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BIRD FLU SPREADS AS MUSK’S DOGE CUTS PUBLIC HEALTH FUNDING  
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Justin Perkins, Joel Bleifuss
February 24, 2025
Barn Raiser
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_ “It’s not enough for us to sit by on the sidelines,” says Dr.
Michael Osterholm _

A Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife employee removes birds
killed by the highly pathogenic avian flu in a large breeding colony
on Rat Island in Washington state., Scott Pearson, Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife

 

In March 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced
that the highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) had been identified
in dairy cattle for the first time in the United States.

This “spillover” event—when a virus jumps from one species to
another—represented a common, if troubling, development. The
resulting outbreak, driven by the B3.13 genotype, led to nearly 1,000
confirmed cases in dairy cattle in 17 states.

This month, public health officials were alarmed at spillover events
in dairy herds in Nevada and Arizona, which tested positive for a
second genotype of the H5N1 virus. The second version, D1.1 has been
circulating widely in wild birds in North America that has fueled a
surge of poultry outbreaks, affecting both commercial and backyard
flocks, and raised concerns that H5N1 might become endemic in North
America.

According to the latest data
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from the USDA, since 2022, bird flu outbreaks have led to the loss of
more than 162 million birds in all 50 states and Puerto Rico,
including 20 million birds in the last 30 days.

Public health officials continue to maintain that the current risk to
humans remains low. While there have been no reported cases of
human-to-human transmission, there have been 70 confirmed cases
nationally, the majority resulting from farmworkers exposed to the
virus from dairy cattle. In January, Louisiana reported the first bird
flu death in the U.S., which was linked to the D1.1 genotype.

These developments are taking place amid the background of the Biden
administration’s bungled response
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and the Trump administration’s mass layoffs and funding cuts
targeting the agencies handling the federal response to infectious
diseases.

On her first day in office on February 14 as Secretary of Agriculture,
Brooke Rollins claimed to have held “several” briefings on bird
flu. “Avian flu is a massive issue right now,” Rollins said on
_Fox and Friends_ that Saturday. She added that USDA will be
“rolling out more tools in the toolkit” for the federal bird flu
response this week.

Yet, in cooperation with billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of
Government Efficiency (DOGE), Rollins’s USDA moved immediately to
cut USDA contracts, including 25% of the personnel at the National
Animal Health Laboratory Network, which coordinates 58 laboratories
across the nation responding to the spread of the bird flu and other
animal disease outbreaks like African swine fever or foot-and-mouth
disease.

(On February 18, the USDA said that it had “accidentally
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fired “several” agency employees working on the federal
government’s response to the bird flu, and was trying to reverse the
firings.)

Massive layoffs also followed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s approval as
Secretary of the Department of Health and Human services. An estimated
700 staff members at the Food and Drug Administration, 1,200 employees
at the National Institutes of Health and about 700 employees at the
CDC, are reported to have been eliminated, including positions
designed to protect lab safety
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and recruit top talent.

_Barn Raiser_ caught up with Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and
director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
(CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, to learn about the latest
developments and the need for public health officials to stand up for
scientific integrity.

HOW HAS THE SITUATION WITH H5N1 VIRUS EVOLVED SINCE WE LAST TALKED
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IN MAY 2024?

A lot is happening. First of all, several different situations are
unfolding at the same time.

The situation with the virus in dairy cattle, was until recently a
very specific genotype, the B3.13. That particular genotype was a
challenge in that it continued to spread in dairy cattle, particularly
in California. But we hadn’t seen it outside of dairy cattle; we
were not picking it up in wild birds or in other mammals. And at that
point, the thought was, “Well, it’ll burn itself out in the dairy
cattle.” That hasn’t happened yet.

We continue to see transmission. Now almost 75% of the herds in
California have been infected. Is this a continued risk to humans in
terms of transmission to humans who work with these dairy cattle? Yes.

Is it possible that this could evolve into a pandemic strain of the
virus, meaning through the process of reassortment or mutation? Yes.
But at this point, it hasn’t presented itself as such.

