To better combat the virus, should we let it circulate? Faced with the massive spread of the H5N1 avian influenza virus on poultry farms in the United States, US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr, has suggested a strategy that is causing concern among scientists and veterinarians. Instead of culling animals in contaminated flocks, farmers "should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flocks so that [they] can identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it," the notorious antivaxer has said several times since early March, notably on the conservative Fox News channel.

Kennedy has no expertise in agriculture, but he's not alone in supporting the idea in the Trump administration. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins assured that "some farmers (...) are willing to really try this on a pilot as we build the safe perimeter around them to see if there is a way forward with immunity," reported The New York Times.

The strategy of genetically selecting animals more resistant to some viruses to combat epizootics is not new, and has already been explored against some transmissible diseases, such as scrapie, a prion disease affecting ruminants. "But the idea of letting nature take its course doesn't work with this virus," said Jean-Luc Guérin, professor at the Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire de Toulouse and laboratory director at the Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (INRAE). "Avian influenza viruses are so evolutionary, due to genetic mutations and reassortments, that any notion of resistance based on selection is doomed to failure," said the specialist in avian pathologies.

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