wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/02204_Influenza_virus.svg

The Eight Segments of the Apocalypse

The influenza viruses carry their eight fell genes on eight separate RNA segments, that can only replicate inside the cells of an accommodating host. After replicating (and replicating) one copy of each of the eight segments must be stuffed into the capsid of every individual new virion.

But we’re not talking about a sophisticated high-fidelity operation like human meiosis, where one copy of each of twenty-three chromosomes is fastidiously assigned to each egg or sperm cell.

No.

The influenza virus packs gene segments into capsids like a sorority girl, late for her spring break flight to Cancun, jams random outfits in her suitcase. The stuffed viral capsids, snapped shut, are parked under the host cell membrane like they’re waiting for a taxi to the airport. Once the new viruses break out, a new cycle of infection begins.

If you were to break open a hundred influenza viral capsids, you would find some are defective, because they’re so haphazardly packed they’re missing a segment or two, or have duplicate copies of the same segment. It happens. It’s crazy-crowded and kind of madcap inside the invaded cell.

The defective particles are harmless, each one a biological cul-de-sac.

It’s the correctly-packed productive infectious particles you have to worry about.

That giddy college girl may actually be virtuous, but influenza is promiscuous. Avian flu, H5N1, most frequently infects wild and domestic birds, but it also infects cats and cows.

Suppose a dairy cow is fed a diet supplemented with leftover poultry bedding, for the sake of the protein in the shed feathers, skin and excrement. This is a practice in the US, although probably not in the last few months. It’s not an unlikely route for avian flu’s original jump from chicken to cow who sticks her snout in the feed, inhales and ingests.

Influenza happily reproduces inside bovine cells, and soon appears in milk. Lots of milk, according to reports. Suppose that raw milk is used to soften the mash of sorghum and soybeans fed to the pigs on a farm in the next county. There is a possibility of trafficking the virus from bird to cow to pig, in just this way.

Pasteurization does kill the virus. Some conspiracy theorists say the government or the media is just trying to scare us, so they can give everyone a new vaccine. Just to show you’re a tough guy and nobody’s fool, they say, you should drink raw milk.

Raw milk sales have increased, where it’s available.

Given that influenza viruses generally prefer a respiratory route, there are other stories you could tell, involving aerosols created when barnyard floors and animal pens are hosed down, with bird or possibly even human vectors inhaling the virus in one space and ultimately exhaling it in another space nearby.

More than one route is possible. More than one route has probably been travelled.

If the bird virus winds up in a pig, and that pig happens also to be carrying the much more transmissible swine flu, H1N1, you’ve got a potential apocalypse. For infectious disease afficionados like me, avian and swine flu co-infection is the sum of all fears. Remember that hastily-packed carry-on? The pig cell could make a perfect mixing vessel for recombinant viruses if an assortment of bird flu and swine flu RNA segments were haphazardly packed inside a single viral capsid. They can even exchange sequences, trading genes and novel mutations.

If pigs become reservoirs of an avian/swine chimeric monster, then pig farm families could become infected through casual contact.

Or imagine people (not “illegals”, not “aliens”, people, dammit) working on a slaughterhouse assembly line. A whining machine saws through a carcass, spraying a fine swine aerosol over all. They bring the virus home. The kids get a kiss from mom, and then get dressed for school.

There is only one human death so far, an old guy. But grey lives matter.

Our public health establishment seems not overly concerned. I hope they are doing something constructive alongside taking care not to scare anyone. I hope this potential plague doesn’t percolate along underground, only bothering a few pointy-headed academics.

We have avian flu vaccine candidates but the virus is moving orders of magnitude faster than the drug pipeline. The government has been saying that’s okay, we can ramp up production if and when we need it. Tell that to poultry and dairy farmers.*

I’m a pointy-headed academic. I have a suggestion. Ramp up production of veterinary and human vaccines now. Get going on novel mixed avian/swine valency vaccines that can recognize both viruses. Get creative. Perhaps we can exploit a glaring weakness in our viral opponent by trying to figure out how to jigger the viruses to amplify the proportion of defective particles produced. Look for approaches that could net not only preventive but even therapeutic drugs.

You don’t have to be woke.** Just please wake up.

*Since February 2022, more than 147 million birds have died from avian flu in the United States, including chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese. This includes 108 million egg-laying chickens, with 13 million dying in 2025 alone. (AI response to the query, how many poultry have died in the US from avian flu this year?

Oct 2024 NYT article. …The flu has killed 10 to 15 percent of the state’s (California) 1.7 million cows. (Attributed to a dairy spokesperson)

Nov 14, 2024 — On October 30, 2024, the first reported United States case of H5N1 influenza, or bird flu, in a pig was reported in Oregon. (https:michiganmedicine.org/ Health Lab)

**Right now, NIH-funded research programs are crippled by confusion over an executive order freezing scientific communication, travel and other funding, as part of cost-cutting measures or the campaign to end “wokeness” . With further clarification (sic), some programs have cautiously re-started. But funded proposals that have the words diversity, equity, or inclusion anywhere in their paperwork have not. Virtually all university grants do, since they typically include a STEM student training commitment.