In the past two weeks, which you noted, a new spillover containing a
second variant, the D1.1 genotype, has been detected in dairy cattle
in Nevada. This is the genotype that’s been prominent in wild birds,
migratory waterfowl specifically, that has caused basically almost all
of the outbreaks in poultry, and has now introduced itself into
cattle.

We don’t know what’s going to happen with it at this point. But
each time one of these spillovers occur from one animal species to
another, and that spillover starts to cause infections in the second
animal species, it increases the potential likelihood of seeing a
reassorted virus that could be really dangerous.

The thing that’s most amazing, though, is what’s happening right
now with waterfowl.

There are an estimated 40 million ducks and geese in North America.
And we are seeing widespread infection there. This is in birds across
all of the continent, from the West Coast to the East Coast, from the
northern states to the southern states. The idea of the migratory bird
associated with seasonal migration patterns has changed when it comes
to waterfowl. We now have so many warm bodies of water that humans
have made, from heating plants and electric generation plants to
sewage lagoons for large metropolitan areas or even small communities.

The same is true for dairy operations, which have large lagoons for
cattle where the water stays open throughout the winter. Here I am in
Minnesota, where we’re expecting to see 10-to-15 degrees below zero
weather this week, and we have all kinds of ducks and geese still
here. That’s a big challenge right now.

Distribution of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5 and H5N1 in wild
birds the United States, by county, 2021-2025. Updated February 10,
2025. _(U.S. Geological Survey)_

It’s been remarkable, over 100 commercial poultry units have gone
down in the last six weeks. And this is largely coming from viruses
from migratory waterfowl that are getting into barns and then causing
these huge outbreaks. Every time you have the virus replicate in any
animal, there are more chances for mutations, there are more chances
for reassortment.

Right now, we don’t know where we’re at. When California declares
itself in a state of emergency over this issue, that’s real. But the
emergency was about trying to move resources into the agriculture
area; it was more like a FEMA-signed document. That’s different than
human risk.

But it’s kind of like walking across the Great Plains until you get
to the Grand Canyon, and that last step you take, oh my, is that a
doozy. It’s flat till you get there, and then, well, it’s a few
miles straight down. That’s what would happen potentially with
another pandemic. We could see low risk, low risk, low risk, then
suddenly high risk and very high risk.

We just don’t know where we’re at on that journey.

AS THIS CRISIS HAS DEVELOPED, THERE’S BEEN A CONSIDERABLE DISCONNECT
BETWEEN FARMERS AND GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN ROLLING OUT THINGS LIKE
TESTING AND MONITORING. ARE THERE ANY SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLES OR WAYS THAT
DISCONNECT HAS BEEN BRIDGED?

I think we have a huge challenge ahead of us on the poultry side. And
in particularly, as you’ve seen, egg prices haven’t been coming
down. Why? Because we’ve been euthanizing so many birds.

Why are we euthanizing them? Well, once the virus gets into a poultry
production facility, it will sweep through like wildfire. I’ve heard
people ask, why are we killing all these birds? Farmers are basically
euthanizing—and culling is the term that is applied—all of these
production animals, because they’re going to die anyway.

Once this virus is in a barn it’s virtually 100% fatal, and it’s
fast. If you’ve ever watched birds die from influenza, it’s a hard
thing to watch. It’s not an easy illness for them.

So the culling is very humane. That’s different from what we see
with wild birds where we don’t have the opportunity to cull them. We
don’t know who’s going to be infected.

Take what’s happening here in Minnesota right now. We’ll see 100
dead Canadian geese on the ice on the edge of open, and then
there’ll still be birds floating on the water itself.

At this point, the challenge is around airborne transmission of the
bird flu virus.

Many people don’t believe that considering the virus as airborne is
important. But geese will be on an old cornfield that was harvested in
the fall, eating the residual corn, defecating, and then the wind
blows across the field and picks up that dust and the dried bird feces
with it. I think these chickens and turkeys are so sensitive to this
virus that it doesn’t take much to cause an infection to start in a
poultry barn.

