True Patriot Love - November 24, 2025


How Bird Flu Outbreaks Really Get Solved - The Ostrich Cull


Episode Stats

Length

25 minutes

Words per Minute

164.39986

Word Count

4,146

Sentence Count

3

Misogynist Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 well here he is dr jeff wilson president of novometrics research and a guy that i've had
00:00:17.720 an opportunity to chat with a number of times and even meet up with in person uh hi jeff thanks so
00:00:24.120 much for joining us hi mike thanks for having me well this is right in your world and so let's tee
00:00:30.220 up for people who you are and what you do uh explain that to us if you don't mind doc sure so
00:00:37.060 so by training i've got three doctorates i'm a veterinarian i have a doctorate in pathology with
00:00:43.700 specialization in avian or bird pathology and i have a phd in epidemiology specializing in
00:00:50.960 um infection zoonotic infections so infections that come from animals to people uh i worked
00:00:59.700 for nearly 20 years in the public health agency of canada created their foodborne waterborne and
00:01:05.740 zoonotic disease epidemiology unit on the human side across the point of the university of guelph
00:01:11.240 where i'm a was a professor still an adjunct professor i i i'm now president of novometrics
00:01:16.960 research which i have been since the early 90s what we do is we link networks together to
00:01:22.680 create solutions to wicked problems and obviously avian influenza and the ostrich issue is is a good
00:01:29.260 example of that or a bad example whatever however you look at it and enter us into your life to probe
00:01:34.800 you with all these questions about that because you are the uh you are the guy uh certainly that would
00:01:40.760 understand this better than anybody uh outbreak response is something that we've had uh lengthy
00:01:46.000 discussions about and it's a fascinating process that i think our government and every government
00:01:51.760 in the world needs to really embrace and uh we'll go into that i'm sure on another day at greater length
00:01:57.080 but i wanted to ask you first of all what's the uh specific virus or pathogen that was uh pathogen
00:02:02.980 that was uh just discovered in the out in the outbreak so the um it's referred by a bunch of names
00:02:10.300 but i call it hpai uh highly pathogenic avian influenza so there are lots of influenzas in
00:02:16.280 people and pigs and birds and so on lots are mild uh every once in a while we get a really bad one
00:02:23.380 virulent one and and this one in poultry and in wild birds and wild mammals is uh has been moving up
00:02:30.040 and down north america for the last more than a decade now and kill it kills domestic poultry
00:02:36.720 like like like a plague and it uh does the same thing for wild birds and i think the part of the
00:02:43.160 concern is that it'll make the transition from the bird species that it's infecting uh and make the
00:02:48.740 crossover not only harming uh farming and and uh doing such devastation to the that industry but also
00:02:56.600 make the leap to humans yeah and so it's it's uh one of these one of these things where um
00:03:03.940 uh it could be and it already has of course got into humans causing mild infection in most cases
00:03:13.020 in north america but some severe infection and in other parts of the world um this specific strain
00:03:19.760 has actually caused significant mortality percentage wise but in small numbers so uh it's one of these
00:03:26.320 things where uh and this this is the kind of thing that i think it's really important for the for the
00:03:32.140 public who's interested to understand how this works so we can start to keep our governments um
00:03:38.080 accountable so it's one of these things where um this thing could kind of smolder along
00:03:45.820 and then disappear and not get into people and nothing and and nothing bad might happen
00:03:53.500 on the other hand it could turn into a form that causes serious human mortality and you know it it
00:04:03.600 could be really serious it could certainly make covid look very mild uh it can cause that haven't seen
00:04:12.500 that kind of mortality and you know 25 mortality and so on in in north america but we have seen in
00:04:19.260 other parts of the world in small numbers so so it's one of these things okay everybody what do you
00:04:24.540 do when you have a thing which might be might blow over or might be utterly catastrophic it's a very
00:04:31.340 difficult precipice to be at is it not well it's it's it's uh complicated in a sense and and um and it
00:04:39.960 also means uh let's not panic on either side like let's not be dismissive that this is all it's all
00:04:47.620 just gonna go away and don't worry about it or oh my god the sky is falling right i don't mean to be
