Bird flu outbreaks close parks and force zoos to implement safety measures amid Trump freeze on health updates
While the Trump administration has halted government health agency communications with the public through the end of the month, concerns abound regarding the continued spread of bird flu that has resulted in mass cullings, closed parks, and driven egg prices through the roof.
Cases of the virus have taken the lives of animals across the U.S., in commercial and backyard flocks, at zoos, and in parks.
A park in Massachusetts was closed indefinitely due to a potential outbreak less than a week after more than 60 Canada geese, swans, and ducks were found dead under an hour away.
Infections and deaths have also been reported at the Wildlife Zoo and Aquarium outside Phoenix, a wildlife sanctuary in Washington state, at Virginia's Richmond Metro Zoo, at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, and at Honolulu Zoo. The San Francisco Zoo and Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo closed their aviaries in response to the threat.
Zoo officials are on high alert, Dr. Anne Burgdorf-Moisuk, associate vice president of animal health and welfare at the Dallas Zoo, told The Dallas Morning News in an interview published on Monday.
'Although what's happening now is a bit different — the virus has mutated a bit — HPAI is something that zoo veterinarians have had to watch out for for a really long time,' Burgdorf-Moisuk said. 'We have protocols in place for disease outbreaks like HPAI, foot and mouth disease and lots of issues that could be problems for a zoo.'
Since March 2024, 67 human cases and one death have been reported in 10 states around the U.S. The majority are in dairy and farm workers, with exposure to infected flocks and herds.
Although health officials have insisted that the risk to the public remains low in recent weeks and no human-to-human transmission has been tracked, the nation ramped up its response in the last few weeks of Joe Biden's presidency.
There's been increased testing in raw milk and cheese, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said hospitals treating individuals for the flu should test them for bird flu within a period of 24 hours.
'The more time that passes, the more [a patient's] memories fade,' Nirav Shah, the agency's senior advisor, told The Washington Post.
At this point, it remains unclear how the Trump administration will respond to the spread, but a Biden administration health official said the incoming team had been sent 'all of the information on [their] work.'
Monitoring the situation is critical, experts say, especially at the height of flu season and as hospitals are gradually overwhelmed with other viruses.
Scientists say now that while a pandemic is not inevitable, the outbreak has passed some troubling milestones.
Dairy herds in Idaho that were infected in the spring also displayed mild symptoms for a second time in the late fall, The New York Times said Monday.
'I'm still not pack-my-bags-and-head-to-the-hills worried, but there's been more signals over the past four to six weeks that this virus has the capacity' to set off a pandemic, Richard Webby, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, told the publication.
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Reuters
10 hours ago
- Reuters
NIH scientists speak out over estimated $12 billion in Trump funding cuts
June 9 (Reuters) - Dozens of scientists, researchers and other employees at the U.S. National Institutes of Health issued a rare public rebuke Monday criticizing the Trump administration for major spending cuts that 'harm the health of Americans and people across the globe,' politicize research and 'waste public resources.' More than 60 current employees sent their letter to NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress who oversee NIH. Bhattacharya is scheduled to testify Tuesday at the U.S. Senate appropriations committee about his agency's budget. Overall, more than 340 current and recently terminated NIH employees signed the letter, about 250 of them anonymously. In their letter, NIH staff members said the agency had terminated 2,100 research grants totaling about $9.5 billion and an additional $2.6 billion in contracts since President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20. The contracts often support research, from covering equipment to nursing staff working on clinical trials. These terminations "throw away years of hard work and millions of dollars" and put patient health at risk, the letter said. NIH clinical trials "are being halted without regard to participant safety, abruptly stopping medications or leaving participants with unmonitored device implants." Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In prior remarks, Bhattacharya has pledged support for Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again agenda, and he has said that means focusing the federal government's "limited resources" directly on combating chronic diseases. At his Senate confirmation hearings in March, Bhattacharya said he would ensure scientists working at NIH and funded by the agency have the necessary resources to meet its mission. NIH is the world's largest public funder of biomedical research and has long enjoyed bipartisan support from U.S. lawmakers. The Trump administration has proposed cutting $18 billion, or 40%, from NIH's budget next year, which would leave the agency with $27 billion. Nearly 5,000 NIH employees and contractors have been laid off under Kennedy's restructuring of U.S. health agencies, according to NIH staff. Dr. Jenna Norton, a program director within NIH's division of kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases, was one of 69 current employees who signed the letter as of early Monday. She said speaking out publicly was worth the risk to her career and family. "I am much more worried about the risks of not speaking up," Norton said. "There are very real concerns that we're being asked to do likely illegal activities, and certainly unethical activities that breach our rules." About 20 NIH employees who were recently terminated as probationary workers or "subject to reductions in force" added their names to the letter. In the letter, Norton and other NIH employees asked Bhattacharya to restore grants that were delayed or terminated for political reasons, where officials ignored peer review to "cater to political whims." They wrote that Bhattacharya had failed to uphold his legal duty to spend congressionally appropriated funds. One program director at the NIH's National Cancer Institute, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said she has repeatedly been asked to cancel research grants for no valid reason and in violation of agency rules. She said she fears she could become the target of lawsuits from grantees challenging those decisions. Dr. Benjamin Feldman, a staff scientist and core director at NIH's Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said he and other researchers want to work with Bhattacharya on reversing the cuts and restoring the NIH as a "beacon for science around the world." "This is really a hit to the whole enterprise of biomedical research in the United States," Feldman said. Dr. Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral fellow at the NIH, signed the letter and said he has heard from university researchers about patients losing access to novel cancer treatments in clinical trials due to the uncertainty over NIH funding. He also worries about the long-term effect from gutting NIH's investment in basic science research that can lead to lifesaving treatments years later. The NIH employees, based in Bethesda, Maryland, named their dissent the "Bethesda Declaration," modeled after Bhattacharya's Great Barrington Declaration in 2020 that called on public health officials to roll back lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. "Our hope is that by modeling ourselves after the Great Barrington Declaration that maybe he'll see himself in our dissent," Norton said.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
Obama's doctor makes candid confession about Biden's mental decline while in office
The former White House physician to President Barack Obama has broken his silence, candidly admitting that President Joe Biden should have undergone rigorous cognitive testing throughout all four years of his presidency. Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as Obama's doctor from 2009 to 2013, didn't mince words warning that Biden should have been subjected to extensive annual neurocognitive exams and that the results should be made public. 'My position is that a 78-year-old candidate, Trump at the time, an 82-year-old president [Biden], would both benefit from neurocognitive testing,' Kuhlman stated, noting how age-related decline is inevitable. 'Any politician over the age of 70 has normal age-related cognitive decline.' Kuhlman, the author of Transforming Presidential Healthcare, has been making these recommendations for nearly a year - notably publishing them in a New York Times op-ed on the very day Biden bowed out of the 2024 race. Despite multiple detailed physicals during Biden's time in office, Kuhlman pointed out that none included neurocognitive assessments like the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) - a basic test famously taken and 'aced' by President Trump. 'I have no doubt that President Trump aced it,' Kuhlman remarked. Yet Biden's evaluations, spanning five to six single-spaced pages and referencing 10 to 20 specialists, conspicuously omitted any serious cognitive screening. Biden's physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor who also treated Biden during his vice presidency never subjected him to a formal cognitive battery or even the routine MoCA test. Such an omission has become more glaring given the president's visible struggles, culminating in his disastrous debate performance in June 2024 that effectively ended his reelection bid. 'Sometimes those closest to the tree miss the forest,' Kuhlman said to the New York Post acknowledging his respect for O'Connor's medical judgment but hinting at blind spots that may have endangered the presidency itself. Kuhlman also emphasized that simple cognitive screens like the MoCA are not enough to fully assess deeper mental deterioration. True evaluation requires extensive testing for memory, reasoning, processing speed, and spatial visualization. Such faculties begin to decline starting around age 60. The White House had long insisted Biden was 'fit for duty,' yet Kuhlman's remarks cast fresh doubts on those assurances. