Rackets, Rackets Everywhere

China announces (during a trade war) increased H5N1 transmissibility among humans, Cal-Maine's dubiously high egg pricing due to purported H5N1 driven egg shortage.

The news flow on days like today vividly illustrates that the business of bio-security has become a vast, international racket in which an array of private and public institutions and commercial enterprises are participating. The Epoch Times—which I call “the only newspaper worth its salt”—just reported the following stories.

1). Leaked China CDC Document Confirms New H5N1 Strain More Contagious in Humans: The document describes a new mutation in the hemagglutinin protein gene but lacks details, drawing concern from experts.

2). Largest US Egg Producer Cal-Maine Under DOJ Price Investigation: The company earned $508 million in the third quarter of fiscal year 2025, a 245 percent jump from the year prior.

Regarding the first story, the reader should bear in mind that the document was leaked within the context of the ferocious trade war that just commenced. As the Epoch Times reporter points out, the alleged “new mutation in the hemagglutinin protein gene” is not specified in the leaked report.

The internal notice shows that China’s problem of avian influenza has become very serious, although ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials are still concealing it, Sean Lin, assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Feitian College in New York and former U.S. army microbiologist, told The Epoch Times on April 5.

“A mutant strain has appeared, but the officials did not say exactly what the mutation is,” he said. “The name of the so-called A/H5N1-2025E virus strain does not correspond to the specific mutated amino acid position. The total amino acid length of the H5N1 HA hemagglutinin protein is around 524 amino acids, so what does this 2025E correspond to?” he asked about the mutation.

“This internal notice from the China CDC is still covering up the truth,” he said, especially if they are recommending increased attention for this variant over an increased transmissibility.

We wonder if this threat of an emerging influenza is some form of monkeyshines perpetrated by the CCP to complicate and constrain the Trump administration’s ability to extract trading concessions from China.

The Cal-Maine story contains elements of the same racketeering theme. The company is being investigated because it reported record pricing and sales volume, thereby raising the suspicion of monkeyshines within the context of an alleged egg shortage due to the (completely senseless) Biden administration directive of slaughtering tens of millions of egg-laying hens. The purported grounds for this wanton destruction was to prevent the spread of a new clade of H5N1 bird flu—a policy that continued long after it became evident that such containment measures weren’t working.

To quote the Epoch Times piece:

Company officials said the strong third-quarter performance was primarily driven by an 80.7 percent increase in net average selling price per dozen eggs and a 10.2 percent increase in volume.

For the quarter, Cal-Maine’s net average selling price per dozen was $4.06 compared with $2.247 a year ago. The company sold a record 331.4 million dozen shell eggs, representing a 10.2 percent increase, including the contribution from acquisitions, compared with 300.8 million dozen for the third quarter of fiscal 2024. Sales of conventional eggs totaled 213.2 million dozen, compared with 192.2 million dozen for the prior-year period, an increase of 11.0 percent.

These are just two examples today of how the business of bio-security has become an international racket, using the same methods that have long been applied to the business of warfare. Instead of waging war against armed men, our bio-defense establishment must (it claims) constantly wage war against emerging infectious diseases.

Towards the end of his life, Major General Smedley Darlington Butler—the most decorated Marine in U.S. history—concluded that War is a Racket, as he memorably characterized it with the title of his 1935 book. In the introduction he wrote:

The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

James Madison described the dubious business of war in a 1793 debate with Alexander Hamilton. Madison specifically characterized the danger of granting war-making power to the Executive, but his reasoning applies to the war-making power granted to our high priesthood of virologists and molecular biologists.

In war the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions, and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.