology and evolution.
I rest my case, we didn’t vaccinate ourselves out of SARS-CoV-2, there has never been a successful vaccine against an influenza virus, and we will definitely not vaccinate birds out of this one, as the evidence suggests, but scientists will refuse to look or accept it.
Influenza is even more glucose hungry than SARS-like viruses, and responds even better when you have better glycemic control, or eat low-carbohydrate, and since it is a less stealthy virus, it also responds better to most of the “Covid stack” (group of supplements), and the supplements are pretty much the same as for SARS-CoV-2, in fact, these supplements are for multiple purposes.
Before my next point, I would like to point out the following substack, in which I mention that the very microbe Omicron disrupts long-term, is responsible to control the body's responses towards influenza infections. A very recent post directly shows you how you can remediate that.
I have a lingering suspicion based on my observation and all the research and writing I have done so far that our viral, fungal, and bacterial problems are not at the end, but rather middle of the journey and 2023 has the potential to be a significant mess in this regard.
So I will now directly advise you to go and buy Creatine. As I wrote on Twitter earlier today, I am not seriously arrogant to think I have a market-moving effect, meaning I state X, and that X increases in price and decreases quantity nationwide (since most of my readers are Americans), but I have got messages from bankers to farmers, from logistical to network analysts all sharing a similar observation-based opinion.
I write about X, and that X suffers a substantial increase in price, or supply dwindles. Regardless of the actual cause, or mere coincidence/correlation, in this particular case, it is a real problem. Unlike many other supplements which experienced supply shock by numerable causes, Creatine has been going through a global shortage for the most part of 2021 and 2022, and now every expert in the fields of nutritional supplements (whey, creatine, etc) states that shortage will persist throughout 2023, and prices will increase.
Here are a list of medical uses for creatine use:
Creatine uptake regulates CD8 T cell antitumor immunity
A great article in the paper above, the properties of creatine supplementation as an anticancer supplement, to help treat some tumors/cancers. The one above, alone would be reason enough for many to seriously consider supplementing creatine.
Role of Creatine Supplementation in Conditions Involving Mitochondrial Dysfunction: A Narrative Review
Creatine supplementation has been reported to improve high-energy phosphate availability as well as have antioxidative, neuroprotective, anti-lactatic, and calcium-homoeostatic effects. These characteristics may have a direct impact on mitochondrion’s survival and health particularly during stressful conditions such as ischemia and injury. This narrative review discusses current scientific evidence for use or supplemental CrM as a therapeutic agent during conditions associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. Based on this analysis, it appears that CrM supplementation may have a role in improving cellular bioenergetics in several mitochondrial dysfunction-related diseases, ischemic conditions, and injury pathology and thereby could provide therapeutic benefit in the management of these conditions.
Creatine has many other uses, but I think for a layperson, this is enough information for you to consider adding daily creatine usage to your routine, or at the very least, 5 grams twice a day after any sort of infection, for 4 to 6 weeks. I can tell you from personal experience, creatine supplementation will fasten your recovery from certain infections at a remarkable speed, among many other benefits.
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Thank you for making us understand the situation better and the stacks!
P.S : Is there any way i can make a one time donation or something? maybe paypal ? due to some banking regulations cant make recurring payments through credit card (one times are fine)...Thank you!
A good friend of mine, a veterinary pathologist, informs me that this years Avian Flu is causing very strange and concerning levels of necrosis in the brains of the animals.