CDC Announces Seasonal Vaccines for Livestock Workers to Allegedly Prevent Virus Mutations

What are normal flu vaccines going to do to stop a bird flu?

Isn’t this just the US government selling more vaccines?

CNN:

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday a $5 million initiative to offer seasonal flu vaccines to livestock workers in order to reduce the public health concern that a new version of the influenza virus could emerge among farm workers who are at a higher risk of catching the bird flu (H5N1) virus, which has been circulating in millions of farmed and wild animals.

The goal of the initiative is to protect the health and safety of livestock workers as seasonal respiratory viruses begin to circulate, Dr. Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the CDC, said Tuesday.

Preventing seasonal influenza in these workers, many of whom are also potentially exposed to H5N1 viruses, may also reduce the risk of new versions of the influenza A virus emerging,” he said.

If two different strains of influenza infect a person, there is always a risk they could mix together and create a completely new virus with traits from each one. A new virus could be harmless, but there is also a chance that it could be even more contagious, deadly or resistant to existing treatments.

The risk of what is called genetic reassortment – when multiple viruses coinfect a cell and replicate to create a new virus – is “theoretical,” Shah said, but “because we know that it could happen, we want to take steps now to reduce that effect.”

The CDC said that under the new initiative, the seasonal flu vaccine will not be mandatory for farm workers. Public health officials at the state level will bring vaccines to workers at local events and to areas where they typically gather.

“This is fundamentally an effort that relies upon trust, and that trust relies upon us making the case for why the vaccine is important,” Shah said.

The seasonal flu vaccine does not provide protection against bird flu. The CDC says it does not think a specific bird flu vaccine is necessary, even among workers who are at a higher risk because they work with infected animals.

This doesn’t even make sense.