Bird Flu Bonanza and Beef in the Classroom | Rising Anxieties

This week on Rising Anxieties, Mariann Sullivan dives beak-first into the taxpayer-funded fever dream that is the animal agriculture industry’s response to bird flu. From senators begging for vaccine handouts to pork producers suddenly discovering biosecurity (better late than never!), it’s a masterclass in how industrial farming turns every crisis into a government funding opportunity. Meanwhile, the beef industry is busy grooming kindergartners with climate “science” that conveniently forgets to mention we could just, you know, eat fewer cows. All this while Oklahoma taxpayers fork over $250 million for a veterinary teaching hospital that’s totally about “feeding the world” and definitely not about propping up factory farming.

This Week’s Anxieties:

• Bird Flu Bailout Brigade: Senators are urging the USDA to develop an emergency vaccine plan for cattle affected by HPAI (bird flu), because apparently the multi-billion dollar industry can’t develop their own contingency plans.
• Pork Panic: After years of bird flu circulating, the pork industry has finally noticed it might affect their bottom line and is suddenly embracing “One Health” principles and “stringent protocols” that will surely save us all.
• Vaccine Vanishing Act: HHS has pulled $766 million in funding for Moderna’s human bird flu vaccine development, with the new administration claiming mRNA technology “remains under-tested” despite widespread use.
• Beef’s Classroom Conquest: The beef industry is distributing free educational materials to schools that frame beef production as “environmentally sound” and “nutritionally essential” while carefully avoiding the suggestion that eating less meat might help the climate.
• Oklahoma’s Veterinary Venture: Oklahoma State University received a whopping $250 million in state funding for a new veterinary teaching hospital, framed as supporting “the food supply of Oklahoma” rather than subsidizing the animal agriculture industry.

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