USDA Bungles Bird Flu Crisis, Compounding Animal Deaths and Threatening Human Health

The U.S. bird flu H5N1 epidemic that began in February 2022 continues unabated and approaching a three-year run, with no end in sight. Here are the topline outcomes of the U.S. Department of Agriculture response so far: soaring egg prices for consumers, 100 million dead laying hens for farmers, a slow build in human infections and the first human death. The USDA is bungling an especially menacing zoonotic disease, and it is imperative that the incoming Trump team toss out the existing the current game plan and start calling new plays.

So far, 130.3 million poultry have died from bird flu or been culled on 623 commercial poultry farms and 753 “backyard farms” in all 50 states. More than 99 million of the dead or culled poultry have been commercial layers, in addition to 17 million turkeys, leading to $9-a-dozen egg cartons. To be sure, this is an animal health and wellbeing crisis on an epic scale, with countless downstream effects. It should be a tremendous concern to every farmer, consumer, and animal welfare advocate.

Wild animals are also afflicted and dying in unknown numbers. There have been 10,922 fatal detections of the bird flu H5N1 strain in at least 185 wild avian species in all 50 states, mostly waterfowl and birds of prey. Bird flu H5N1 has also killed at least 419 wild carnivores or marine mammals of 25 species. Feral domesticated cats and wild big cats are especially vulnerable, with 20 captive mountain lions, bobcats, and other big cats perishing at the Wild Felid Advocacy Center of Washington. Total wild animal deaths certainly number in the millions.

The bird flu moved in a dangerous and surprising direction in 2024, when, for the first time, the virus mutated and spilled over to dairy cattle. It has so far infected at least 919 dairy herds in 16 states (perhaps a million cows, out of a national population of nine million), causing widespread bird flu contamination of the on-farm and raw milk supply. While the virus is readily transmitted among dairy cattle, it commonly sickens but rarely kills (<5% mortality) the cows it infects.

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the federal agency charged with controlling the bird flu outbreak in poultry and livestock, has spent $1.7 billion so far on “stamping out” bird flu in 1,376 flocks, which comes to $13.10 for each of the 130 million euthanized or dead birds and $1.24 million per infected flock. The agency has also spent $430 million so far to quarantine the 919 bird flu-infected dairy cattle farms, which comes to $1,336 per cow (assuming an average herd size of 337 cows) and $450,262 per infected herd. Based on expenditures and domestic animal deaths, this is by far the most expensive and severe animal disease epidemic in world history.

A Human Health Crisis Is Brewing

Even worse from a public health perspective, the infected poultry flocks and dairy cattle herds exposed more than 10,300 farm workers to the virus, causing at least 65 confirmed (but usually mild) human cases, 39 from cattle contact and 23 from poultry exposure. Just in the last week, the nation saw the first human fatality — a Louisiana man in his 60s who interacted with sick backyard birds and was hospitalized before succumbing.

There is no evidence of human-to-human HPAI H5N1 spread thus far. However, bird flu is a mutation-prone virus, so a new variant of a human-adapted strain could emerge at any time, resulting in wide-scale human-to-human transmission or severe human illness. The circulating American bird flu H5N1 strain is just a single mutation away from becoming highly human-to-human transmissible.

The large number of animal species infected, many fatally with H5N1 bird flu — from wild birds, poultry, wild mammals, and ruminant livestock — increases the risk of the virus adapting to cause human-to-human spread and a zoonotic epidemic. The more humans and animals infected, the more likely it is that such a devastating mutation or virus reassortant (a novel dangerous hybrid mix of the genomes of human, swine, and bird flu viruses) will occur.

USDA Wrong-Foots Bird Flu Response

The bird flu H5N1 virus is no doubt a formidable pathogenic foe, and containment an immense challenge. Nevertheless, it’s clear that the response from the USDA’s APHIS has been as deficient as it has been expensive in dealing with an outbreak in our poultry flocks and dairy cattle herds. The scale of this outbreak, with sheer number of mutations in combination with endless potential of human-to-animal interactions, has created a dangerous circumstance for more widespread viral spillover to humans.

With the virus dangerously unmanageable, it is time for the incoming Trump team to reboot the crisis response, so that the second Trump term is not dominated by a zoonotic disease crisis as devastating as the COVID-19 drama.

• Mass Killing of Poultry May Be Doing No Good

The USDA has directed ventilation shutdown by means of carbon dioxide asphyxiation with or without heat, and firefighting foam to suffocate or “cook alive” poultry flocks where an infection has been detected. This mass killing is demonstrably inhumane, but it also may not be achieving anything but a reduction in the U.S. laying hen population, resulting in diminished production and a surge in prices of this food staple in the American diet.

