Kim had some questions about influenza and about secondary bacterial
pneumonia which can be useful for all, so:

Okay, you have to remember that a number of influenza strains CROSS
SPECIES. Heck, a number of them cross taxonomic Classes (which is
why ferrets and people so often have flus that originated in birds)
and Orders (which is why the swine origin is a problem). In fact,
influenzas certainly can mutate in us (or in other hosts like birds,
pigs, ferrets, etc) and can genetically recombine with other influenzas
if a being has more than one flu at the same time -- becoming different
than they first were. People and ferrets get ones that have crossed
species lines because influenza mutates quite readily (though some
types of influenza mutate more readily than others). So, do NOT be
led astray thinking that pork has to be in the feed for them to have
contracted a flu which originated in pork, nor vice versa. Neither an
avian flu origin nor a swine flu origin will prevent those influenzas
from infecting each other, nor from infecting ferrets, mink (which
are rather closely related to ferrets), or humans. Heck, most of the
influenzas people get are avian ones originally, and ferrets are used
to study both swine flu strains and bird flu strains because they do
get them easily.

Again, to learn more about strains of influenza in ferrets this is
great overview paper though it is not written in the most friendly
fashion for a casual reader:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0027512
 or
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217968/

The discussion is happening because of a large number of mink (again,
very closely related to ferrets) which are thought to have gotten
influenza due to the raw turkey which was fed per
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22362526

and Meryl already sent the information on the temperature to reach to
kill influenza in poultry; here is the very useful info that Meryl
provided:
>Re raw versus cooked. This quote from the first concerns about bird
>flu in 2006 "Preparing for the arrival of bird flu, the government
>on Wednesday gave advice for making chicken safe to eat: Cook it to
>165 degrees F." For getting rid of E. coli in a chicken you cook it
>to 160 degrees F.

Researchers would NOT just assume that the source had influenza but
would have known that the source had to shutter or sacrifice for a
while due to it. That situation is NOT particularly uncommon! An
abstract is just an abstract so it will NOT have all of the info that
is in the paper, just a useful summation. *****It would be good to get
the full paper ***** to learn more on this because what I am wondering
is if the turkeys were sold before the infection was spotted (which
does happen), or if the infection had been spotted and people on both
sides were foolish enough to sell and buy infected poultry into the
mink farm food stream. Once this sort of infection is spotted it is
illegal in many nations to sell those birds into the human food stream,
BUT some always manage to get into the human foodstream because at
first the infection is not spotted (which is why I was wondering if
there is any seasonality to such infections in birds since then people
could cook the poultry during those seasons). It must not be assumed
that any possible seasonality for birds is the same as for humans. (See
one of my earlier posts for the symptoms in birds once those show.)

Also, I am wondering how many silent days before symptoms that birds
have (because most viruses including influenzas have silent days before
symptoms the disease can be transmitted before infection is spotted in
the birds.)

I'll try to set the time aside to learn more but can not promise to get
the time with family needs, and if (and this is huge "if") I get time I
will try to summarize some of the ways that specific influenzas differ
in ferrets per one of the links included today.

Oh, an important thing to know: the influenza shot is no supposed to
cause any days when a person can transmit influenza but the NASAL
vaccine CAN.

For another of Kim's questions: influenza is transmitted by respiratory
droplets and also by eating infected tissue or tissue that has been
cross-contaminated.

Re: E. coli (another of Kim's questions): There are several ways that
poultry can wind up with E. coli. One is contaminated water. Another
is contaminated feed, and there are many more like this:
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/3/11-1099_article.htm

Plus almost everyone except newbies here will know that there have been
multiple past posts with links to studies about E. coli (often fatal,
and often causing permanent kidney damage) in ferrets in past FMLs and
FHL so can check archives and Pub Med:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez

Finally, there is a pre-slaughter feeding question about the crops.
Many people know that beef are feed animal tissues before slaughter
to fatten them up. Some of the major poultry farms feed poultry a
fattening up diet in their final weeks and beef scraps from slaughter
houses have been used in the past. I do NOT know if that has been
changed since a study that was done for chickens as a possible vector
of prion diseases. (Yes, ferrets and minks get those, too, in fact,
there is one named for mink.) A study I found many years ago noted that
the prion disease lasted longer in chicken crops than the pre-slaughter
fatten up time lasted, BUT that the birds themselves did not contract
prion disease from the feed, so the important thing was to make sure
that there was not contamination from the crops and that the crops were
not eaten. (Those who are not familiar with digestion in birds can look
up crops in birds to read about that anatomic structure.) The birds
themselves did not contract prion disease that way, BTW, just sort of
held it for a while. There is sure to be more learned on that since
then and maybe some farm practices changed.

Anyway, influenza is not going to be transmitted from moldy straw nor
from bird droppings left on straw. It actually dies very rapidly
outside the body, and I'd have to check but I don't think that it even
survives the bird digestive tract. (Some other diseases can use that
route.)

It is also important to note that the lung injury and lung inflammation
which influenza cause set the stage for secondary pneumonia such as
bacterial forms of pneumonia (focal and non-focal) including those with
hemorrhagic E. coli bacteria.

So, you had some interesting questions, Kim, but most can be covered
just by learning about influenza and about vulnerability to bacterial
infections secondary to influenza so resources such as these will help
you and others and there will be more resources but I lack time to look
them up for you:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/index.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/symptoms.htm
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/

[Posted in FML 7362]