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre brushed aside concerns at a February 2024 briefing declaring, 'The president doesn't need a cognitive test. He passes a cognitive test every day.' But the former presidential physician's comments now suggest that claim was complacent. Adding fuel to the fire, White House logs revealed Biden met with Dr. Kevin Cannard, a Parkinson's specialist from Walter Reed, as part of his annual physical in January 2024. While O'Connor insisted the meeting was routine, other medical professionals weren't convinced. 'If somebody turns up a report that Kevin Cannard said he has Parkinson's then that's a completely different story,' Kuhlman said. He did, however, express trust in Cannard's evaluation based on their long-standing professional history. In the past, critics pointed to Biden's stiff gait, slow movement, and shuffling walk as signs of something deeper. 'I could've diagnosed him from across the Mall,' neurologist Dr. Tom Pitts bluntly told NBC in July 2024. In one final blow, Special Counsel Robert Hur's bombshell decision not to indict Biden over his handling of classified documents cited that a jury would likely view the president as 'a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.' The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is now turning up the heat. Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) has subpoenaed O'Connor to testify under oath on June 27 about Biden's mental fitness. In a pointed letter, Comer raised concerns about O'Connor's 'financial relationship with the Biden family' and suggested there may have been a cover-up to conceal the president's cognitive decline from the American public. Jean-Pierre who has since left the Democratic Party and is preparing to release a scathing tell-all book about the 'broken' Biden administration is also expected to testify. Last month, a new book titled Original Sin by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson hit the shelves with allegations of a vast cover-up of Biden's final years in office. According to the book's authors, O'Connor resisted administering a cognitive test during Biden's last two years. Days before the book's released Biden revealed he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer with the cells having spread to the bone. Kuhlman emphasized that cancer testing protocols should have been maintained after 2014, but hinted that Biden may have been let down even in that regard. 'I hope that Kevin O'Connor had that conversation every year with his patient, Joe Biden, and documented that in the medical record,' he said. 'If he did the PSA and chose not to release it, I don't agree with that.'
NBC News
3 days ago
- NBC News
How RFK Jr. is quickly changing U.S. health agencies
WASHINGTON — In just a few short months, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has begun to transform U.S. health policy: shrinking staff at health agencies, restructuring the focus of some regulators and researchers, changing Covid vaccine regulations and reshaping the mission of his department to focus more on alternative medicine. The directives are all part of the same issue set that drove a slice of health-conscious, left-leaning Americans to eventually vote for a Republican president whose favorite meal is from McDonald's, Trump and Kennedy catered to a type of voter who has grown distrustful of America's health care establishment — but possibly fomented a new type of distrust in federal health policy along the way. Bernadine Francis, a lifelong Democrat who backed Joe Biden for president in 2020 before supporting Donald Trump in 2024, told NBC News in an interview that she approves of Kennedy's efforts so far, despite his 'hands being tied' by entrenched forces in the administration and in Congress. 'From what I have seen so far with what RFK has been trying to do,' she said, 'I am really, really proud of what he's doing.' Francis is among the voters who left the Democratic Party and voted for Trump because 'nothing else mattered' apart from public health, which they — like Kennedy — felt was going in the wrong direction. Concerns about chemicals in food and toxins in the environment, long championed by Democrats, has become a galvanizing issue to a key portion of Trump's Republican Party, complete with an oversaturation of information that in some cases hasn't been proven. It's wrapped up, as well, in concerns about the Covid vaccine, which was accelerated under Trump, administered under Biden and weaponized by anti-vaccine activists like Kennedy amid lockdowns and firings in the wake of the devastating pandemic. 'We knew in order to get RFK in there so he can help with the situation that we have in the health industry, we knew we had to do this,' said Francis, a retired Washington, D.C., public school administrator, who said she left her 'beloved' career because she had refused the vaccine. 