Highly Pathogenic Avian Virus Is Evolution in Action, and a Warning

A state of emergency exists in Minnesota; poultry
feed trucks, poultry load-out trailers, and emergency
operation equipment used for highly pathogenic
avian influenza response are empowered to
ignore load requirements (March 11, 2015
Emergency Executive Order 15-06)

Humans at Low Risk of Infection and Illness from this H5N2 Virus Strain

"The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic (contagious to animals) H5N2 avian influenza (HPAI) at a commercial laying facility in Osceola County, Iowa. The facility has 5.3 million hens and is the second confirmed case in the state," notes an April 20, 2015 press release from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS).

The spread of H5N2 avian virus is much worse, and the spread of pathogens by Big Ag was predicted repeatedly.

One Iowa farm killed five million chickens two days ago to try help halt the disease (National Public Radio).

Today, the Wisconsin State Journal's piece on the fifth Wisconsin outbreak (in which we will not find the words "industrial" and "CAFO" [concentrated/confined animal feeding operations] and "factory farms") notes 100,000s of poultry have been killed to contain the spread of the H5N2 virus, with 100,000s more planned to be killed.

"The highly pathogenic H5N2 bird flu has touched down in 16 states, particularly in Minnesota and Iowa where, respectively, more than 2.5 million turkeys and 3.8 million egg-laying hens have been lost to the virus," says yesterday's Minneapolis Star-Tribune [though the Star-Tribune (and everyone else) can not keep up the with the eradication of chickens and turkeys in this devastating outbreak].

Minnesota is the leading state producer of turkeys in the nation.

"[T]oday’s dysfunctional industrial, corporately-controlled" food systems (Ikerd, 2104) are unsustainable, and pathogens are one big reason why, notes Dr. John Ikerd. We have been warned; in fact, the CDC notes, we have been warned since 1959.

CDC Working on Vaccine

The CDC is working on a preventative vaccine for human beings though this strain has a low infection potential for human beings, the CDC says. This is an evolution thing [viruses mutate], a scientific fact on which the CDC can not afford to "punt" like Scott Walker said two months ago, displaying a dangerous level of ignorance for the governor of the state with "the second-largest U.S. incident since the bird flu started spreading earlier this year" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

Media Blackout

Media outlets are seemingly blacking out the words CAFO and industrial factory farming though this dangerous model of packing poultry together is a breeding ground for H5N2 and other virus strains.

"Fifteen new avian flu outbreaks were reported today, 13 in Minnesota turkeys and 2 in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin outbreaks were in chickens at a commercial egg farm and at a commercial turkey farm. Outbreaks have now been detected in five Wisconsin counties," notes the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (Roos and Schnirring).

Viruses Mix

Viruses mix among species and the results can be catastrophic, and the Big Ag-CAFO model used by pigs confined together creating the perfect vehicle to produce dangerous viruses that then can spread to other species (Mal Contends).

The major source of pathogens from CAFOs comes from animal manure, produced in abundance.

Big Ag calls CAFOs "modern agriculture" and wants more CAFOs, and are willing to spread a lot of money to Midwestern politicians such as Scott Walker (who gratefully accepts), as the H5N2 virus is spreading like wildfire among commercial flocks of turkeys and chickens.

"New technologies have allowed farmers to reduce costs, which mean bigger profits on less land and capital. The current agricultural system rewards larger farms with lower costs, which results in greater profit and more incentive to increase farm size. ... Sources of infection from pathogens include fecal-oral transmission, inhalation, drinking water, or incidental water consumption during recreational water activities. The potential for transfer of pathogens among animals is higher in confinement, as there are more animals in a smaller amount of space," notes the CDC (Hribar, CDC).

Economic Impact

The slaughter of millions of chickens and turkeys is just one of the economic consequences of this type of concentrated farming operation. Other countries such as Japan have in the past placed bans on poultry from Wisconsin and the Midwest. Diseases, such as hoof-and-mouth, among cows in Great Britain contributed greatly to the crippling of that economy.

This H5N2 virus strain is a warning to us about Big Ag's factory model and the vectoring and breeding of dangerous pathogens. Are we listening?

Golf, Sand and Money in Pay-to-Play Game

Golf developer Mike Keiser gives $100,000s to Republicans and Wisconsin Republicans are giving back.

From the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign: "Mike Keiser, who is a frequent, generous contributor to state and federal Republican candidates and committees and conservative causes, contributed $11,100 to Walker between February 2012 and September 2014, and $10,000 to the state Republican Party last October, about two weeks before the November general elections."

In exchange, comes news, that "Two Republican legislators are sponsoring a bill that would allow an Adams County town to give a developer, who has contributed more than $21,000 to GOP Gov. Scott Walker and the state Republican Party in recent years, cash grants or loans to build high-end golf courses. The bill would make a one-time change in state Tax Incremental District requirements to allow the town of Rome to provide direct grants or loans to Chicago businessman Mike Keiser to build up to four golf courses and lodging on about 1,500 acres of land about 15 miles south of Wisconsin Rapids. Tax Incremental Districts are created by local governments through the state Tax Incremental Finance (TIF) program, which uses tax breaks and other incentives to encourage new businesses to locate on blighted land or in economically depressed areas."

See also Golf Course Developers and Walker Contributors Want State Favors.

