Is Bird Flu a Priority?
Terry H. Schwadron
Jan. 18, 2025
Unlike many other more urgent pressures, Donald Trump’s administration has a choice of just how aggressive it wants to be about the seemingly slow spread of bird flu.
While there may be medical debate about how fast the illness is building, there seems no related public question for Team Trump about whether it wants to get out in front of the problem or to let it continue to, well, incubate and morph.
The first human death was reported this week in Louisiana involving contact with a backyard flock apparently infected by wild birds.
In his constant rewrite of recent history Trump may dispute that he allowed Covid to become a problem through denial and downplaying its importance, but any sensible review of his administration’s handling of those early months in 2020 show that Trump’s stance allowed the disease to grow before belatedly launching billions of dollars in rapid vaccine development,
A million Americans eventually died along with widespread shutdowns. The blowback to those effects spurred a lasting, politically charged reverse in attitude that eventually helped lift Trump’s MAGA forces to a narrow election victory in November.
So, maybe Asian bird flu is a good current test of how his vaccine-shy administration and appointees will consider a response to a building disease that now has morphed sufficiently to become a threat to multiple animal species, to dairy workers, and perhaps soon to wider human audiences. As a group, his health advisors seem to want to leave disease to work itself out without a lot of government intervention, while worrying about removing additives like fluoride from drinking water.
The Problem
Through the Joe Biden years — in which critics adjudged the government as being overly aggressive about Covid — federal health officials over the past year have relatively minimized worry about the spread of medical hazards of bird flu.
At the same time, the government has noted the illness is a base cause for rising egg and supermarket prices.
The disease has been around for more than 100 years, and it has appeared periodically. In its current versions, the illness has moved from birds to cows, with nervousness about possible effects on milk. Several states have reported dairy workers who have elevated contact with the cows have tested positive, mostly suffering temporary illness. Two recent infections in Canada and Louisiana suggest the virus is mutating to make it more of a danger to humans and breathing capacity.
On the Centers for Disease Control website. the agency has a notice saying it CDC is watching the situation carefully and working with states to monitor people with animal exposures and the agency lists individual preventive advice.There have been 66 human cases reported.
Only in the last several weeks have officials become aggressive about ordering testing of raw milk from livestock herds, and the testing at dairies generally has been left to dairy owners.
A program to compensate dairy farms with infected cattle began this summer, though there are complaints about the amounts of money involved. We are not hearing about infections until after there are human illness reports. The government also has been reaching out to drug manufacturers about vaccines to resupply a national stockpile, should it become necessary.
Some public health officials, including Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb, who wrote a Washington Post op-ed column, see the Biden administration as unduly cautious and foot-dragging.
Is the delay about lagging medical information or the perception of being overly aggressive? Whatever the answer, the Trump administration promises to revisit all of it with personnel who talk about prevention but have little history of doing anything about it.
Amid Politics, Seeking Solutions
It is impossible to overlook the political and economic overlays involved. The agriculture industry is worried that too much attention will have bad business consequences, and consumers are already upset about the price of eggs. Advocates for early recognition of a potential pandemic are running into anti-vaccine headwinds.
The idea that an incoming Trump group will address this clearly and head-on seems improbable. Trump himself has vacillated about vaccines, trying at once to take credit for pushing the drug industry into Covid vaccine development and then reacting against any mandates or limitations necessary to make them work — an attitude reflected in choosing his health team.
A middle ground would seem to center once again on responsible testing and preparation of the appropriate anti-bird flu medicines, even if not deployed fully. The virus itself seems to be changing much more rapidly than the desire of government to get behind any aggressive program.
Trump famously opposed testing that could show spread of disease. Without information to measure the spread, it would be easier to deny that there is a problem. It seems a little nuts that we are depending on farmers and ranchers who have an economic interest not to find disease for a wider communicable effect.
At this moment, perhaps the best we can hope for is that senators who will hold confirmation hearings for incoming health officials at least outline what it at issue.
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