Bird Flu Outbreaks & the WHO/IHR Pandemic Treaty Push

Even as U.S. health agencies and the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) are being heavily criticized for their botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic,^{1 2 3} WHO officials are ramping up pressure on all nations to sign a WHO pandemic treaty and amendments to the WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHR), which will give them more authority to track, quarantine, force vaccine use and censor free speech during WHO declared pandemics.^{4 5} The WHO’s Director General has been blaming opposition to the UN agency’s epic power grab on “a torrent of fake news, lies and conspiracy theories.”⁶

On Apr. 19, 2024, the United Nations sent out a press release declaring that the “ongoing global spread of ‘bird flu’ infections to mammals including humans is a significant public health concern,” pointing to an outbreak of H5N1 viral infections in dairy cows in the U.S. and warning that the virus could evolve and cause human-to-human transmission with “extremely high” mortality.⁷ The implication was that a potentially deadly global bird flu pandemic was a clear possibility.

The CDC website describes symptoms of H5N1 bird flu infections, and they sound very similar to seasonal influenza or SARS-CoV-2 infections associated with COVID-19 disease:

“The reported signs and symptoms of bird flu virus infections in humans have ranged from no symptoms or mild illness [such as eye redness (conjunctivitis) or mild flu-like upper respiratory symptoms], to severe (such as pneumonia requiring hospitalization) and included fever (temperature of 100ºF [37.8ºC] or greater) or feeling feverish*, cough, sore throat, runny or stuff nose, muscle or body aches, headaches, fatigue, and shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. Less common signs and symptoms include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, or seizures.”⁸

Warnings That Egg and Milk Supplies May Be Contaminated with Bird Flu Virus

Mainstream media have been joining the UN in characterizing bird flu outbreaks in cattle as a significant public health concern, with news outlets breathlessly reporting that cattle were infecting each other with H5N1 and some experts questioning whether raw or even pasteurized milk containing high levels of the avian virus is safe.⁹ Although H5N1 bird flu was first detected in 1996, since 2020 there have been more outbreaks in poultry farms, wild bird and land and marine animals.^{10 11} Americans were warned in early April that the eggs from chickens potentially infected with the avian virus should be well cooked,¹² and then the media reported that a U.S. dairy farm worker in Texas had been infected with bird flu.¹³

The same day the UN issued their press release, Agence France Presse again reminded readers that a person working on a dairy farm in Texas was recovering from bird flu. A WHO official was quoted as stating that, “The case in Texas is the first case of a human infected by an avian influenza by a cow.”¹⁴

U.S. Plan to Drive the Global “Health Security” Agenda If WHO Treaties Fail

Three days earlier, on Apr. 16, the White House announced a five-year “Strategy to Strengthen Global Health Security” plan citing the COVID-19 pandemic as the need to put the U.S. in the driver’s seat via bilateral financial investment partnerships with 50 to 100 countries to “drive global action toward shared goals” and “mitigate the impact of health security threats” in order “to prevent, detect and contain them at their source.”¹⁵ The new plan “articulates a whole-of-government science-based approach to strengthening global health security.”

The current U.S. administration is in favor of the WHO pandemic treaty and IHR amendments proposed by the world’s largest public health agency.¹⁶ However, the WHO is getting pushback from lawmakers and citizens in the U.S. and in other nations, who do not want to go along with the UN/WHO power grab that many critics say threatens human rights and national sovereignty.^{17 18 19} A respected Japanese scientist posted a video message to the world online,²⁰ and there was a massive demonstration In Japan this month against the WHO pandemic treaty.²¹

The U.S. “Global Health Security” plan would ensure that if the WHO treaties fail to be signed by enough countries to become international law, the U.S. will make sure there is a global “rapid response to global health emergencies.” According to the U.S. plan, the core of that “rapid response” are “efforts to transform international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, and to accelerate “manufacture, procurement and delivery” of medical countermeasures like vaccines.²²

Even though there is increasing public opposition to the WHO’s plan to expand its legal authority to tell eight billion people what to do whenever WHO officials declare a “public health emergency” – which includes eliminating freedom of speech and electronically monitoring everyone’s vaccination status and requiring people to carry a digital “vaccine passport” in order to travel or enter public spaces²³ – it looks like the U.S. government is going to get the job done whether the WHO manages to get enough countries to sign the WHO/IHR treaties or not. The lucrative public-private business partnerships that have been expanded over the past four decades between the WHO, pharmaceutical corporations, governments and other institutions is paying big dividends for the Public Health Empire.²⁴

Bird Flu Vaccines Being Developed and Stockpiled

Is the latest well-publicized specter of a deadly global bird flu pandemic, which is so reminiscent of the well-publicized specter of a deadly coronavirus pandemic in early 2020,²⁵ a harbinger of things to come or just a coincidence?