00:04:52.260 dismissive like i no no but there has to be a calm on on both sides that would make sense to me do you
00:05:00.180 think that the uh the culling then might have been undue or i mean a lot of the response to this seemed
00:05:06.980 to be that the government was taking rash action that they were uh scaring farmers uh in in big ways
00:05:13.860 and even the public a little bit uh by doing this was was this a good response to this potential
00:05:20.340 outbreak so you mean the the ostrich farm one the ostrich calling yeah yeah yeah so yeah i would say
00:05:27.860 um based on the information that that i have now and that includes you know reviewing the literature and
00:05:34.260 and talking to some really credentialed canadian and global experts uh they're um the birds almost
00:05:43.540 certainly these ostrich almost certainly had herd immunity uh almost certainly they were not shedding
00:05:52.020 you know highly pathogenic avian influenza in any clinically significant level um that's based on
00:06:00.580 the fact that they and i'm sure you've heard of this and people would have heard this in the news uh
00:06:04.580 no disease for months in these birds no clinical signs and actually testing of egg yolks from these
00:06:10.900 birds by steve pellick at ubc showing that they uh they have antibodies and then the third kind of
00:06:16.820 thing is cfia's absolute refusal prohibition in fact of any further testing so i'm going no uh
00:06:27.620 this cull makes no sense what makes sense is to bring the right people to the table along with
00:06:34.580 people from cfia figure out what's actually going on look at the data do proper testing like do pro uh
00:06:43.300 that's the and then based on that testing decide on the right interventions likely a proper intervention
00:06:51.220 would have simply been to maintain quarantine and use this as an experimental site to examine
00:06:59.140 how to manage this and and birds that have gone through this natural immunity process so i say no
00:07:05.540 it yeah it it made absolutely no public health or animal health sense to me well and i think it was a
00:07:13.140 bit of a public uh a pr nightmare in the sense that uh it made canadians think oh wait a minute we're just
00:07:21.060 taking uh really uh evasive action right away every time something frightens us and i think as canadians
00:07:29.780 we would prefer to have or anybody i think it doesn't matter if you're canadian where you are in the
00:07:34.100 world what you want is your government to present you with the realities present you with the options
00:07:40.180 they're working with give us an idea of where exactly this is all headed and then start to take action
00:07:46.740 based on expert input totally we're not we don't see that in this case i don't think no and and and
00:07:53.860 very importantly as part of that independent expert input input right not simply cfia uh scientists
00:08:02.900 right because they right they actually don't have the skills or the context and they're not independent
00:08:08.820 they can't possibly be independent on this so also it feels to me like the uh the reception from the
00:08:14.900 farming community uh certainly in the ostrich farming community would have been a lot i guess a little
00:08:22.660 bit more at least intact with uh working with the government if they were given some sort of
00:08:28.020 understanding of what was going on and not just an instant culling uh like they're checking it off on a
00:08:34.100 on a list totally totally no so so um uh it's it's really very simple and this for me this comes from
00:08:43.140 quite a few years of actually doing outbreak response like walkerton you know being heavily
00:08:49.540 involved in that uh a very normal intelligent thing to do would be for the leadership of the outbreak
00:08:58.740 response to sit down with the farmers and others and go okay what's going on here and how can we work
00:09:08.020 together my um my boss when i was with the public health agency an excellent guy named paul socket
00:09:15.940 uh he said to me and he's he had done multiple multiple outbreak response in canada and the uk
00:09:21.220 where he's from he said jeff once you lose the community you lose the outbreak it's that simple
00:09:28.580 you can't actually resolve it without that interaction and uh and assistance from within
00:09:35.460 you if you've got resistance then you've lost the outbreak uh entirely it seems totally you can't
00:09:42.340 you need p yeah you need people to be involved and and that's what we're seeing in the in the
00:09:47.220 commercial poultry industry which is different from ostriches obviously but the principles are the same
00:09:53.620 and i can tell you because i talk to lots of actual poultry farmers uh not simply the poultry boards
00:10:01.140 which are in a different position i'm not trying to disparage the boards but they're in a different
