Are Bird Flu & Whooping Cough on Your Radar? They Should Be
They're the latest disease outbreaks threatening the U.S. at a time when we may see an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist take control of our health system, threatening years of progress.
Whooping Cough, with 342,000 cases this year, and Bird Flu, with 65 reported human cases, are the latest disease threats faced by Americans as we move into the winter season.
Want to know what they have in common? Both are controllable with vaccines. Does that make you a little nervous about anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking over the nation’s health system under Donald Trump?
If you recall, Trump proved himself to be extraordinarily dim on the science behind public health in his last stop in the White House, downplaying the start of the pandemic in the U.S. and then offering bizarre ways to fight it. And now he plans to put a leading purveyor of junk science in control of the agencies that help keep Americans healthy.
This sure worries me.
Let’s start with whooping cough, since that’s the most immediate threat to humans. It’s been surging in the U.S. for months now with no signs of slowing. The 32,000 cases reported as of two weeks ago compare with just 6,500 cases in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Whooping cough, which you may know as pertussis, is highly contagious. A big issue with the disease is that the symptoms are runny-nose mild for the first week or so, which keeps people from staying home. That, in turn, allows it to be pretty easily handed around in schools, stores and businesses. Then the hammer drops in the form of painful coughing fits that make kids sound like they’re barking seals, and can last for weeks or months.
The fits can be severe enough that they cause patients to vomit or break ribs. The treatment is antibiotics, which should be started within the first 3 weeks of symptoms to reduce the severity and prevent complications that can include pneumonia and, though it’s rare, seizures, inflammation of the brain and death.
Over the years, it’s been particularly dangerous for infants and young children. Two have died this year as a result.
How do you hold it off in the first place? Here’s that V word again: “Vaccination.” Widespread use began with the introduction of the diphtheria, tetanus toxoid, and whole-cell pertussis (DTP) vaccine in 1948. Since then, the number of whooping cough cases each year has decreased more than 90%, compared with the pre-vaccine era.
These days, the CDC recommends that children under age 7 get the DTaP vaccine, while adolescents starting at age 11 or 12 and adults get the TDaP vaccine. Both also include protection against diphtheria and tetanus. Without treatment, diphtheria can be fatal in up to half of cases; tetanus kills about 25% of people if it’s untreated.
Sure sounds like an easy fix, right? But the highly politicized world we live in now has put a pall over vaccines for many people, and the rates of children getting the DTaP shot have dipped in just the last four years, sliding to around 90% from 95%, leaving thousands of schoolkids vulnerable. Meanwhile, there’s been a flood of immigrants into the U.S. who may, or may not, have been vaccinated as children.
Now let’s consider how the messaging might change for young parents if Kennedy, historically a leading purveyor of junk science, becomes head of the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), which oversees both the CDC and FDA. It’s already been reported that a lawyer who sued the FDA just two years ago to withdraw its support for the polio vaccine is helping Kennedy find folks to work with him at HHS.
The POLIO vaccine, for heaven’s sake!
Kennedy is the founder of the anti-vaccine Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the largest such group in the nation. It has long held the view that the federal government is sitting on data showing that huge numbers of vaccine injuries exist and showing a connection between vaccines and autism, a link that has been disproven by numerous scientific studies.
Kennedy’s one of a group of Americans who have found themselves driven, and sometimes elevated, by their conspiracy theories. Popular Mechanics, a magazine I keep an eye on, lists 30 such theories. These include the idea that the moon landing was faked, JFK was killed by the CIA, that Covid was created by the global elite to control the population and weed out old folks, and that the vaccine contains a microscopic 5G chip to track those who take it.
The theories can get even wilder, stemming primarily from a mix of misinformation on social media, cultural myths, entertainment and distrust of authority or science. While entertaining, they highlight the importance of critical thinking and education in fostering fact-based discussion.
But that story’s been told, and ignored so far, by the Trump faithful. So let’s move on to what we know about Bird Flu.
Nearly a year after its first outbreak among cattle, the latest form of the Bird Flu virus shows no sign of abating. Now, it’s been found in 891 dairy herds in 16 states, according to the CDC. It’s also been discovered in raw milk, a drink of choice for Kennedy, who insists it “advances human health” and has criticized the FDA over warning against its use.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has already funneled more than $1.7 billion into tamping down the bird flu on poultry farms since 2022, which includes reimbursing farmers who have had to cull their flocks, the real reason why egg prices have risen, and more than $430 million into combating the bird flu on dairy farms.
Meanwhile, the 65 reported human cases are linked to the handling of poultry or cattle, with all but a few causing fairly mild symptoms. Historically, however, sporadic human infections from earlier versions of bird flu resulted in 30% of those hospitalized dying.
The latest iteration of the Bird Flu first emerged in 1996, and has since spread widely in Europe, Africa, North America, and Asia through migratory birds. Viruses of all kinds carry the extraordinary ability to mutate to overcome limits, and scientists are already expressing concern that just a few mutations could allow Bird Flu to spread among people.
There’s currently no human vaccine publicly available, but there are vaccines in the pipeline in case the situation changes.
The FDA has laid out a process to update bird flu vaccines for humans in preparation for a pandemic, and the U.S. health department has provided $72 million in funding to various companies to increase the country's supply of bird flu vaccines.
But, again, we have to worry whether efforts like these will continue under Kennedy. Since being nominated by Trump as his Secretary of Health, Kennedy has said, "we're not going to take vaccines away from anybody." But his nomination alone validates and enshrines public mistrust of government health programs, and there are other ways to undercut vaccine use.
Kennedy could also cripple the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which Congress created in 1986 to take care of children believed harmed by vaccines while partially protecting vaccine makers from lawsuits.
Before the law passed, the threat of lawsuits had shrunk the number of companies making vaccines in the U.S. — to 17 in 1980, from 26 in 1967— and the remaining pertussis vaccine producers were threatening to stop making it, NPR’s Arthur Allen wrote in early December.
The program plays “an integral role in keeping manufacturers in the business,” Allen quotes Gregory Poland, co-director of the Atria Academy of Science & Medicine as saying.
Whooping cough, bird flu and who knows what’s next?
As a health & science editor at Long Island’s Newsday, I worked closely with Laurie Garrett on two prize-winning series she wrote for the paper on public health. Her book, titled “The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance,” cites the changing social and environmental conditions that have helped to foster the spread of new viruses and diseases, including HIV, Lassa and Ebola. And now, of course, you can add Covid.
While conspiracy theorists offer an open road for such things, skilled physicians and scientists following the facts are constantly working to help restrain many of the most threatening.
I’m not yet convinced Trump and Kennedy will allow that to continue happening with federal support moving forward. What do you think?