Summary
A study reviewing 1,500 research papers found that 90% of pregnant women who contract bird flu (H5N1) die, with 87% of their unborn babies also dying.
Most surviving babies are born prematurely.
While human cases are rare and usually result from direct contact with infected birds, the findings highlight the vulnerability of pregnant women, who often face exclusion from vaccine trials and public health programs.
Experts stress the need for pandemic preparedness and ethical studies on vaccine safety in pregnant women as H5N1 continues to spread globally.
Hey what about us straight white adult males?
I didn’t know this until recently, but pregnant women are kinda different than regular women because a fetus counts as a foreign body (since they are a combo of parental DNA), almost like getting a donor organ. Much like the meds you’d get if you got a donated organ, mother’s bodies shut down large parts of their immune systems in order to not reject the fetus, which puts them at high risk like organ recipients. I had no idea.
Oh dang, that sounds incredibly dangerous and just as hacky as I would expect from nature.