After three years, the outlay of $2 billion in tax dollars, and 130 million dead poultry, perhaps the USDA should accept that bird flu H5N1 is no longer a “foreign animal disease.” It is now established and endemic in the United States, and it is going to be with us in the years ahead. We cannot kill our way out of the crisis.

• Develop Herd Immunity Rather Than Herd and Flock Annihilation

The USDA has rightly opted not to conduct mass killing of dairy cow herds. Instead, there are quarantine requirements to limit further transmission routes for the virus. The USDA is suggesting that all birds die from the disease, but this is plainly wrong. Strict quarantines, without total wipe-outs of flocks, should be considered in some cases. It may be warranted at times to kill all birds in a flock, but it should not be standard practice.

• Movement of Millions of Fighting Birds a Continuing Threat

A well-established pattern of poultry-to-poultry transmission tells us that cockfighting merits special consideration in animal and zoonotic disease control as a major risk factor. This is especially true and well known for highly pathogenic bird flu and virulent Newcastle disease (vND) — the two most economically important veterinary diseases globally. We know, for example, that 10 of the 15 US vND outbreaks were caused by illegal smuggling of vND-infected roosters for cockfighting into the United States from Mexico. It is also well documented that cockfighting activity was an important risk factor in Southeast Asia from 2000 to 2010 for the spread of bird flu H5NI among commercial and backyard poultry and as a source of severe and sometimes fatal zoonotic human bird flu H5N1 infections.

Cockfighting is almost certainly amplifying and extending the duration of the ongoing bird flu outbreak in the U.S. There are perhaps 20 million illegally possessed cockfighting birds on thousands of gamecock farms throughout the United States. Cockfighting breeding farms house their birds outdoors, enabling behavioral interactions and biological exchange with infected wild birds. Because cockfighters are felons in the waiting, smuggling birds, hiding valuable fighting birds from disease surveillance programs, and avoiding veterinary diagnosis and treatment of fighting birds are at the core of their illicit business model. They also ship birds by the millions in interstate and foreign commerce, threatening to spread infection far and wide, with cross-border movement particularly brisk between Mexico and the United States and an under-reported feature of the border crisis.

Some cockfighters work at dairy farms and commercial poultry operations, with that labor pool overrepresented by immigrants from nations where cockfighting is a passion. Workers may carry the virus on their clothes and deliver it directly to the animals confined in a laying hen house or a dairy farm. Indeed, “cockfighters as farm laborers” may be the explanation for so many “high biosecurity” commercial poultry operations seeing H5N1 infections over the past three years.

• Greater USDA Transparency

Despite cockfighting’s known importance in fostering disease outbreaks, for reasons unknown, APHIS appears to put no effort into investigating cockfighting activity as one of the root causes of the spread of H5N1 in the United States over the past three years, to say nothing of its potential future role in disease spread. APHIS should be compelled to capture and report the epidemiologic risk of cockfighting on bird flu disease outbreaks. The USDA APHIS (and the World Organization for Animal Health) should create a unique and separate category for premises with cockfighting birds, rather than pooling them with all “backyard poultry” in HPAI and vND disease control efforts, as they currently do. This would better quantify avian disease and zoonotic infection risks created by cockfighting in spawning and propagating outbreaks, improve trace-back and trace-forward disease control actions, enhance post-outbreak risk factor analyses, and improve disease risk management.

The USDA and APHIS should also be in the forefront of alerting federal lawmakers to this concern and express support for policies to diminish cockfighting in the United States. The FIGHT Act — which law enforcement, animal welfare groups, and the egg industry actively support — should be part of the “prevention package” for our bird flu response in the United States. Just as China was compelled to deal with “live wildlife markets” after the possible role of a Wuhan market in incubating SARS-CoV-2, the United States must grapple with the presence of millions of fighting birds moved widely and illegally in commerce and must develop a response to it. The current enforcement response, given how widespread cockfighting is, has clearly been insufficient.

Bird flu is a zoonotic disease, and it is an axiom of a proper government response to prevent disease spread on the front end. A dominant focus on killing animals and compensating farmers after the disease is widespread is costly and ineffective. The Trump team must adapt and prevent the virus from gathering more momentum and spilling over to thousands or even to millions of Americans.

Jim Keen, director of veterinary sciences for the Center for a Humane Economy, is a former research scientist with USDA. Colonel Tom Pool, senior veterinarian for Animal Wellness Action, was leader of the U.S. Army Veterinary Command. Wayne Pacelle, president of the Animal Wellness Action and the Center, is author of NYT bestseller The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them.