USDA, Energy Department Engineer New Bird Flu Franken-Virus in Georgia Lab: Journal 'Avian Diseases'
Birds injected with hybrid pathogen became contagious.
A new study published last month in Avian Diseases confirms that U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers in Athens, Georgia, engineered a synthetic H5N9 avian influenza “bird flu” virus using reverse genetics—a gain-of-function method that assembles viruses from cloned DNA.
The U.S. Department of Energy, led by Secretary Chris Wright, helped fund the project.
The alarming experiment raises national security concerns.
The new paper explains that the vaccine virus was “generated by reverse genetics … using the HA gene of TK/IN/22 modified to be low pathogenic and N9 NA gene of A/blue winged teal/Wyoming/AH0099021/2016 with the remaining gene segments from the PR8 influenza strain.”
In plain terms, the USDA built a three-part bird flu chimera:
The H5 gene came from a 2022 highly pathogenic bird flu outbreak in Indiana turkeys.
The N9 gene came from a wild duck virus in Wyoming.
The backbone genes came from PR8, a decades-old laboratory strain optimized for high viral replication.
The resulting hybrid—an H5N9-PR8 chimera—does not exist in nature.
The risky work was done in the name of “vaccine development,” revealing how regularly potential bioweapons are created under the guise of claimed public health research.
It is not widely understood that vaccine production often serves as a legal and moral shield for the same dual-use genetic manipulation techniques utilized to build offensive biological agents.
Congress, the White House, the Department of Energy, the FBI, the CIA, and Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) have confirmed that the COVID-19 pandemic was likely the result of lab-engineered pathogen manipulation.
The USDA’s new virus creation comes as the agency recently elevated bird flu to a permanent national emergency, guaranteeing uninterrupted funding for its manipulation and vaccine programs even during a government shutdown—cementing bird flu as a standing, institutional priority within America’s biosecurity and biodefense apparatus.
USDA is led by Secretary Brooke Rollins, who in February rolled out a $1 billion plan for fighting bird flu, confirming the agency is orchestrating both the problem and solution to a future avian influenza pandemic.
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Lab-Enhanced Replication Ability
The USDA researchers admit that the lab-adapted PR8 strain was selected because it “replicates to high titers in eggs,” granting the chimera the ability to multiply rapidly—a function the wild H5N1 and N9 donor viruses lacked.
That change means the USDA-created virus can reach massive viral loads under laboratory or vaccine-manufacturing conditions—a textbook gain of function.
Synthetic Alteration of Pathogenicity
The hemagglutinin (HA) gene from the deadly turkey virus was manually modified to make it appear “low pathogenic”:
“…using the HA gene of TK/IN/22 modified to be low pathogenic…”
This involved editing the HA cleavage site, the molecular switch that determines whether a virus causes mild or fatal disease.
That modification created an artificial genetic variant—a version of H5 that has never existed in wild populations.
Vaccinated Birds Still Shed Virus
Once constructed, the chimera was injected into live turkeys to test “vaccine efficacy.”
Despite being described as “inactivated,” all vaccinated turkeys still shed live virus:
“All turkeys shed detectable levels of virus at one or more time points.”
Even with 100% survival, up to 100% of vaccinated birds in certain groups excreted viral particles from their throats or cloacae—meaning that vaccinated flocks could continue spreading the virus silently.
According to the data, all vaccinated groups shed virus, and some even developed mild symptoms:
“Two vaccinated turkeys in the 9 wk vaccination group exhibited clinical signs … mild unilateral periorbital swelling … mild lethargy from 6 to 7 DPC.”
The USDA’s own summary acknowledges that reducing virus shedding is “a critical aspect of HPAI vaccine efficacy,” but their inactivated vaccine did not eliminate it—meaning even “protected” birds could become long-term reservoirs.
Reverse-Genetics = Dual-Use Research
The USDA team produced the hybrid using a “reverse-genetics system,” the same technology used in dual-use gain-of-function research.
The system reconstructs viruses gene by gene, allowing scientists to mix and match segments from different species.
The resulting construct—combining avian and laboratory lineages—represents a clear functional enhancement over its wild counterparts, achieving:
Higher replication capacity (PR8 internal genes),
New antigenic profile (H5N9 combination), and
Synthetic attenuation (edited cleavage site).
USDA & Energy Department Funding
All authors—Jiho Lee, Chang-Won Lee, Sherif Ibrahim, David Suarez, and Erica Spackman—are government scientists employed by the U.S. National Poultry Research Center, part of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.
That means the same federal agency responsible for regulating poultry biosecurity is now engineering and testing new bird flu viruses in its own facilities—a conflict of interest for biosafety oversight.
The research was conducted under federal funding agreement “6040-32000-081-00D,” and the authors acknowledged additional support through a U.S. Department of Energy–USDA interagency agreement—confirming dual-agency collaboration in the creation of engineered pathogens.
Creating the Problem to Sell the Solution
While marketed as “vaccine research,” the study’s implications go far beyond poultry health.
The paper explicitly explores DIVA (Differentiating Infected from Vaccinated Animals) systems—tools designed to track infections in vaccinated flocks rather than prevent them.
“The NI-ELLA assay successfully detected antibodies to the challenge virus in vaccinated chickens and showed its potential application for DIVA-VI of vaccinated turkeys.”
In short: instead of eradicating H5N1, the USDA is normalizing its coexistence—vaccinating birds that continue to carry and shed lab-derived influenza strains.
Bottom Line
Under the label of “vaccine development,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture has quietly engineered a novel bird flu chimera that combines genetic material from a lethal turkey virus, a wild duck strain, and a lab-optimized replication platform.
The resulting H5N9 hybrid:
Does not exist in nature,
Acquired new laboratory functions, and
Was tested in live turkeys that continued shedding virus.
What this means is that U.S. government scientists are performing gain-of-function work inside USDA labs — creating, modifying, and testing synthetic avian influenza viruses that have the very properties of concern in dual-use bioweapons research.
In the absence of clear congressional oversight or international accountability, this kind of federally funded pathogen engineering inside domestic labs doesn’t just blur the line between defense and offense—it invites catastrophic biosecurity failure on U.S. soil.
Given that the COVID pandemic killed millions of Americans, there should be a permanent moratorium on all pathogen creation and manipulation—even when it’s done in the name of drug development.
It’s time for a permanent moratorium on all pathogen creation and manipulation—no matter how it’s justified—because Americans should never again be forced to bankroll both the killer cause of a crisis and the government’s profitable “solution” to it.
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It’s time for a permanent moratorium on all pathogen creation and manipulation—no matter how it’s justified—because Americans should never again be forced to bankroll both the killer cause of a crisis and the Big Pharma/government colluded profitable “solution” to it.
However much we despise these monsters, it's not enough.