1- Maran chick died suddenly age 14/15 weeks no symptoms were present- was fine in the morning- dead a few hours later- she was a bit smaller than her flock mates but never showed any signs of anything going on
2- Silkie with what appeared to be wry neck- 17 weeks- tried vitamins as suggested- died within a day
3- Silkie- found dead- no symptoms- age 15 weeks- was fine in afternoon check- dead hours later- was found under the highest perch and unsure if it was a freak accident or what.
4- Silkie- 19 weeks- wonky foot- toes curling- no wing paralysis- no other paralysis- is getting better with TLC and vitamins- eating drinking
With #3 there's no telling without a test or necropsy, but the others are things that can and do happen with Marek's. Silkies tend to be more susceptible to it too. You'll only know for sure if you test. There's a company in Dallas, vetdna.com, that can do a PCR test for it without culling the chicken.
For example, I had chicken pox as a child (a herpes virus as is Marek's). I am not spreading chicken pox to all of my contacts. I am immune, and do not become symptomatic again when in contact with others who are suffering an acute case of it.
Oh just wait. About 8 years ago, my mom came within 10 feet of a child with an active chicken pox infection, which then triggered Shingles and Bell's Palsy in her dormant virus, one or the other flares up at least once a year now. I don't think Shingrix was out yet, but there's a reason why their commercials are so insistent that people over a certain age get it. Shingles doesn't care!
Also, bad analogy. Besides its tendency to bite you in the ass later in life,
Herpes Zoster is probably the lamest of all the human herpes simplex viruses. Try that argument again with the cold sore or STD version and see how that goes.
To say "there is no cure," one goes beyond the realm of scientifically supportable statements, because one of the cardinal rules of science is that it is not possible to prove the non-existence of something. I choose to believe there is a cure, even if we may not have found it yet. "Proof" is also rather difficult to come by in matters of science, which is why words like "evidence" and "theory" are so prevalent.
Hmmm...I've been given
that same argument before, nearly verbatim, and it wasn't by a scientist, but someone who was adamant to disprove science in favor of a particular ages old argument. (We're good friends, but apparently I'm damned.)
It's totally not a cardinal rule either. A scientist knows there are no absolutes, and therefore knows what those words actually mean when they use or read them, without having to argue about it. There will be no cure because it's a member of
Herpesviridae. There is no research being conducted on treating or curing it outside of the interest in the analogous treatment of human cancer and HSVs.
Not even sure why I'm bothering, but here we go:
Plus, there have been more studies linking viruses to various other diseases down the line (e.g. Epstein-Barr (a herpes virus) and Multiple Sclerosis or CFS/ME or fibromyalgia, Long Covid/MCAS, Ebola and PES). Bonus, Herpes viruses do not work like other viruses, and Marek's is a very unusual Herpes virus. If they were cognisant,
Herpesviridae would be one of the smartest, if not the smartest, family of viruses out there. It certainly wins an evolutionary medal.
A
true "leaky" vaccine is one where the host can pass on the particular strain of the virus contained in the vaccine if they are in contact with others prior to or after their immune system subdues it (vaccinal infection). When a vaccine is found to do that, its use is discontinued or outlawed (e.g., the chick embryo origin ILT vaccine (another herpes virus), banned in Texas for that exact reason). Many of the Marek's serotype vaccines were trashed over the years because they did pass on the vaccine strain. Again, the Marek's HVT vaccine CANNOT pass Marek's because HVT is not Marek's, but just like most of the Covid vaccines, if the vaccinated gets infected, they can spread it without showing symptoms. But, like Covid, Marek's can do that anyway, no vaccine needed, or the symptoms are such that Marek's is not suspected, so it will spread regardless of the vaccine. Even if you figure it out later and cull the flock, you've already tracked it around everywhere you've ever gone while your flock was infected, and it's been blown away on the wind to the coop down the road.
Someone can suffer from cancer and not know it, and get a cold or other disease and those will show, not the obviously worse cancer. Any underlying condition that lowers the immune system, diagnosed or not, can make other unrelated infections worse, but you most certainly can have the symptoms of both at the same time, especially if your immune system doesn't have any memory or training of either.
Survival does not necessarily equal immunity. True immunity means not succumbing to it in the first place, and that's not very common, but usually related to a genetic mutation for or against a particular means of infection*. What's most common is that either by vaccination or survival, the immune system is trained to prevent infection or re-infection. Survival may mean that you can't catch a thing again or show symptoms, but doesn't necessarily mean that you can't spread it (e.g. HIV, many STDs). Herpes viruses, by nature, go dormant and can reactivate when the immune system is challenged. So no, you're not spreading chicken pox around, and Marek's vaccinated or surviving chickens aren't always spreading Marek's around (shedding the virus), people that are vaccinated for Covid (not a herpes virus, so no reactivation) aren't spreading it around to the unvaccinated, but if and when the immune system comes into contact with it or another challenge; the herpes survivor's latent virus could be reactivated and cause a different disease (shingles, Bells' Palsy) and shed (cold sores, herpes STD), or the vaccinated could show no symptoms but still get infected and shed the virus (Marek's, Covid). They (doctors, scientists, researchers, CDC) started using the term herd immunity (correctly) before the Covid vaccines came out, thinking they'd be normal vaccines, and when they found out that the vaccines still allowed people to get infected, they stopped using it, but the media and the government did not, at least for a while, it was a buzzword to encourage vaccination.