00:10:07.300 position when you talk to actual poultry farmers uh they're highly suspicious of what cfia is doing
00:10:17.220 as a result they start to become very suspicious of their own boards because if the boards aren't
00:10:22.580 involved right if the boards are letting them get access to these farms and this this livestock then
00:10:30.020 they become part of the suspicion as well totally and i i've had a number of farmers ask me jeff
00:10:36.900 is it if we ever had another outbreak of mortality on our farm is there a way to get them tested where
00:10:42.580 we wouldn't have to go to cfia at all that was my question to you is there a public a private way
00:10:48.020 to go about this that would be acceptable to the government well and so um acceptable is an
00:10:56.100 interesting word in this context what i and what i understand and we haven't been involved in doing
00:11:01.620 this but in in in looking at the research on doing some research on this it looks as though there are ways
00:11:08.980 that legally farmers could um could have their birds tested anonymously we're looking and and it's sort of
00:11:18.980 at the point where if that kind of stuff isn't in fact i mean the the ideal system is we get everybody
00:11:27.220 working together uh get a proper outbreak response in place have cfia be part of that not running it
00:11:36.420 because cfia doesn't not only do they not know how to do a great response they don't even have a mandate
00:11:41.860 to do a great response which is shocking but that's true they have a mandate to stamp out they don't
00:11:48.900 have a mandate to figure out what's actually the disease involved so they can be they literally could
00:11:55.060 be stomping on the evidence required to prevent future outbreaks by just doing their job the way
00:12:00.500 that it it's out by by by take you know following their interpretation of rules and norms which are
00:12:10.660 frankly outdated uh they could um well they they are stomping out all over the whole thing right it's
00:12:19.300 it's a major problem uh so jeff where does it go from here then if if that's their mandate
00:12:25.700 and it's not the solution how do we get the right solution in front of the government and get that
00:12:31.220 implemented well so um this speaks to the whole issue of how you do proper outbreak response and
00:12:42.180 it's nuanced and there's different layers right so well i can tell you what what we've done and there
00:12:48.980 are many people in canada involved in in hpi hpi outbreak response but very few who actually
00:12:56.820 understand proper outbreak response right so and i i'm not bragging i just i did a two-year internship
00:13:04.260 with the public health agency where we actually learned through mentorship how to run proper outbreaks
00:13:10.260 right and there are very few people who know how to do that it's a very limit so there's a lot of people out
00:13:16.500 there's a lot of people out there going well we should try this we should try that we should it's
00:13:19.780 like whoa whoa so um there has to be a methodology totally before before you even get to that place
00:13:29.140 i think or you're or you will simply circle around and around and around in chaos and that's what
00:13:36.980 without people even understanding what's the source of the chaos right it's right and so there's this
00:13:43.620 well-established best practices for doing this uh we call it the pillars of outbreak response so we
00:13:50.260 i don't need to go in detail but there is a maybe another time but there's a oh i would love to do this on
00:13:55.780 in in depth because i think it's important that people understand that there are people out there
00:13:59.620 that when a covet hits or when we are faced with avian flu that there is a science and a methodology
00:14:07.860 and a process that can be done that reduces it and brings us to safety quickly totally and so for the
00:14:14.100 public what we're advocating is that you know and this is why it's really helpful to be on this kind of
00:14:20.580 show that the public step by step starts to understand how you actually do this and then
00:14:28.900 they can see instead of randomly you know randomly saying oh that doesn't look right or that doesn't
00:14:35.540 look right or that those people are clearly idiots or those people are really brilliant we have a we
00:14:40.340 have a common language based on best practice and we can talk about it and then the public can be involved
00:14:45.780 and go no this this clearly is wrong based on the paper you know this series of papers which have
00:14:53.060 already been published which show what to do right so right so that's uh so what that is one phase to
00:15:01.220 this and and so now how okay i i hate to ask this question jeff some sometimes i go a little off the rails
00:15:08.500 here why don't we have this in place already with our in our healthcare system and in these various
00:15:16.820 industries where we can have these outbreaks why is it that we don't have this at the moment well
00:15:22.980 that's a good question excuse me and so um i would say first of all in public health at at the federal
00:15:33.540 provincial and local levels actually this in this is in place people know how to do this and they do
00:15:40.740 it regularly in public health for things like you will have seen there there might be an outbreak of
00:15:46.740 e coli in hamburger right that there are very good people at the federal provincial and the local level
00:15:55.300 like murray mcquigg who is in walkerton who who know what to do right and so so at that level
00:16:02.900 in public health it's well established when we hit walkerton sorry um covid all of that was thrown out
00:16:10.900 the window now why uh partly everyone's a deer in the headlights partly political partly money right
00:16:21.540 there's a whole bunch of incentives and partly just it was so big everyone kind of just went crazy and
00:16:29.940 then i think i think it's very fair to say certain people stepped in and and gamed the system right
00:16:35.780 yeah i think i think that that's where having an outbreak response at the onset
00:16:44.420 dealing with international input dealing with uh you know governmental uh implementation implementation of
00:16:51.780 programs and and safety nets and things like that maybe should have come from
00:16:56.900 from a group in this country please let's make one yeah that is ready for any outbreak with a response
00:17:05.220 system totally then that's that's what's needed so so having talked to many people across the country
00:17:12.900 in this and people outside of the country and talked to the chief veterinarian of canada deputy chief
00:17:20.180 similar kind of stuff in ontario similar kind of stuff in bc and doing analysis we concluded this
00:17:27.060 outbreak response for hpi generally is completely off the rails we're not the first to say it i think
00:17:34.020 it was cbc did a thing and they said it was utterly chaotic so it is chaotic what's happening
00:17:37.860 and so i envision i envision these guys in hazmat suits coming over the hill at an ostrich farm
00:17:44.100 all right with mallets in their hands i mean it that was the way that it was presented but i don't
00:17:50.260 think that that was far off the feeling that was left behind that the government just can't come in and
00:17:55.620 stomp your your your your entire uh farm totally i i think that's what in that instance that is what
00:18:02.660 happened and um so what we've done is we've said okay um now because there there is actually not
00:18:11.540 only does cfa not have a mandate to do animal disease outbreak response it turns out no one in
00:18:17.300 canada has a mandate to do that at the at the national level at the national level and so we talked
00:18:25.620 it's and it's just odd right it's like what yeah and so um i would just i think every canadian would
00:18:31.940 assume there is a a a science lab someplace and and a war room ready to protect us from these
00:18:41.940 outbreak scenarios and and really there's there's just not there there isn't there's pieces of it
00:18:47.380 scattered all over so what our organization novometrics research we're a social enterprise
00:18:54.100 um i don't know a couple weeks ago we just stepped in and said we're now creating that okay so nationally
00:19:00.740 we're creating uh with scott anderson who is the mp for vernon where the ostriches are right uh he sent
00:19:10.180 a letter to the minister of agriculture and the and the prime minister saying uh because of all
00:19:16.740 everything i've talked about here now novometrics research through our network process so it's not
00:19:21.540 like novometrics is going to own this we're more like a facilitator right of the process or a secretariat
00:19:26.740 or something we're now doing this so so um and it turns out that's uh fully legal and and reasonably
00:19:35.540 normal in you know in terms of political science it's called an organic mandate so if there's nobody
00:19:41.540 doing it and if you have the skills and right uh it's very reasonable to simply step in and do that
00:19:47.620 so um well i'm glad to hear that you so now what's the next steps for you guys off to ottawa
00:19:52.180 uh yeah off off to ottawa today i'm driving up we have a a meeting of i would say grassroots and
00:20:01.620 professional stakeholders in ottawa uh that are meeting about kind of next stages and i'm meeting
00:20:07.700 with some politicians up there and you know that there's there's a lot of interest now and okay this
00:20:14.340 actually would make sense how would we fund this out uh we have initial sponsorship for this and we're
00:20:19.700 reaching out to various corporate sponsorship it turns out in the agricultural industry and i know
00:20:26.020 people some people um are very critical of pharma and and i i get it right there are certain things
00:20:34.180 definitely that pharma has done that are not the best on the other hand they're part of the
00:20:39.300 ecosystem and and they're and they have they have resources and expertise to help with this kind of
00:20:45.140 stuff so um they're now uh they have a very strong incentive to want to fix up this craziness as
00:20:53.620 well so so and a lot of times this gets missed because people go oh oh i would never work with
00:21:00.500 pharma i would never no no no you got to actually bring the people together and the process we use to
00:21:05.060 do that you've heard me talk about a community network integration cni which is the kind of the
00:21:10.660 operating system to bring all these people together so that's that's it makes sense to me that the
00:21:15.780 best the best in category uh around you regardless of what the uh the stereotyped uh you know i guess
00:21:23.860 feeling that we have in our mind toward that industry you're right they're part of the ecosystem
00:21:28.340 and you know though i think that the the backlash to that might be oh yeah but they're looking for
00:21:34.100 the next outbreak because that's where they make all their money but the reality is they have mandates
00:21:39.140 to prevent to be uh at the at the gear head of this to make sure that outbreaks don't occur so and and
00:21:47.780 it's um and it's not even like some totally get what we're talking about some are are purely just in
00:21:54.660 it for the buck but the but my experience is i've worked a lot with people in animal pharma
00:22:02.020 they're generally actually really good people and they're smart and they and they don't want to destroy
00:22:08.340 their brand by aligning themselves with the with a thing like this cfia ostrich and you know the
00:22:15.380 general cfi process they don't want to align themselves to that and the fact is many people
00:22:20.980 have problems with what cfa has done because they they have so much power there they run uh as a
00:22:27.860 general statement not the people within the organization but as an organization and as a senior
00:22:33.380 management team running it they run roughshod over many many people in this ecosystem but people are
00:22:40.340 are terrified to go after them because they don't want to have their business destroyed or their brand
00:22:46.020 destroyed so well i have great news i am not raising poultry or any wildlife uh or any sort of livestock
00:22:52.820 at all and so i will say please we need to look into what this group is doing properly and make sure that
00:22:58.340 our government has uh the right planning strategies in place for this sort of thing and jeff to be
00:23:04.740 honest with you and having talked to you a number of times now your mission is consistent it seems to go
00:23:11.780 adjacent to almost any outbreak scenario that you have because it's based on common sense and process and
00:23:18.260 information and i really hope that your trip to ottawa is an amazing success among the group that you're working with
00:23:26.340 and that you're um you're elevated in ottawa to get this thing going across the nation is there any
00:23:32.660 place you'd recommend people go to find out more about what you do and how you guys go about it so um
00:23:41.140 we have a website uh www.novometricsinc.com it has some information there uh um there's things are moving
00:23:51.300 so fast now we're trying to keep it up to date um if people want to email me they're very welcome to
00:23:58.420 email me directly uh mike you can just put my email in the wherever you put it i'm happy certainly take a
00:24:04.100 look in the description if you need to reach out to uh dr jeff wilson uh novometrics i would encourage
00:24:09.380 you to do so if there's something you think you can contribute uh some line of thinking that you think
00:24:14.420 aligns or you have any questions because i mean i have asked you some pretty basic questions today that have
00:24:19.620 led to some very interesting answers so i would imagine you'd be wide open to uh all of them uh
00:24:25.140 jeff thank you so much for your time today and uh giving us an understanding of uh just how crazy
00:24:31.300 this was frank and is and continues to be and so um yeah thanks very much mike thanks to all your
00:24:37.540 listeners really appreciate it thank you all right well we'll catch you next time and thank you so much
00:24:42.260 for being with us this story will continue we will continue to follow it and uh reach out to the right
00:24:47.860 experts like jeff in the meantime i thank you for joining us subscribe tell a friend share it around
00:24:52.980 go ahead make a comment i know this is not the right color for me that's okay let me know we'll see you
00:24:58.900 see you soon okay thank you
00:25:09.140 okay thank you