A rooster roams on a farm in Austin, Texas on January 23, 2023.
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Driven by avian influenza Egg price Record levels and become more and more Risks to humansThe White House moved to a communications party with cuts and restrictions A clear strategy on how it plans to stop the spread of the virus.
State and local health officials have been working for weeks without regular avian flu from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a person familiar with the matter said. The person said that until this week, some exchanges started to resume.
The widespread government cuts and new restrictions on NIH funding have also made uncertainty among infectious disease researchers and local health officials who are unsure of what resources they must engage in. At the same time, the reduction of US international development agencies’ monitoring of overseas viruses is limited.
“When you replenish uncertainty, it can do what it can do when the entire funding of the health department is at risk,” said Adriane Casalotti, head of government and public affairs for county and city health officials nationwide. “When you think you don’t have the resources,” said Adriane Casalotti. Or it may be harder to do more when you pull out from under you.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration still remains unfilled in the core aspects of responding to the threat of the pandemic. and secretary to manage the health, public services and agriculture sectors It was not confirmed until this week, although bird flu was one of the earliest projects of agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins.
Destruction is at potentially dangerous times. The virus has been absorbing poultry flocks, causing egg prices to exceed Double. It has been showing signs that it can evolve to be easier to reproduce in a variety of species, including New strains Found this month in cows. Although there is no sign of spreading the virus between humans, at least 68 people in the United States suffer from avian flu, and one has Dead,according to Department of Disease Control. Researchers worry that the more virus replicates, the more it needs to develop a mutation that can easily spread from person to person.
“It’s becoming increasingly dangerous and urgent, and the scientific community is triggering alarm flares,” said Stephen Morrison, who is commanding the Center for Global Health Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But they are at a faster pace Speed or different determination translates into government? No. Instead, we are in a transitional period of confusion, which is worsened by disruption in government functions and the acquisition of new speeds of teams.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on its strategy to address the avian flu, and what other steps are planned to be taken to address the spread of the virus.
Rollins, who was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday, told reporters she held a briefing in the Oval Office Thursday night and will announce plans for the department to address egg prices “in the coming days”.
Asked about the price of eggs, Rollins said: “We are looking for every possible situation to ensure we do everything we can in a safe, safe way, while also making sure Americans have the food they need. .” “Actually, as a mother of four teenagers, I fully understand and feel the pain of the cost of these eggs.”
White House National Economic Commission Director Kevin Hassett said in an interview on MSNBC on Thursday that the Trump administration will soon develop a strategy that has now confirmed Rollins.
“It turns out that President Biden’s team has no avian flu strategy and now we will have it right after Brooke Rollins served as the Department of Agriculture,” Hassett said.
In a statement on egg prices earlier this week, the White House said Rollins will take “bold, decisive action” by re-tuning the agency’s mission on its core mission to stop the virus from spreading between animals. To solve the crisis”: protecting health in plants, animals and natural resources in the United States while reducing costs. ”
So far, however, public health officials say the White House has caused more chaos than clarity.
In West Virginia, Huntington Health Chief Michael Kilkenny said he has not received regular updates from the CDC in the past few weeks.
“We just don’t know what’s going on right now. If we don’t get communication from the CDC, we don’t know if this is expanding into our area,” Kilkenny said. “In more rural areas, there are some Small health departments, without their information from the CDC, will not be able to inform their small farmers, poultry farmers or high-risk agricultural workers of the local health department’s information or services.”
The prospect of potential federal funding cuts has also led to the health department he worked with to start contingency plans and put aside recruitment and new programs.
“We are hiring and we are waiting for clear evidence that there is clear evidence before we take the time to plan or even submit projects,” Kilkenny said. “That’s how we bother us.”
In addition to restricting disease prevention and protection communications with local health officials, the World Health Organization has been receiving limited information on the spread of avian influenza in the United States as Trump signed an executive order to withdraw from the Global Health Organization, which Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a February 12 press conference.
Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health, said the “almost complete communication freeze” in public health agencies is unprecedented, and that’s all.
For nearly a month, Trump has not listed an official responsible for the White House’s pandemic preparation and response policy, which was formulated by Congress in 2022 to coordinate the pandemic responses of individual institutions. During the campaign, Trump said he could get out of the office and criticized President Joe Biden’s efforts to prepare for another pandemic.
Trump’s July game Interview with Time magazine. “It’s just a way to spread pork.”
“That doesn’t mean we’re not paying attention to it all the time,” Trump said. “But it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen because there’s a lot of changes in these pandemics.”
Trump’s main cabinet officials will oversee the federal response with little insight into its strategy.
Rollins said during the Senate Confirmation hearing last month, one of her first four priorities was to form a team to stop the spread of avian flu, although she didn’t say what she wanted to see to change agriculture Department manufacturing.
“I have to learn a lot, and if confirmed, this will be what I mentioned in my opening speech, which is one of the most important points,” Rollins said when asked about her response to the bird flu. We’re always looking for teams now. I’m sure they’re already working. Obviously, I’ve respected the process, not been too involved. I know the current team and future teams will work hard to do our best to do our best.”
When asked about dedicating resources to bird flu at the confirmation hearing, Kennedy said he “intentions to use the appropriate resources to prevent the pandemic. It’s crucial to my job.”
Previously, Kennedy said that the avian flu vaccine currently available for storage in the United States could be dangerous and ineffective. Researchers are developing a new generation of avian influenza vaccines based on the same mRNA technology used to develop Kennedy’s Covid vaccine Called “The deadliest vaccine ever”, Although research shows it is safe.
Kennedy has also been a champion of drinking raw milk, which may put people at risk including avian flu. this CDC warns that it may be possible Infection with bird flu from drinking raw milk and urge Americans to drink only pasteurized milk.
Agricultural industry officials and infectious disease researchers have been calling on the federal government to go through a big expansion of tests, research funds to better understand the virus and develop new treatments, and to provide more help for dairy farmers to expand research to greatly expand Its response and provides dairy farmers with more help to cattle.
United Egg Producers is an advocacy group for the egg industry, urging the federal government and Congress to invest more resources to study how the virus spreads and develops and develops more effective and extensive vaccinations for animals. The industry group also calls for more rules and enforcement around animal testing and movement, and provides additional funding for local laboratories to provide fast and accurate test results.
“Our industry needs more national and federal government animal health partners, and we need to be quick,” United Egg Producer said in a statement.
The organization said its industry has lost more than 100 million egg hens since 2022, including 29 million hens in the past four months. Once a flock of birds is infected with a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza, the virus spreads rapidly and is deadly in the vast majority of birds. When the flock is infected, farmers and veterinarians should notify the USDA that this will kill the entire flock and purify the facility. The federal government repaid the live birds that were eliminated in the process to farmers.
Public health researchers say the Biden administration’s response is not fast enough to stop the spread of the virus in cows after it was first detected in cattle in March. It was not until December that the Ministry of Agriculture launched the national milk testing program. Three of the country The highest countries producing dairy are still not part of federal surveillance efforts.
Morrison said the Trump administration will have to work with officials in states that still have not tested milk regularly to get them to join the milk. Texas State Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller Tell NBC News In Texas, this surveillance milk test is unnecessary because there are no active cases of influenza in commercial cattle or poultry in the state.
“From April until the end of the Biden administration, the response was slow and slow,” Morrison said. “We still haven’t tested animals and humans at the level of need, we still don’t have a coherent strategy and accountability, we still don’t have The compensation mechanisms needed by those dairy farmers suffer losses due to herd infections.”
Researchers worry that the United States has spent time strengthening its response.
Erin Sorrell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said: “If we don’t act now, we will only give the virus more opportunities to continue to adapt and potentially develop into the population. More dangerous things.” “It’s time to take action.”
