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Angie Rasmussen

@angierasmussen.bsky.social

43K followers 3.7K following 2.6K posts

Virologist. PI at VIDO, University of Saskatchewan. Co-EiC of Vaccine. 🇺🇸 in 🇨🇦. Emerging viruses, pathogenesis, zoonosis, host responses, dogs, football, off-color language, transcriptomic chaos. Opinions my own.

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · Apr 21

So this interview lasted 2 hours so this “you’re scaring me” part might seem like an overreaction or fearmongering to someone without that context.

There’s a lot of evidence to support my hypothesis that a potential H5N1 pandemic would be worse than COVID.

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 11h

You’re talking about millions of human lives. It is never “time for a big purge.”

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 12h

For more information

bsky.app/profile/sher...

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 13h

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 12h

It’s horrifying

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 13h

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 14h

Vaxxed and relaxed, just like President Trump. #MAHA

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 17h

Goddammit, I just got vaccinated yesterday. Bad investment!

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 17h

I thought that math was required for the MCATs

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18h

Dr Oz: "Drugs for lung diseases are discounted massively. The president highlighted 650%. Significant discounts ... "

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 19h

And while I do think its unlikely the ostriches are a huge risk, they are still a risk that can't be quantified. Because an H5N1 pandemic would be so catastrophic, this is a risk we can't afford to take.

Rasmussen, of course, is also acutely aware the scientific issues involve the possibility of a global pandemic. The farm has exhibited a persistent lack of biosecurity, with humans and wild animals such as ducks in the outdoor pens with the ostriches, and most pandemics are the result of what’s called reassortment: where different strains of flu mix and create a new strain. H5 hasn’t been overly menacing to humans so far, but that could change.

“I’m not too worried about this virus, per se,” says J. Scott Weese of the University of Guelph, a leading expert in veterinary health and infectious or parasitic animal disease. “I’m worried about what this virus could become. And the more we let it spread, and the more we mix it with other viruses, the more likely it’s going to turn into the virus that we’re worried about. Might never happen. It might have happened yesterday, and we just haven’t seen it yet.”

“Reassortment really is the thing that keeps me up at night about this,” says Rasmussen.

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 19h

If the ostriches are not culled, Canada will violate its trade agreements for managing avian flu outbreaks. This could cause our trading partners to ban Canadian poultry imports and cut off the entire $2B poultry export market. Three countries have already restricted Canadian imports on this basis.

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 19h

Great piece from @brucearthur.bsky.social @thestar.com about the bird flu ostrich circus.

The economic and scientific issues concern me a lot, but for me, it all comes back to this: the US is where it is now because public health was politicized & exploited to undermine democracy & the rule of law.

“I mean, the economic security issues that it would create in terms of potentially s——canning our entire poultry export market would be devastating for Canada. But the real underlying issue is this anti-government belief that these public health orders are optional, and we don’t want government regulation.

“That is why they have so much attention, and why Rebel News and this entire far-right media ecosystem is involved ... is to weaken, basically, government sovereignty. And this is exactly the kind of thing that happened in the U.S.”

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Reposted by Angie Rasmussen

Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 1d

Of all the clerics they could have popped, those ICE idiots had to hit Hot Priest.

Presbyterian minister David Black on CNN, who was shot with pepper balls while praying outside an ICE facility.

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 1d

Don’t give @kgandersen.bsky.social any ideas

Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 1d

You have no idea how annoyed and tired I am of both influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2, so I decided to reduce my risk of dealing with them both.

Tired looking blonde skank in a black beater tank with two bandages on her arm from her awesome flu and Covid shots

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 1d

I spoke to @melodyschreiber.com @theguardian.com along with @pauloffit.bsky.social & @jasonlschwartz.bsky.social about the MMR going monovalent.

We all agree: following Andrew Wakefield's advice to "break up the vaccines" is unnecessary, pointless, & will only prevent kids from getting vaccinated

HELLody SchreiBOO @melodyschreiber.com · 1d

"If a vaccine is sitting on a shelf and not going into somebody’s arm, then it’s worthless, essentially," @angierasmussen.bsky.social said.

"I think anti-vaxxers love vaccines that sit on shelves.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Alarm as CDC calls for separate MMR vaccines despite measles outbreak

Concerns that three separate shots would be more costly and time-consuming, and keep kids from being vaccinated

www.theguardian.com

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 1d

Does he think all the MAHA moms in the movement ate their uteruses after giving birth?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

RFK Jr: "Somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman at 8 months pregnant -- she's an associate professor at the Columbia Medical School -- and she is saying 'F Trump' and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta. The level of Trump Derangement Syndrome is now a pathology."

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 1d

You heard it straight from Kennedy himself: Gold Standard Science is actually just data fabrication.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."

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Reposted by Angie Rasmussen

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 2d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

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Reposted by Angie Rasmussen

sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 1d

thinking about how fucked up it is to give kids measles on purpose and then withhold tylenol from them

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 1d

Oh no, Roland, I'm so sorry to hear that the program is going away! What is next?

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 2d

Once again this is an issue of national security: economic security, health security, & legal/governmental security. The desires of the few don’t supersede the rights of the many to health & security. Don’t buy arguments that use a veneer of science to put Canada at terrible risk

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 2d

H5N1 is a huge threat. An H5N1 pandemic would make COVID look like a walk in the park. It keeps me up at night. H5N1 is a much more dangerous virus than SARS2. It will wreck agriculture as well as killing people. A deadlier pandemic, w/ added starvation & ecological devastation.

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 2d

Claiming H5N1 is not a threat since we’re all seropositive using an unreliable test is wildly selfish & anti-scientific. It’s saying we should gamble on a potential pandemic based on unreliable evidence so these yokels can continue their ostrich scams.

rasmussenretorts.substack.com/p/last-stand...

Last Stand in Bird Flu Ostrich Land

The BC ostrich convoy enters the "find out" stage of FAFO and so have we all

rasmussenretorts.substack.com

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 2d

I take issue with this self-interested claim because H5N1 is a demonstrably lethal virus. Letting it rip at current mortality rate—despite preexisting N1 immunity—would cause almost a million deaths in Canada. It would devastate the poultry industry, food security, & the economy.

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 2d

That is the same claim being made by the ostrich farm. I don’t know if they realize this doesn’t help their case. If false, they are laughably incompetent at basic flu immunology. If true, they were infected by the ostriches, so it’s more evidence they defied CFIA biosecurity orders.

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 2d

But this claim is one of the oldest baseless claims in the book. It was how Jay Bhattacharya rose to fame during COVID. Use unreliable antibody binding assays to claim widespread immunity, then use that to say a major public health threat is no big deal. Let it rip.

www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/...

Bhattacharya To Decide the Fate of Medical Research

An economist turned pandemic celebrity, who loudly and repeatedly advocated for mass infections with the coronavirus, has been nominated by Donald Trump as the new director of the National Institutes ...

www.mcgill.ca

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