And then once that happens, it spreads like wildfire. I think many of
these units are getting infected from airborne transmission into barns
that are not airtight. Until the industry comes to grips with that and
develops a building construction program where they have airtight
buildings with HEPA filter fans, we’re going to continue to see this
happen.

WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE SWIMMING IN LAKES AND PONDS THAT HAVE WATERFOWL THAT
ARE INFECTED AND DEFECATING IN THE WATER?

I don’t know of any examples where that’s happened. Most bodies of
water right now in the United States are cold enough that most people
aren’t swimming. However, that’s theoretically possible. We surely
know that ingestion is an issue with a number of mammals, like cats
and so forth.

WHAT SHOULD FARMERS KNOW ABOUT HOW TO KEEP THEIR CATTLE SAFE?

Once a spillover occurs, meaning it goes from the birds to the cattle,
then the transmission is within the cattle. And that is where the
milking equipment becomes important. Now, it may be that milking
itself is a significant risk factor because we haven’t yet seen
outbreaks that I’m aware of where meat production cattle are
infected and spread that way. So it may be that somehow the milking
process enhances transmission within barns where every cow is hooked
up twice a day to the equipment that may be contaminated.

It’s possible we could see beef cattle also becoming infected
eventually, but so far that’s not happened. There’s not a lot that
farmers can do at this point, other than to limit bird contact with
their feed sources. We could potentially develop vaccines that will
hopefully protect cattle, whether they’re dairy or meat production
cattle.

If you’ve ever been to a farm, a dairy farm or a beef farm, you see
the mixing. Where the feed troughs are there are going to be wild
birds. And that kind of contact surely could enhance transmission.

WITH THE NEWS OF THIS NEW BIRD FLU VARIANT, WHAT SHOULD PEOPLE KNOW
ABOUT THE POTENTIAL RISKS TO HUMAN HEALTH?

Well, there’s not a new variant. This D1.1 genotype is one that was
in birds and has been in birds, but now it’s gone over into the
cattle and a few humans. But that’s still a significant issue, so
your point is a good one: we want to minimize transmission.

Anytime you can avoid influenza, that’s great.

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE CURRENT SURGE OF THE FLU IN THE UNITED STATES
MIGHT INTERACT WITH THE BIRD FLU THAT CIRCULATING IN ANIMALS?

As we’re recording this, the country right now is in a heck of a
mess with seasonal flu, both H1N1 and H3N2. We’re seeing significant
levels of hospitalizations, serious illness and another condition
called acute necrotizing encephalitis, which is occurring particularly
in kids who get influenza.

We’re seeing the number of deaths go up very quickly. We’re seeing
unprecedented pressure on emergency rooms around the country right
now.

Now you put those flu viruses together with H5N1 circulating in animal
species, and you don’t know what you’re going to get out of it.
Maybe nothing. Maybe a new re-assorted virus that could have us all
going, “Oh no, here it comes.” That’s the challenge we have
right now. I tell people: flu work is not rocket science—it’s more
complicated.

MARCH 11 WILL MARK THE FIVE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE WORLD HEALTH
ORGANIZATION DECLARING COVID-19 A PANDEMIC. A LOT OF PUBLIC DISTRUST
OF SCIENTISTS AND PUBLIC HEALTH INSTITUTIONS REMAINS. WHAT RESOURCES
OR MEDIA SOURCES SHOULD PEOPLE BE PAYING ATTENTION TO, WHETHER
THAT’S RELATED TO THE SEASONAL FLU OR THE BIRD FLU? WHAT CAN PEOPLE
DO TO BETTER INFORM THEMSELVES ON PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUES?

I can tell you right now that I’m a very biased individual. CIDRAP
news [Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the
University of Minnesota] is a really good source of information. We
try to be very scientifically sound. We don’t get in front of our
headlights. At the same time, we’re not afraid to look to tomorrow
and ask, “What might this look like?”

In general, there are reporters out there who do a great job.

One of the challenges we have right now is trying to do a review of
what happened with our response to the Covid pandemic. After 9/11, the
9/11 Commission did an exhaustive review of what should have been the
lessons learned.

