The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship said in a statement that a coordinated effort with the U.S. Department of Agriculture led to the detection of a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) case of the H5N1 strain, also known as bird flu, at a large farm in Sioux County.

It was the first avian influenza case detected in a large commercial flock of chickens in the Hawkeye State this year.

Don McDowell, the agency’s communications director, told The Epoch Times in an email that the affected flock contains about 4.2 million chickens.

In a statement on May 28, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds announced that she signed a disaster proclamation for Sioux County, enabling state and federal agencies to assist with the tracking, monitoring, detection, containment, disposal, and disinfection of the virus.

“The recent HPAI detections in birds do not present an immediate public health concern, and it remains safe to eat poultry products,” the governor’s office said. “If producers suspect signs of HPAI in their flocks, they should contact their veterinarian immediately.”

The proclamation will remain in place through June 27, her office said.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 92 million birds have been killed nationwide since the outbreak began in 2022.

Last week, the virus was confirmed at an egg farm west of Minneapolis, Minnesota, leading to the slaughter of nearly 1.4 million chickens.

Although HPAI—a viral disease affecting both wild and domestic bird populations—has become somewhat common among poultry, a growing number of cases in lactating dairy cattle and species that come into contact with them or drink their milk has added to worries about the disease.

As of May 22, the virus has been confirmed on dairy cattle farms in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on May 24.

Bird Flu Situation in Humans

The second human case of bird flu this year, meanwhile, was recently diagnosed in a Michigan dairy worker.

The farmworker, whose name, gender, age, and other personal details were not disclosed, tested positive on May 22 and experienced mild symptoms, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said. He has since recovered.

Though two human cases of HPAI have been confirmed in Michigan and Texas this year, the CDC believes that the risk to the public remains low.

“Persons who have job-related or recreational exposure to infected birds, poultry, dairy cattle, or other infected animals or contaminated materials, including raw cow’s milk, are at increased risk for infection; these persons should take appropriate precautions,” the CDC said.

The agency said people who get close to infected cattle or other animals are advised to wear protective equipment, self-monitor for illness symptoms such as eye inflammation and fatigue, and seek prompt medical evaluation should they feel symptomatic.

It also recommends people avoid eating raw or undercooked food from animals with suspected or confirmed cases of bird flu.

The only three human cases of bird flu confirmed in the United States include two dairy workers in Michigan and Texas, as well as a man working to slaughter infected birds at a poultry farm in Montrose County, Colorado. All three people who have been infected have recovered.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In a written statement on Nov. 21, Mr. Brown announced that his office recently learned that Zainab Chaudry made anti-Israel comments in the weeks following the Hamas terrorist group’s cross-border attack on Oct. 7, further pointing out that Ms. Chaudry’s social media posts have “challenged the commission’s ability to do its work.”

“Personal postings that could be reasonably perceived as hate speech may disrupt the ability of the Commission to accomplish its important work,” Mr. Brown said.

Ms. Chaudry, the state director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was nominated in August to the Maryland Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention.

The task force, which is required to include a representative of CAIR along with other advocacy organizations, was created by state lawmakers during a legislative session earlier this year.

Its goal is to advance a long-term mechanism to address hate crimes by evaluating laws and policies and developing strategies aimed at addressing the crimes, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Mr. Brown has the authority to appoint its members as chair of the commission.

“The Commission must serve as a model for the entire State on how to respond to incidents of hate and bias,” Mr. Brown said in the written statement, noting the task force is now “facing its first test” and how it responds will have “deep implications.”

“I take this very seriously,” he added. “I will do everything possible to bring people together to move forward the critical work of this Commission.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Brown said he assigned staff to draft a “values statement”—which will be taken up for discussion at the next meeting—about personal communications and called on the commission to “carefully balance their right to free speech with their role as a commission member.”

‘Fake Israeli Babies’

Ms. Chaudry, an American-Muslim political activist, has posted numerous images of Palestinian victims on Facebook since Israel declared war on Hamas after the terrorist group carried out its surprise attack from Gaza and fired thousands of rockets toward Israel.

In a post on Oct. 17, she compared Israel’s military campaign in Gaza against Hamas to Nazi Germany by sharing two photos of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. In one photo, the 18th-century monument is lit up with the Israeli flag after Hamas’s attack, while the other photo is from 1936 when the building was decorated with a Nazi flag.

