Campaigner tells Bill Maher podcast that next pandemic is ‘germinating in Texas’…

The next pandemic will not emerge from a leak in a Chinese laboratory but will emerge from a virus already sweeping through US farms, a campaigner has warned.

Author and environmental journalist Eric Schlosser said of Bill Maher’s Real time The next international health crisis is brewing in Texas, where bird flu has first jumped species and infected cows.

There are now concerns that the infection is getting into meat and dairy products on supermarket shelves, and into steaks and burgers sold in restaurants.

Mr. Schlosser, who wrote the popular expose on the American fast food industry, Fast food nationimplies that the extent of the outbreak is difficult to determine due to the secretive tactics of the agricultural industry.

The mega-dairies where the deadly flu has been circulating have not allowed federal government inspections.

“It’s a perfect example of how public health is being threatened by private interests,” Schlosser said.

An outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu strain is spreading rapidly across the US, jumping from birds and infecting cows and chickens in several states.

Only one person so far — a farmer in Texas — has tested positive for the H5N1 virus during this outbreak, but the CDC fears many more people may have been infected and not come forward.

However, there is no evidence of person-to-person transmission.

Last week it was revealed that 70 people in Colorado were being monitored for bird flu due to the exposure risk.

And the continued spread has raised concerns among U.S. federal agencies, including the FDA and the CDC.

Dr. Robert Califf, chief commissioner of the FDA, told a Senate committee that officials were devising plans to roll out tests, antiviral drugs and vaccines in case the virus causes a large-scale outbreak.

But he stressed that the risk of the disease spreading among people is still low.

However, in a report published earlier this month, the CDC said bird flu viruses “have pandemic potential” in a section on administering vaccines if there is a human spillover.

A separate study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture released genetic data showing that the H5N1 strain had acquired dozens of new mutations.

A total of 36 farms in nine states have detected the virus among their dairy herds.

As the virus spreads, especially between two different species, it acquires more mutations that make it easier to infect people.

Only two people in the US have ever tested positive for bird flu, and both have been in close contact with animals infected with the virus.

Dr. Cardiff said: ‘This virus, like all viruses, is mutating. We must continue to prepare for the possibility of it spreading to humans.

“(The) real concern is that it will jump to the human lungs, where, when that has happened in other parts of the world… the mortality rate has been 25 percent.”

Fragments of the virus have already been found in foods, including one in five supermarket milk, cottage cheese and sour cream.

But officials say they are safe to consume because the virus in them is killed during the pasteurization process.

During Mr. Maher’s show, Mr. Schlosser also criticized the agriculture and food industries, saying a handful of “huge corporations” have monopolized the food supply over the past decades and are now “hiding behind these different brands.”

He added: ‘You think there is a choice, but it is really the illusion of choice.’

Mr. Schlosser also warned about the harmful effects of ultra-processed foods, which are teeming with artificial ingredients and harmful additives linked to cancer, reproductive problems and ADHD.

He mentioned the flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, additives and “chemicals” that people consume when they eat everyday foods: “What will hurt you is that there are all these chemicals that you would never have in your kitchen.

‘We keep creating problems with technology. It’s better to get (nutrition) from real food than from supplements and additives.’