It didn’t point fingers, it didn’t blame, it just took an
analytical look and said, “Boy, we should learn this, this, this,
and this.”

We’ve not done that with Covid. We’ve not done that with pandemic
preparedness and pandemic response in general. And I’m afraid
we’re going to be relegated to redoing all these things we failed to
learn again in the next pandemic. I have a book coming out in
September [_The Big One: Why Future Pandemics Will Be Worse—And How
We Must Prepare_
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where I try to do that as a layperson, meaning not part of the
official government.

Right now we’re caught up on whether there was a lab leak in Wuhan
or was it a spillover from bats? Get over it.

We will never know whether it was a lab leak or a spillover. It could
have been either one. My point is that we have to prepare for both.

What are we doing to prepare for a potential spillover event in the
future, such as what we’re seeing potentially with H5N1? What are we
doing in laboratories that are working with these viruses to make sure
they don’t leak out or become more dangerous? What didn’t we do
well? How can we do it better next time? And what did we do well?

YOU’VE SPENT 50 YEARS OF YOUR CAREER IN THE PUBLIC HEALTH ARENA.
YOU’VE SERVED UNDER EVERY PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION SINCE RONALD
REAGAN, INCLUDING THE FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. WHAT ARE YOUR
THOUGHTS ON OUR STATE OF OUR PREPAREDNESS FOR RESPONDING TO MAJOR
PUBLIC HEALTH THREATS GIVEN THE CURRENT CHANGES IN THE SECOND TRUMP
ADMINISTRATION?

It’s no secret that we’re watching the public health system in the
United States be very rapidly eliminated.

Mr. Kennedy was sworn in as the secretary of HHS, an avowed
anti-vaccine individual, who has espoused a lot of scientific
untruths, and who has, in a sense, come to the conclusion that he and
only he can determine when things are safe.

This is a real challenge. It’s beyond painful. But that’s not good
enough. It’s not enough for us to sit by on the sidelines and
complain. We’ve got to figure out how are we going to respond to
this.

How are we going to be out there providing the right messages on, on
vaccines? How do we deal with the issues of scientific disinformation
and misinformation? I have to say that I wouldn’t have expected
after 50 years of being in the business and seeing all the progress we
made, that we could see it so quickly disintegrate in front of our
eyes.

I worry very much that CDC will be highly limited in what they can do.
The workforce will be greatly reduced. I just shared with you the
situation on influenza in the United States right now Where are the
health alerts from CDC on flu? We should be notifying parents around
this country: If your child has this symptom, this symptom and this
symptom, get them into the hospital or the emergency room right now.
They are likely experiencing what could be a fatal case of influenza
and acute necrotizing encephalitis. We’re not seeing that.

CIDRAP is working on several major projects that we hope will come to
fruition that will help of us who are in the front lines of public
health to respond and to address these issues.They’re not going to
go away.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE PROJECTS YOU’RE WORKING ON IN RESPONSE?

One of the things we’re trying to do right now is a major
information center where we deal with mis- and disinformation on a
daily basis.

We’re working on bringing together all links out there for
surveillance data. Right now, unless you knew where to go, you’d
have to search and search and search. We want this to be a one-stop
resource where if it’s not on that particular page, you probably
don’t need to know about it.

IT SOUNDS LIKE IN SOME SENSE YOU’RE TRYING TO REPLICATE WHAT THE CDC
USED TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR.

We are, and we’re trying to go one step beyond that. So, for
example, one of the things we’re working on right now is with the
group FactCheck.org from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the
University of Pennsylvania. We’re working with them to figure out
how can we do an even better job, in a timely way, in a comprehensive
way, of dealing with misinformation and disinformation so that
policymakers, public health officials, medical care providers have
factual and correct information in their hands when somebody comes to
them with one of these mis- or disinformed statements.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF STATES IN RESPONDING TO NATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH
EVENTS? THE STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENTS OF MINNESOTA AND NEW YORK HAVE
BOTH PUT OUT ADVISORIES TO DOCTORS TO TEST FLU PATIENTS WITH CERTAIN
SYMPTOMS FOR H5N1.

