At this time I would normally send out the first of three notices about our upcoming book club meeting. The coronavirus has changed our schedule. The Homestead Museum's website shows the revised dates for the next theme starting in July. However, that schedule was published before Los Angeles County's latest version of safer at home order. I will keep you apprised of any changes to the schedule of book club meetings. 

Meanwhile, I hope everyone is doing great as we wait for a vaccine to rid us of this virus, which reminded me of a recently read book Why Did The Chicken Cross The World? The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization by Andrew Lawler.

Lawler states "The domestic fowl is the world's most ubiquitous bird and most common barnyard animal. More than 20 billion chickens live on our planet at any given moment..." The chicken is the only animal we eat before it's born (i.e., eggs) and after it's killed (e.g., McNuggets).

As important as chickens are for food, they also are critical for medicinal purposes. The meat of chickens contains cysteine, which is an amino acid related to the active ingredient in a drug that treats bronchitis. Other chicken parts contain hyaluronan, which helps reduce inflammation. Pharmaceutical companies use various chicken parts to extract compounds that treat rheumatoid arthritis and sagging skin (a la Botox). 

Every day GlaxoSmith-Kline in Dresden, Germany, receives a shipment of about 180,000 eggs from nearby farms, whose locations remain secret. The eggs will be used to produce the vaccines that will inoculate us from the flu (if we are lucky). The author notes that "the chicken today provides us with our main source of the world's vaccine supply for a disease that continues to cycle between birds and humans." He adds further "since each dose requires an average of three eggs, however, the process remains complicated and expensive. One egg infected with a pathogen can render useless an entire batch of vaccine." You wonder how we could produce enough doses of vaccine for our entire country with a population of about 328 million people.

In 2012 the FDA approved an eggless vaccine that grows the virus in mammalian cells. Other approaches to flu vaccines are in the works, but the bottom line is that we do not have the capacity to produce flu vaccines for everyone; therefore, countries prioritize the distribution of the vaccine, such as to the elderly and healthcare workers.

Finally the chicken has invaded our language. We are cocky or we chicken out; we're henpecked or walk on eggshells. We hatch a plot; we get our hackles up; we rule the roost. We brood; we crow; we have hen parties. We count our chickens before they're hatched.

Stay happy.