Turning Point USA is promoting drinking raw milk amid bird flu outbreak

Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 454 points –
Turning Point USA is promoting drinking raw milk amid bird flu outbreak
mediamatters.org
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They're really set on decimating their voter base.

I'm okay with that part, but the flu virus mutating inside them and spreading to non-idiots is what worries me.

With a high likelihood a pandemic is unavoidable considering how widespread eg. H5N1 is in animal populations, and it's just a question of "when" not "if". Not too likely in the next few years but with some forecasters giving ~25% chance in the coming decade – and it'll probably kill a lot of people. Infection fatality rates are hard to predict, but for H5N1 I've seen estimates ranging anywhere from 1 to 80%, with some sources saying 1 – 5% is the most probable, although eg. this paper estimates 14 – 33% and this paper estimates 30 – 80% for the current strains, which would be absolutely catastrophic. IFR should not be confused with the current case fatality rate which is around 50%. Those are just the bad cases that we know of and who end up in hospital, but the real number of infections is probably higher (possibly even in the tens of thousands or more). In any case, even a "low" IFR of 2% would mean the pandemic would be ~10x as deadly as COVID.

The only good thing about it is that reich-wingers are less likely to get a vaccine, meaning they'll be more likely to die. Also doing idiotic shit like drinking raw milk from infected cows will mean more fatalities. Yes, it increases the chances of a mutation that'll enable sustained human-to-human transmission, but as I said that's probably going to happen sooner or later anyhow.

Edit: I'll be adding sources as I dig them up from my browser history and notes. And yes, the terms "case fatality rate" and "infection fatality rate" are sometimes used confusingly by different sources, eg. some don't use IFR but talk of the "true" or "real" CFR

What they really want is their base to think “the big bad fda is trying to control them.”

This way, when their party dismantles the fda (in the interest of no longer regulating corporations on animal treatment or food or drug quality) their supporters cheer, as the food they are sold increases in price for continuous drop in quality and safety.

Followed by the unregulated sale of placebo drugs making unrequited claims with with no studies on health or side effects required, the banning of generics, so on and so forth

As long as they cut down their base by 1/10th I think the statement is accurate!

Democrats should start promoting basic safety/health measures like don't look into the gun's barrel, take your heart medicine, don't insert forks into a socket, etc. so that Conservatives can kill off their voter base more efficiently by being contrarian.

That's what I said of our politics decades ago: If one party starts a campaign to the theme "We will not jump off the roof of the Parliament building", you will find dead members of the other party all around that building a few days later.

It will never stop being entertaining to me how the wannabe-iconoclast performative behavior of conservatives has them all acting like hippies lol. Raw milk, anti-vax,now they’re all happy about gun laws with Hunter’s conviction. Next thing you know there will be a conservative free love movement thinly veiled as a way to boost our low birth rates.

Next thing you know there will be a conservative free love movement thinly veiled as a way to boost our low birth rates.

Nah, conservatives seem to really hate consensual sex. It's going to be Gilead and handmaids

What do you mean "will be"? They've explicitly encouraged having large families for centuries, and implicitly encouraged having kids outside a family too, by forbidding birth control and abortion.

Yes but on the surface at least they also insist on monogamy or at the very least serial monogamy. Free love is typically more of a polyamorous movement.

Mostly, yeah.

Although, the Bible does say that if your brother dies and didn't make any babies with his wife, it's your job now. https://www.esv.org/Genesis+38:8;Deuteronomy+25:5;Matthew+22:24;Mark+12:19;Luke+20:28/

When your brother married a hottie so you "accidentally" spill cyanide in his tea.

Similar to the "Uriah Method." Send him to the front line of a battle, feign sadness upon his untimely (yet highly anticipated) death, then steal his wife.

Well. Except for the fact that David had already gotten Bathsheba pregnant by that point. He had Uriah called back from the front so that there could be some plausible claim that Uriah was the father, but Uriah refused to have sex with his wife while he was on leave because--IIRC--he wanted to stand in solidarity with his buddies on the front line that weren't home with their wives. So David had him killed in order to try and cover up their adultery.

For a guy that's supposed to be one of the good guys, David was a real piece of work.

I think there is a lesson in there about adultery being very bad or something.

I actually know of one guy from an extremely religious family that married his brother’s wife when his brother died. I always wondered if it was true love or duty.

That I am less upset about. Kids were a net profit in that time period. For a woman passed the point where she can just get married, with presumably her dowry being depleted, having a kid with the brother meant that she would have a hand in the whole not starving thing.