Herd immunity is when a percentage of subjects (based on a formula considering multiple factors) are survivors or vaccinated so THAT particular strain of the virus, and maybe closely related strains, are prevented from causing widespread damage across the community, but it only absolutely works if all eligible subjects are vaccinated or survivors and the virus doesn't mutate to overcome the obstacle (e.g., Marek's, Covid, the Flu). (It's called that because it's supposed to protect those that cannot be vaccinated, i.e., the newborn and very old, just as a herd of animals can protect those same members by their sheer numbers.)
In all the history of vaccines, only two diseases have ever been eradicated (smallpox and some cattle disease). Polio was thought to be close, until people stopped getting the vaccine for whatever reason and now it's popping up again, most recently last week in New York. Because of intercontinental travel, shipping, migratory animals, the weather, and because of the sheer population of humans and populations of animals subjected to integrated vertical farming, it was inevitable** that diseases would become more widespread, viruses more virulent, and bacteria more resistant. Some viruses are so bad (or good) at their jobs that they kill most of the hosts before there's an opportunity to spread (e.g., ebola in the past, plague); but with the ability to hop onto a plane and traverse the planet in a matter of hours, before signs of infection are evident, they are no longer kept in check by physical or temporal isolation. Our own interference has made communicable disease worse as well, medications are available now that allow people to survive disease that should have killed or disabled them, yet there are countless incidents of carriers of STDs that knowingly infected others without disclosure. Hell,
GEICO may have to pay a woman $5.2 million because of it! (Side note related to the article - there's a reason why they're pushing the HPV vaccine to 12 year old girls AND boys, it's also ubiquitous, and statistically, young people today are very likely to get it.)
Marek's was not made worse by the vaccine, it was made worse by worldwide industrial farming. It was pretty rare until they started getting it in their flocks and demanded a vaccine. And it was good enough that the vaccine only prevented tumors so the meat could still be sold. Those very virulent strains started there, and because they only care about biosecurity going in, the very virulent strains got out. Luckily we do not often see the vv or vv++ strains in the fancy, but it's likely we will at some point, and then they'll spread just as badly as these lesser strains have because of poor information, biosecurity, denial, and sometimes intentional negligence. But you know what, even with the best of all of those things, it will still spread, there is no way to stop it. Marek's is not going away, and it's not as easy to manage as chicken pox. The best and only weapons we have are vaccines, biosecurity, and education. The industry isn't going to help us, not until it's bad enough that it costs them money.
*Fun trivia side note: The blue egg gene came about from a mutation in response to a viral infection.
**Malthus didn't just write about food availability 2 centuries ago, nor did he surmise that we'd actually starve to death, it's much more complex than that.
PSA/Final side note. I'm neither pro or anti vaccine or medicine. I'm not a fan of big Pharma or big Ag, but those problems weren't built in a day, and they will take time to address. Sometimes you may see ads for vaccines and think that it's just a money grab, just like there are unnecessary medications for conditions that no one thought were conditions until the drug company said they were. The consequence is that people don't know what to believe or who to trust. You see it in the fancy, many people have a firm opinion on vaccines for their birds or sometimes just on specific vaccines, I respect that and I don't believe in giving every vaccine available for diseases that are not prevalent in the area, or even for some that are, like coccidiosis, because it's better that they are challenged with and fight off the local strain, rather than a cocktail of common, but not local strains. I base my choices off of research and knowledge and I understand the science, but I know many of you do not, which is why I tend to write novels in my comments. That said, I mentioned "there were reasons" regarding the Shingrix and HPV vaccines earlier, and there are. Drug companies are happy to make a pill for anything that ails ya, but people don't line up to take shots they don't have to, and they don't have a high ROI, so there's often no incentive to mislead anyone about vaccines (okay, for the doctors and drug companies anyway). When you see something in an ad that says it's recommended for everyone in a certain group (e.g., age), and you or someone you care for might fall into that group, ask your doctor. Shingles and HPV have become much more common, is that because of better testing or more people seeking treatment with the same rate of infection? Maybe. Maybe it's always been this bad, maybe it's gotten worse, it doesn't actually matter why, there's a way to defend against it now. Shingles is hell for someone that gets flare ups, HPV could prevent a young woman from being able to have children or cause cancer in men and women. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. For poultry, I think HVT Marek's is a good idea (which I have struggled with) for breeder flocks and those always bringing in new birds, fowlpox if the mosquito is your state bird, Newcastle if you're in California or an NDV listed area, and ILT (non CEO) if you show. It also doesn't hurt to call your state lab and ask them which diseases they see most often, in all types of poultry, just chickens, backyard poultry, commercial poultry, in your area, and statewide. If the lab hasn't seen it, you probably shouldn't vaccinate against it. Remember, these vaccines are only meant to get broilers to slaughter and keep layers laying. Most diseases and vaccines that hide symptoms will still reduce egg production, layers are already culled after 2 years due to a slight drop in egg production, therefore any disease that will affect egg laying is a death sentence and there's no point in using a vaccine if it lowers egg production. So they're generally geared more toward meat production, which only needs to prevent the disease long enough to get to slaughter, and fun fact, Marek's tumor ridden carcasses are not condemned by the USDA, they're just hard to sell to consumers, so that's why there's even a vaccine at all. But you know what?
Shingles doesn't care!
) cause I cant think of even burying her yet with rest. All of my chickens are loved but sheās special. She was like a lap dog more then she was a chicken. 
