Kate Wells
Appearances
Up First from NPR
House Budget Plan, DOGE Resignations, Battle Against Bird Flu
Yeah, they say that they are just flat out losing this battle against bird flu at this point. They are desperate for new tools at this point. They say what they have been doing to try to contain the outbreak just is not working. I talked with Greg Herbrook. He's the CEO of Herbrook's Poultry Ranch. It's one of the largest egg producers in the U.S.
Up First from NPR
House Budget Plan, DOGE Resignations, Battle Against Bird Flu
And in April, three of his sites got hit with bird flu, one right after the other, and he ended up having to kill 6.5 million chickens.
Up First from NPR
House Budget Plan, DOGE Resignations, Battle Against Bird Flu
So he used the USDA like tried and true playbook here. It's the stamping out method right after detection, like within 24 to 48 hours, the whole flock has to be called. There's a bunch of cleaning and sanitizing, and this is to prevent the birds from dying really painful grizzly deaths, but it's also to try to keep the virus from spreading everywhere.
Up First from NPR
House Budget Plan, DOGE Resignations, Battle Against Bird Flu
Even further, and this works, like in the 2014 and 2015 outbreak, ever since then, farmers have put in tens of millions of dollars in biosecurity, like employees showering in and out, lasers that can stop potentially infected wild birds from landing, but none of it is working this time. Why? Well, so flu viruses are constantly evolving, right?
Up First from NPR
House Budget Plan, DOGE Resignations, Battle Against Bird Flu
And this particular strain of the virus has gotten so good at infecting new species, not just wild birds that migrate, but also more than 40 species of mammals. You've heard about dairy cows, but you know also dolphins, rats, skunks. And by this point, bird flu is just too embedded in our environment for us to just stamp it out. I also talked with David Swain. He is a former USDA official.
Up First from NPR
House Budget Plan, DOGE Resignations, Battle Against Bird Flu
He's one of the leading avian influenza experts. And he says, look, it's time for the U.S. to try vaccinating poultry for bird flu. He says this is good as a tool not just to reduce the virus in animals. Here's Swain.
Up First from NPR
House Budget Plan, DOGE Resignations, Battle Against Bird Flu
But egg producers, they will need the green light from the federal government before they can try this.
Up First from NPR
House Budget Plan, DOGE Resignations, Battle Against Bird Flu
Well, so they are very against this vaccination plan because they could lose billions of dollars a year in trade deals if the U.S. does start vaccinating poultry. And that's because a lot of countries, they don't want to buy meat from a country that is vaccinating any chickens.
Up First from NPR
House Budget Plan, DOGE Resignations, Battle Against Bird Flu
Those countries are worried that the vaccine can mask symptoms in birds and that the virus could maybe get across their borders in that meat undetected. But the pressure on the U.S. government to do something new is clearly growing.