I won't judge people that poor for making hard decisions. Just be glad that no one reading this lives in a world like that.

Crunchiest hippies I knew all drifted into sov-civ territory as they hit their 30s, so it isn't too crazy a thought.

Next thing you know there will be a conservative free love movement

They already do. Have you been to Southern Ohio? It's a love free for all. They only talk bad about you if you don't fit into WASP standards. "Oh, they work together alot, emotions run, etc." You guys don't understand how much this anti-porn, anti-choice stuff is mostly just racism and more about "our cultural" than religion.

I hear you can make it safe by mixing it with 1 part bleach to 4 parts milk.

I mix ammonia with my raw bleach-milk to really make sure all the nasties are dead! And the plus side is that nobody else wants to drink it so there's more for me

Democrats said not to, said there's a virus spreading through raw milk and it could be dangerous. That was all it took. That was the only thing Republicans needed to hear to institutionally embrace Raw Milk.

Democrats should try launching a "Don't jump off of cliffs onto sharp rocks" campaign. "It's not safe. The science is clear, gravity is real, and the sharp rocks will hurt or kill you. Just don't do it. It's not about restrictions versus freedom, just don't jump off of cliffs onto sharp rocks." The next week TPUSA would run an article on how to own the libs at the five highest cliffs in the country.

Yknow what I hate, man? Social security and universal Healthcare

Fuck those things so hard! I also despise higher capital gains taxes and raising minimum wage! Boo lesser wealth inequality

Democrats should run ads that say "Republicans say they don't plan to vote in November, but here's the reasons why they should", and just list stuff that's good for society.

Republicans would never vote again.

Haven't seen enough talk about this, but how much of the Republican under-performance in the midterms is down to Republicans being more likely to die during the pandemic? And Covid is still killing people, and about 43% more of those currently dying are republicans rather then democrats. Given that old people are dying, and old people are more likely to vote, I wouldn't be surprised if we see the political system stabilize around a Democratic majority for a while.

Ok but gravity is less supported by science than evolution by means of natural and sexual selection. That means theyre more prone to believe in it. “We don’t know how or why it works, Jesus is why”

Seems fine to me. This was like when the Republicans refused to vax only to end up killing themselves. Let them fuck around. They'll find out soon enough.

But this article is a hell of a leap if all they got is that shirt.

This was like when the Republicans refused to vax only to end up killing themselves

Unfortunately, that's not the full picture. People got infected and transmitted to a lot of other people, and a lot of innocents ended up dead.

When it comes to bird flu, more people being inconsequential about it, and deliberately getting it gives the virus a greater chance to develop mutations, and maybe affecting us in the long run. This is a really dangerous thing, and those people are doing something that puts us all in risk.

Sooo do they know that the FDA and CDC advice against ingesting raw sewage? Perhaps that is another thing they just do not want you to have. Maybe they should try that, too.

when i see this *crap, all i can think of is:

Even the best-behaved children can be difficult and challenging at times. But oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) includes a frequent and ongoing pattern of anger, irritability, arguing and defiance toward parents and other authority figures. ODD also includes being spiteful and seeking revenge, a behavior called vindictiveness.

edit: spelling, lol

I was ‘diagnosed’ with ODD at a young age. The reason is because I could clearly see when adults were lying and trying to manipulate me, and when push came to shove I’d get angry.

The reason is because I could clearly see when adults were lying and trying to manipulate me.

that doesn't seem to be the case here; drinking raw milk is dangerous.

Oh no, I totally understand that. Just trying to provide my viewpoint on a bogus ‘diagnosis’.

When I see this carp, all I can think is I would have preferred salmon.

(I’m sorry I’ll see myself out)

(Also your point is very legit)

Even the best-behaved children

Ahaha!

Now, does this still apply when they’re knowingly being The Worst to pander?

ODD somehow is about the only way I've found to successfully make me study; it does not, however, make one stupid (or suicidal, usually). Red hatters do that to themselves.

Diseases like flu and COVID kill more elderly than anyone else.

Someone remind me who the big Republican voter base is again...

Maybe this rising fascism problem will solve itself.

That's what we all thought when covid happened, and they decided they wouldn't do anything to avoid it, and started taking horse dewormers.

It ultimately does sooner or later, but it can often take the rest of society with it. That's why accelerationism doesn't work.

Fascism has never solved itself, though. There has never been a peaceful cure for conservatism, unfortunately.