“That moment when you become what you hated most,” she wrote alongside the photo collage.

In another post, dated Oct. 27, Ms. Chaudry said: “I will never be able to understand how the world summoned up rage for 40 fake Israeli babies while completely turning a blind eye to … real Palestinian babies.”

Mendy Haviv, a commander of the non-governmental rescue and recovery organization ZAKA, told Epoch Israel last month that decapitated children were among the many victims of Hamas’s attack.

“Do you want me to tell you about the hardest sights? Bodies of babies tied up,” Mr. Haviv recalled. “Burnt bodies, burnt houses everywhere. Decapitated heads of children of several ages. The smell of rotting corpses [is so bad] that you can’t even breathe,” he added.

Israel, meanwhile, also released pictures of babies murdered and burned by Hamas terrorists, which has been confirmed by the White House.

In other posts, Ms. Chaudry called for an immediate ceasefire and claimed Israel is committing war crimes by indiscriminately attacking civilians, saying: “This isn’t a war. This is genocide.”

Speaking to WTOP News after learning about the suspension, Ms. Chaudry defended her posts and called the commission’s decision “deeply troubling,” explaining she believes it infringes on her First Amendment rights.

“These comments were made in my own personal capacity. And they were in no shape, way or form designed to invite hate,” Ms. Chaudry said, noting she feels the posts have been taken out of context.

“I stand by the context with which these posts were shared,” she said.

Jennifer Donelan, a spokesperson for Mr. Brown’s office, told Fox News Digital that “the views and opinions of any individual Commission member do not reflect those of either the Maryland Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention or the Attorney General.”

Ms. Chaudry joins a growing list of Americans facing repercussions for their comments about the Israel-Hamas war, the fallout from which has spilled into workplaces and educational institutions everywhere, including in politics, the corporate world, and on college campuses across the country.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

During an appearance on “Fox Business” on Thursday, Johnson said not enough people are advocating for the vaccine-injured, arguing that postvaccine injuries are “not all that rare.”

“One of the main reasons I ran again … is nobody else is advocating for the vaccine-injured,” Johnson said. “These vaccine injuries are real. They’re serious. They’re not all that rare.”

During the midterms, Democrat Mandela Barnes conceded the Senate race to Johnson after numerous election projections showed the Wisconsin Republican prevailing.

Johnson, who’s been vocal on adverse reactions that can occur after COVID-19 vaccination, also said during a sit-down on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program in late March that he’ll continue to use his position to support the vaccine-injured because “nobody else is really stepping up the plate to do this.

“I got connected to the vaccine-injured community. Nobody was advocating for them. … You can’t turn your back on people like that. All they wanted was to be seen, heard, and believed because they wanted to be cured,” Johnson said.

“We’re spending tens of billions of dollars on research,” he added. “Are we spending any money on vaccine injuries at all, whether it’s childhood vaccinations or whether it’s the COVID vaccination? Are we even doing the research?

“I doubt we are, because they don’t want to know,” the 67-year-old politician continued. “They got a good thing going. They have pharmaceutical companies being able to crank out new vaccines. If we’re up to 70 over how many years, it’s more than one a year, with no liability issue. They just make a lot of money off of it. It’s just self-perpetuating. They don’t want to ask questions. They don’t want to do the research. They don’t want to know. It’s called willful ignorance.”

Johnson, citing figures from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), called into question the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in May 2021, saying more than 3,000 deaths were reported to the system within 30 days of people taking the shot, but federal health officials have not linked the deaths to the vaccine.

VAERS, a system co-managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), helps to detect unusual or unexpected reporting patterns of adverse events for vaccines. Anyone is allowed to voluntarily submit a report to the system.

Although Johnson did not suggest the thousands of deaths were directly caused by the COVID-19 vaccines, he proposed in a lengthy statement that health officials “need to take the VAERS findings seriously and research what is going on.”

Johnson expressed concern because adverse events reported to the system skyrocketed in contrast to the last five flu seasons, throughout which there were just 119 reports of deaths to VAERS among people who received a seasonal flu vaccine.

During Thursday’s interview, Johnson stressed that going forward, he’ll put an increased effort toward uncovering and exposing the truth of injuries caused by vaccines.

“That’s what I’m going to be focusing on because I think I can get a fair amount of information, uncover and expose the truth—at least with the results of vaccine injuries,” Johnson said.

From NTD News