Whatever it is, the preparations for delivery and approval of H5N1 “vaccines,” which includes mRNA bird flu shots, is well underway.

On Apr. 20, Barrons reported that the U.S. government “says it could distribute enough [bird flu] vaccines within four months to inoculate a fifth of the U.S. population” (68 million people) if the H5N1 strain infecting cattle began to spread among humans.²⁶ Healthcare workers, law enforcement and other first responders, military personnel pregnant women, infants and high risk children would get the shots first.

Apparently, two clinical trials of bird flu vaccine have been underway since last year and CSL Sequiris and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are under contract to test the vaccines targeting a strain of avian influenza closely related to the H5N1 strain currently infecting U.S. dairy cows. Another major manufacturer of influenza vaccine, Sanofi, would also likely be involved in bird flu vaccine production.

H5N1 Vaccine Production Could Be Ramped Up to Vaccinate the Entire U.S. Population

An FDA spokesperson reportedly told Barrons that the approval process to quickly distribute a new H5N1 bird flu vaccine for Americans would be similar to the accelerated process used to create annual flu vaccines. A spokesperson for Administration for Strategic Preparedness & Response (ASPR) also commented that, if needed, the agency would work with bird flu vaccine manufacturers “to ramp up production to make enough vaccine doses to vaccinate the entire [U.S.] population.”

Oil in Water Adjuvants in Vaccines and Autoimmunity

Both Sequirus and GSK have developed “oil in water” emulsion adjuvants added to influenza vaccines, including bird flu vaccines, to stimulate hyper-inflammatory responses in the body that generate high levels of antigen-specific antibodies in an effort to make the vaccines more “effective.” Squalene adjuvants have been associated with development of autoimmune disorders.^{27 28 29}

GSK’s AS03 adjuvant contains a-tocopherol, squalene and polysorbate 80,³⁰ and some European children and adults, who got GSK’s AS03 adjuvanted H1N1 “swine flu” vaccine in 2009, developed cases of narcolepsy, a neurological autoimmune disorder.³¹  The Sequiris influenza vaccine contains MF59,³² the first squalene oil in water emulsion adjuvant added to influenza vaccines in the 1990s.³³ According to the Apr. 20 Barrons’ report, large quantities of both of these squalene adjuvants are stored in the U.S. government’s special pandemic influenza vaccine stockpile, which was created in 2005, along with premade influenza antigens.

A 2023 article published by Chinese researchers the medical literature promoted the “remarkable success” of mRNA coronavirus vaccines and the need to use three types of specific adjuvants to make mRNA vaccines more effective: (1) RNA with self-adjuvant characteristics; (2) components of the delivery system [such as lipid nanoparticles]; and exogenous immunostimulants (such as squalene).³⁴

As with squalene adjuvants, the lipid nanoparticles, which envelop and deliver synthetic RNA in COVID shots to body cells to produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, are highly inflammatory to stimulate a strong immune response, but also have been associated with allergy and autoimmunity.³⁵

Europe Already Has Approved Two H5N1 Bird Flu Vaccines

Earlier this year, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved two H5N1 avian flu vaccines made by Sequiris, although neither one are mRNA products. Medscape reported on Feb.23, 2023 that Celldemic had been approved for use in infants six months of age and older if public health officials anticipate a bird flu pandemic, and Incellipan had been approved for use when a bird flu pandemic has been declared.³⁶

mRNA Bird Flu Vaccines A Quick Way to Produce Bird Flu Vaccines

A year ago, Scientific American reported that “vaccine makers are preparing for bird flu,” with one pediatric infectious disease doctor quipping “It’s a really dangerous time to be a bird.” Another expert warned “None of us know when the next influenza pandemic will emerge…At the outset, you have to say there is uncertainty, with one exception: there will be a pandemic.”³⁷ In that article, the reliance on U.S. stockpiled egg-based flu vaccines to produce an H5N1 vaccine was called into question and mRNA technology to produce bird flu vaccine was highlighted because it offers “speed of production” so an mRNA vaccine targeting a new influenza strain can be created in a matter of weeks.

Also in 2023, there was a report in the medical literature that University of Pennsylvania researchers had created an H5N1 mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccine being tested on mice and ferrets.³⁸ In March 2024, Chinese researchers announced they had created a 10-valent mRNA nanoparticle vaccine encoding proteins from four seasonal influenza viruses, two avian flu viruses with pandemic potential, and spike proteins from four SARS-CoV-2 variants. They said two doses of FLUCOV-10 “elicited robust immune responses in mice” against all 10 vaccine-matched viruses.³⁹

Only Time Will Tell

Amendments to the WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHR) will be voted on at the end of May. Only time will tell whether the latest publicity warning the public about a potentially imminent bird flu outbreak in humans is real or just another bit of propaganda being used to create fear and put pressure on governments to give up sovereignty for the illusion of safety.

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