The states are trying to do what they can within their state. It helps
if you can have a coordinated national approach, too.

States are where the work of public health gets done on a day-to-day
basis. The states are singularly responsible for public health, and I
think some readers may not be aware of it.

Anything that’s not described in the U.S. Constitution is by itself
what’s called a states’ rights issue, meaning that they are
responsible for it. And there’s nothing in the Constitution about
public health. So the states are responsible for disease surveillance,
for follow-up, for outbreak investigation.

And CDC, for example, can only go into a state upon an invitation from
that state to come and participate. At this point, states are very
important. And we’re very concerned about that because of the fact
that funding for state health departments and public health has eroded
over the years.

In most states today, more than 90% of the funding they get comes from
the federal government for public health activities, even though
it’s a states’ rights issue. We’re quite convinced a lot of that
90% is going to evaporate over the next few months. So the states are
going to be in even deeper trouble.

DOES THE POLITICAL MAKEUP OF A STATE REFLECT HOW THAT STATE HAS
RESPONDED TO THE THREAT OF BIRD FLU?

It does. And I mean this as a purely analytical statement. It has no
politics to associate with it.

If you look at the red states, we see much less activity around public
health and support for public health than in blue states. We’re
seeing health departments in red states that are not promoting
vaccines. They’re not putting out information that indicates they
have a disease problem in their state that’s exacerbated because
people are not getting vaccinated—information that can be helpful to
the public. It’s a challenge.

We’re all trying to come together and say, we shouldn’t be red or
blue states. We’re all one country. And however we can make that
work, we’ve got to do that. We could have another pandemic today.
For all I know, it started last night somewhere in the world.

As I’ve said many times, the pandemic clock is ticking. We just
don’t know what time it is.

_People who work with animals, or who have been in contact with sick
or dead animals or their droppings, should watch for breathing
problems and red eyes for 10 days after exposure. If they develop
symptoms, they should tell their health care provider about their
recent exposure._

_Other ways to stay safe include:_

* _Do not touch sick or dead animals or their droppings, and do not
bring sick wild animals into your home._
* _Keep your pets away from sick or dead animals and their feces._
* _Do not eat uncooked or undercooked food. Cook poultry, eggs and
other animal products to the proper temperature, and prevent
cross-contamination between raw and cooked food._
* _If you work on a poultry or dairy farm, talk to a health care
provider about getting your seasonal flu vaccination. It will not
prevent infection with avian influenza viruses, but it can reduce the
risk of coinfection with avian and more common flu viruses._
* _Report dead or sick birds or animals to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture toll-free at 1-866-536-7593._

_(Adapted from the CDC’s __guidance for prevention_
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people)_

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Justin Perkins
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JUSTIN PERKINS is _Barn Raiser_ Deputy Editor & Publisher and Board
Clerk of Barn Raising Media Inc. He is currently finishing his Master
of Divinity at the University of Chicago Divinity School. The son of a
hog farmer, he grew up in Papillion, Neb., and got his start as a
writer with his hometown newspaper the _Papillion Times_, _The Daily
Nebraskan_, Rural America In These Times and _In These Times. _He has
previous editorial experience at _Prairie Schooner_ and _Image_.

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Joel Bleifuss [[link removed]]More
by this author →
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JOEL BLEIFUSS is _Barn Raiser_ Editor & Publisher and Board President
of Barn Raising Media Inc. He is a descendent of German and Scottish
farmers who immigrated to Wisconsin and South Dakota in the 19th
Century. Bleifuss was born and raised in Fulton, Mo., a town on the
edge of the Ozarks. He graduated from the University of Missouri in
1978 and got his start in journalism in 1983 at his hometown daily,
the _Fulton Sun_. Bleifuss joined the staff of _In These Times_
magazine in October 1986, stepping down as Editor & Publisher in April
2022, to join his fellow barn raisers in getting _Barn Raiser_ off the
ground.

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* Avian Flu; Bird Flu; Department of Agriculture; Vaccines;
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