I, for one, think that people who listen to Turning Point USA should drink raw milk to show how not dangerous bird flu.

That would be great if they didn’t have to interact with the rest of us. I don’t want Plague 2.

As long as raw milk doesn’t give you any contagious diseases that can be passed on to sane, responsible people, I’m fine with this.

As long as they don’t give the milk to their innocent children either…

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Some gifts just wrap themselves, don’t they?

I've had raw milk I think twice in my life - once straight from the tank at a dairy. It is exponentially more delicious than pasteurized. I wish there were a safe way to produce and consume it.

Uv pasteurization is an alternative to heat pasteurization. It's suppose to keep more of the milk proteins intact. Not sure how it taste tests against raw milk though.

Had both it's not the same. Raw milk just tastes so freaken good. Please don't drink it.

I'm just impressed they were able to milk a bird!

You joke, but crop milk is a thing:

Crop milk is a secretion from the lining of the crop of parent birds in some species that is regurgitated to young birds. It is found among all pigeons and doves where it is also referred to as pigeon milk. Crop milk is also secreted from the crop of flamingos and the male emperor penguin, suggesting independent evolution of this trait. Unlike in mammals where only females produce milk, crop milk is produced by both males and females in pigeons and flamingos; and in penguins, only by the male. Lactation in birds is controlled by prolactin, which is the same hormone that causes lactation in mammals.

If some conservatives absolutely insist on lowering their own population, who am I to stop them? Actually, the louder I beg them to stop and follow the science, the more aggressively they seem to be killing themselves...

Guys! Stop! Don't do it!!!

Two downsides are that they take healthcare resources to be treated for their own stupidity, and if they have kids I feel sorry for the kids.

Killing people off in conservative areas just further entrenches conservatism there. It's a lot easier to get 10,000 people to do what you want than it is to get 100,000.

And even if Wyoming or South Dakota only have a few thousand people they still get a representative, two senators, and three electoral college votes.

The right has finally gotten back on track in the pursuit of its goal of cleansing society from the weak and stupid (themselves).

Right wingers are still all loaded up on horse dewormers. I’m sure they’ll be fine.

I asked my wife what was with all the raw milk promotion lately. We drove through rural MO and stores had “raw milk sold here” on signage.

Yes! More of this, please. And let's tell them to dance on the edge of active volcanos and wrestle bears. All of these are goods for you. The Left don't want you wrestling bears!

lol okay turning point. Knock yourselves out

Absolute contempt for their supporters.

Being difficult and contrarian is the calling card of conservatives. The fact that they don't care that their marching orders will cause many of their supporters to die, is everything that you need to know about conservatives/Republicans.

this is just bird flu taking control of the average conservative brain

same as covid making them afraid of masks

I haven't been following the news that much lately.

Is my assumption correct in that bird flu previously only spread between birds, or bird to human,

And that now it has mutated to spread from bird to cow, cow to cow, and cow to human, but still not from human to human?

Oh fuck those guys!

Now it’s gonna be like anybody wearing a red hat, or Hindus and swastikas.

I drink raw milk because I know where it comes from, and for some reason it cures my lactose intolerance.

I don’t really understand it, and by really I mean like not at all, maybe whatever a probiotic is?

Idk, I just know that if I drink it every now and then, then it lets me drink regular store milk without getting sick, but it’s local and tastes better so🤷

Its getting to a point where ALL corporate recommendations should be taken with a heavy dose of scepticism. Have to wonder where all these absolutely insane ideas are coming from

Oh fuck those guys!

Now it’s gonna be like anybody wearing a red hat, or Hindus and swastikas.

I drink raw milk because I know where it comes from, and for some reason it cures my lactose intolerance.

I don’t really understand it, and by really I mean like not at all, maybe whatever a probiotic is?

Idk, I just know that if I drink it every now and then, then it lets me drink regular store milk without getting sick, but it’s local and tastes better so🤷

Anyone who deliberately drinks raw milk is a sociopath

You can safely drink raw milk, but it requires a level of hygiene that's challenging to impossible in a commercial dairy operation. The biggest issue with raw milk (...most of the time...) is listeria, and carefully cleaning the udder and teats prior to milking the cow eliminates almost all of that problem. But, again, this is very difficult to do on a commercial dairy farm, because you need to move through so many cows very, very quickly. If you have just couple cows, then it's easier to handle.

The R value on H5N1 is basically null, so have at it!
I genuinely don't care if they kill themselves off with it.