This explains Keiser's silence about the proposed James Wysocki Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) near Keiser's proposed resort in the Golden Sands in central Wisconsin.

Keiser's resort bombs and Adams County which has the fastest falling property tax valuations in the state would be left to hold the bag.

When Big Ag Comes to Your Community

Clean Air and Water - Fighting the James Wysocki
proposed CAFO in central Wisconsin in Saratoga
as property values plummet, and Wysocki
sucks up the area's fresh water from
high-capacity wells used in Wysocki's
potato-growing operations. Wysocki, the
model of the sociopathic industrialized
CAFO factory owner lives far away from the
devastation he inflicts on central Wisconsin.
I wonder how a sick bastard like James Wysocki
sleeps at night.

Industrial agriculture is making Americans sick and is literally killing us

Update: Big Ag and the Wisconsin DNR have crafted an emergency rule, EmR 1417, secretly sprung onto Wisconsin citizens last year, blocking citizen input into any DNR policymaking across the state. The Emergency rule also has the effect of enabling the DNR to "ignore local (read town and county) ordinances as long as state and federal environmental policies are taken into account," as noted by Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors and Jimmy Parra, Staff Attorney of Midwest Environmental Advocates.

The Wood County Board of Supervisors is considering a resolution challenging Wisconsin Emergency Rule EmR 1417 on Tuesday morning, March 17, 2015.

The Emergency Rule is set to expire March 28, 2015, and citizens are working to voice their concerns that the Rule does not become permanent. Who knew the DNR could block out citizen input with a rule?

It is clear that Scott Walker's proposed budgetary moves to move administrative law judges adjudicating citizen complaints against the DNR (for example) and the DNR itself under the purview of Walker's Department of Administration (DOA), or the Department of All as it is known in the Capitol, is simply a means of blocking Wisconsin citizens and selling out Wisconsin to Big Ag and other Walker contributors.

Any Wisconsin citizen marginally concerned about the health of drinking water and surface water who voted for Scott Walker or sat out the election just might be rethinking that vote or instance of doing nothing.
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The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, NASA, the World Health Organization (WHO), and medical health professionals warn time and again against the health consequences of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), now proliferating in Wisconsin as Scott Walker green-lights the destruction of the regulatory and family health protection agencies.

Public safety will have to move over for Scott Walker's presidential ambitions as Walker dismantles health protections in his quite insane budget proposal.

At the bottom of an ancient glacial lake, Mike Keiser plans a spectacular golf resort in the Golden Sands of Wisconsin in the center of the state.

Tourism, recreational and family health advocates are uniting so this beautiful region of Wisconsin can prosper in Adams, Wood, Juneau and Portage counties.

But a predator is active, a venomous monster destroying the environment and poisoning the waters: Big Ag.

Big Ag has its protectors, Wisconsin State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa in Wood County), State Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay), Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin dedicated to carrying the poisoned water of Concentrated (Confined) Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) spreading like a virus.

Communities can fight back.

The citizens of the central Wisconsin region have not connected all the dots yet, but they have made substantial progress in less than three years in fighting James Wysocki's proposed dairy Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO).

In Bayfield and Ashland counties in the far north, communities are more profoundly in touch with protecting the environment and are more successfully working in enacting community ordinances to ultimately halt the operation of a proposed swine factory operation before it begins.

Lake Erie - The future of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior
if Wisconsin Republicans and Big Ag get their way
Image: Tom Archer

In Kewaunee, Brown and Door counties in northeast Wisconsin, once a thriving tourist area, you won't find many people on the beaches of Lake Michigan in the Door Peninsula any more. The 'carrying capacities' of the Green Bay and Fox River Valley watersheds have been exceeded.

You will find nearly one in three aquifers unfit to drink in Kewaunee County, a common state of affairs.

You'll hear stories of children poisoned and hospitalized by Ecoli from local liquid manure runoff from Big Ag operations. People—and this is astonishing that Big Ag's factory owners fail to realize this—do not like their children poisoned and their aquifers and surface waters destroyed as a growing oxygen-deprived Dead Zone in Lake Michigan looms as Spring approaches. At the present rate of CAFO proliferation and pollution, Lake Michigan will rival Lake Erie and its Dead Zone in the future. 

E.coli - The new face of America's Dairy State. From the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Know what billions of tons of liquid manure dumped annually does to water? This summer, take a small glass, fill it up with water from Lake Mendota, Lake Michigan, Lake Winnebago or Nepco Lake and drink up. Just have the location of the nearest poison center on hand because you will need it.

You can find the empirical, scientific case against dumping pathogens, nitrates and phosphorus into the environment via billions of tons of liquid cow manure vectored annually. Reading up is much safer than drinking up.

Mike Keiser's plans for a golf resort in the Golden Sands are going to run head-on into the pathology of Big Ag, and if Keiser is thinking strategically about his golf resort project, his investment syndicate had better join the fight against James Wysocki and proposed giant poisoning operation a few miles north of Keiser's planned resort as Wysocki calls the shots from Custer or Plover or whatever gated community from which he takes refuge from the poison he delivers to his factories' neighbors.

Below, Gordon Stevenson, Wisconsin DNR runoff chief from 2001-11, delivers a Feb. presentation in Bayfield County with scholars, farmers and activists fighting a proposed massive swine Iowa-based Reicks View CAFO: