The public’s ignorance about food safety and vaccination is now a hindrance to the prevention of bird flu. While many mainstream media outlets have taken a break from fear-mongering this outbreak, others are now sinking low, as they did with COVID-19, and blaming the “ignorant” public for the virus’s spread.

In an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health, a team led by researchers from the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) say public ignorance and apathy towards bird flu (highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI) could pose a serious obstacle to containing the virus and preventing a larger-scale public health crisis. The authors of the editorial conducted a population representative survey of United States residents from August 5th to 15th, 2024, which used an in-depth sampling framework and intentional oversampling of rural populations.

Over a quarter (27%) of respondents said they were unwilling to modify their diet to reduce the risk of exposure to the virus, and more than one in four respondents (28.7%) expressed reluctance to take a potential vaccine for H5N1, even if advised by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to do so.

The results suggest many respondents were unaware of simple food safety practices that could reduce the risk of HPAI infection. Over half (53.7%) did not know that pasteurized milk is safer than raw milk, although almost three of four respondents (71.3%) did understand that cooking meat at high temperatures could eliminate harmful bacteria and viruses like H5N1. –News Medical Life Sciences

“These attitudes could pose a serious obstacle to containing the virus and preventing a major public health crisis,” says CUNY (City University of New York) SPH Assistant Professor Rachael  Piltch-Loeb, the study’s lead author. “The fact that responses vary significantly by political party and geography emphasizes the need for a carefully segmented health communications strategy to address the issue.”

Republicans were less likely than democrats to support vaccination and “dietary” changes in order to prevent the spread of bird flu.

“Working closely with agricultural leaders, farm communities and food processing companies will be critical, and the fact that most of the agricultural workers who are at direct risk of exposure to the bird flu virus may be undocumented could seriously jeopardize efforts to track and control the spread of infections,” said Senior Scholar Kenneth Rabin.