USDA using unreliable PCR testing to “depopulate” poultry farms, crippling the U.S. food supply
04/07/2024 // Lance D Johnson
"Out of an abundance of caution," the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been “depopulating” poultry farms whenever a hen tests positive for avian influenza. These government-enforced depopulation schemes target millions of egg-laying hens, decimating large flocks of harmless animals.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development
recently reported that a few birds tested positive for avian influenza
at a major Michigan poultry facility. The birds at this facility were
put under quarantine and scheduled to be killed, en masse. Herbruck’s
Poultry Ranch recently had a few hens test positive at their Green
Meadow Organics facility, and entire flocks will be culled because of
it. This is an issue that is occurring at greater frequency across the
country. PCR fallibility and disease pandemonium allows government
agencies to cull entire flocks, driving food price inflation and putting
the food supply at risk.
Overzealous laws allow USDA to cull millions of harmless animals
Factory farms are notorious for raising chickens in unhealthy, crowded environments that do not consider the holistic health of the animals.
This often causes the chickens to become more susceptible to sickness
and more likely to spread infections. The animals are not allowed to
roam freely and develop proper immunity to the pathogens in their
environment. These animals are often subject to conditions, drugs and vaccines that further weaken their ability to adapt to disease.
Instead of allowing chicken populations to gain natural immunity, the
government depopulates entire flocks and puts the next generation of
chickens at greater risk, due to waning herd immunity from generation to
generation.
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To make matters worse, the USDA requires poultry farmers to use
real time-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) technology to determine whether a
sick animal harbors avian influenza. If an animal tests positive, the
producer must quarantine their flocks out of an abundance of caution and
work with the state to come up with a “depopulation plan.” The
depopulation plan typically involves killing millions of animals that
aren't even infected, to allegedly protect the herd from a pandemic
strain.
On April 2, 2024, Cal-Maine Foods agreed to depopulate 1.6
million laying hens and 33,700 pullets at their facility in Parmer
County, Texas. Some of the birds tested positive for H1N5 - one of the
strains of highly pathogenic avian influenza that the latest PCR tests
are calibrated to amplify.
Last year, Cal-Maine Foods agreed to cull 1.6% of its flock at
one of their Kansas facilities. Several companies across the country
have culled millions of chickens throughout 2022-2024. These broad,
hasty actions are harming the U.S. food supply and causing the price of
animal meat to go up, as meat and egg supplies are threatened.
Under § 56.5,
the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the USDA requires the
destruction and disposal and cleaning and disinfection (virus
elimination) of premises, conveyances and materials, when an animal
tests positive for avian influenza.
Poultry that are infected with or exposed to
H5/H7 LPAI may be required to be destroyed at the discretion of the
Cooperating State Agency and [the USDA] Animal Health and Plant
Inspection Service and in accordance with the initial State response and
containment plan described in § 56.10.”
PCR sensitivity, fallibility, and its role in decimating the U.S. food supply
The traditional method of diagnosing hens with avian influenza
involves intentional infection of embryonated eggs with samples taken
directly from the trachea or cloacae of avian species. This method
allows for the proper sub-typing of the influenza A virus. However, a
more expedient diagnostic method has been introduced over the past two
decades.
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is an alternative diagnostic
method that allows for rapid and sensitive detection. This method uses nucleic acids from blood or tissue samples and analyzes them for the presence of molecules specific to bird flu.
This method amplifies pieces of genetic material from viruses
that may be left behind in tissue samples from previously sick animals.
However, these amplifications may not always differentiate between
serious avian influenza infections and benign infections that have no
symptoms or mild symptoms of illness that could confer greater immunity
throughout the herd.
These PCR amplifications may deliver a “positive” result, even
after the organism has overcome an infection and has immunity. It’s well
known that low pathogenicity avian influenza (LPAI) virus strains
occur naturally in wild migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, without
causing illness, but PCR could misdiagnose these benign cases as serious
cases, leading to mass quarantine and culling of animals.
Moreover, companies are developing new PCR-based assays that
encompass a broad selection of AIV subtypes, which increase the positive
case count overall. For instance, scientists have been developing
subtype-specific multiplex reverse transcription-polymerase chain
reaction (RT-PCR) tests to increase sensitivity to specific subtypes of the avian influenza virus type A
(notably H5, H7 and H9). The laboratories may also use elevated cycle
thresholds to inevitably generate more positives for leftover viral
debris that is not infectious or is unrelated to the highly pathogenic
strains.
These higher rates of false positives are the result of
“improvements” to PCR tests that are designed to make the tests more
sensitive to viral debris. “Improvements” over the last decade include
changes in the individual components of the enzymatic reaction cocktail
(polymerizing enzymes, reaction buffers, probes, etc.) to the detection
system itself (instrumentation, software, etc.).
According to a research abstract published in Current Issues of Molecular Biology,
“the RT-qPCR technology currently available to researchers is more
sensitive, faster and affordable than when this technology was first
introduced.” These PCR tests have become a business, a tool of
uncertainty and deception. Because of this, the tests could be
calibrated to cause disruptions in the food supply, or be used in a way
that warrants greater surveillance of a population and therefore more
PCR sales and data capture.
The increases in PCR sensitivity, combined with the USDA’s rules
for decimating flocks that are nearby a few sick hens, creates a perfect
storm for the unnecessary mass depopulation of animals. This is an
issue that threatens millions of animals on a yearly basis, driving up the price of meat and eggs, and threatening the U.S. food supply.
Sources include:
NTD.com
NaturalNews.com
NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov
Law.Cornell.edu
Law.Cornell.edu
ScienceDirect.com
Britannica.com
APHIS.USDA.gov
ScienceDirect.com
Pubmed.gov