'It seemed to me, as soon as [Biden] became president, the vaccine was mandated, and that was when I lost all hope in the Democrats,' Francis told NBC News, referring to vaccination mandates put in place by the Biden administration for a large portion of the federal workforce during the height of the pandemic. There are not currently any federal Covid vaccine mandates. There have been 1,228,393 confirmed Covid deaths in the United States since the start of the pandemic, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How RFK Jr.'s picks are changing public health agencies Dr. Marty Makary, Kennedy's hand-picked commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and a John Hopkins scientist and researcher, told NBC News in an interview that he wants to transform the agency, which he said faced 'corruption' over influence from the pharmaceutical and food industries. 'I mean, you look at the food pyramid, it was not based on what's best for you, it was based on what companies wanted you to buy,' he said, referring to the 1992 and later iterations of official government nutritional guidance. He said there would be 'entirely new nutrition guidance' released later this year, as soon as this summer. He praised the FDA's mission of research and regulation, saying the agency is 'incredibly well-oiled, and we've got the trains running on time.' He also highlighted the 75-page 'Make America Healthy Again' commission report — which focused on ultraprocessed foods and toxins in the environment — as having set 'the agenda for research' at the FDA, HHS and agencies overseeing social safety net programs such as Medicare and food stamps moving forward. (The MAHA report initially cited some studies that didn't exist, a mistake that Kennedy adviser Calley Means said was a 'great disservice' to their mission.) 'I think there's a lot we're going to learn. For example, the microbiome, which gets attention in the MAHA report, needs to be on the map. We don't even talk about it in our medical circles,' Makary said. 'The microbiome, food is medicine, the immune response that happens when chemicals that don't appear in nature go down our GI tract.' Pressed on other areas of the administration, like the Environmental Protection Agency, making decisions that run counter to the pro-regulatory ideas presented in the MAHA report, Makary said he can 'only comment on the FDA' where they are 'committed to Secretary Kennedy's vision.' But Kennedy's public health agenda goes beyond looking at the food supply and chemicals. Recently, Kennedy said in a video posted on X last month that the Covid vaccine is no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a change in CDC guidance that skipped the normal public review period. Days later, after critics questioned the decision and raised concerns over a lack of public data behind the move, the administration updated its guidance again, urging parents to consult with their doctors instead. Pressed about the confusion and whether Americans are now trading one side of public distrust in the health system for another, Makary defended Kennedy, who has been criticized for spreading misinformation. 'My experience with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is that he listens. He listens to myself, he listens to Jay Bhattacharya, listens to Dr. Mehmet Oz, he listens to a host of scientists that are giving him guidance,' Makary argued, referring to the director of the National Institutes of Health and the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, respectively. 'So he may have big questions, but the questions he's asking are the questions most Americans are asking.' The intersection of medicine and healthy lifestyle choices Dr. Dawn Mussallem, a breast cancer oncologist and integrative medicine doctor — a physician who combines conventional treatments with research-based alternative therapies — has tried to help her patients wade through medical misinformation they encounter online and in their social circles. Mussallem has an incredible story of personal survival: While in medical school, she was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer and, after conventional therapies like chemo saved her life, was diagnosed with heart failure. After undergoing a heart transplant, Mussallem ran a 26-mile marathon just one year later. 'I learned a lot in medical school, but nothing compared to what I learned being a patient,' said Mussallem, who dedicates, on average, 90 minutes each in one-on-one sessions with her patients. 'This is not about any one political choice. But we know lifestyle matters.' For example, a new study from the American Society of Clinical Oncology that finds eating food that lowers inflammation in the body may help people with advanced colon cancer survive longer. Mussallem's mission, along with her colleagues, is to elevate the modern medicine that saved her life, as well as encouraging her patients to live healthy lifestyles, including regular exercise, minimally processed foods, less screen time, more social connection and better sleep. But politics do get in the way for millions of Americans who are inundated daily with social media influencers and 'nonmedical experts,' as Mussallem puts it, who stoke fear in her patients. 'Patients come in with all these questions, fears,' she said. 'I've heard this many times from patients, that their nervous system is affected by what they're seeing happening in government.' Mussallem acknowledges that 'a lot of individuals out there' have questioned traditional medicine. For her, it isn't one or the other — it's both. 'We have to trust the conventional medicine,' she said. 'With the conventional care that marches right alongside more of an integrative modality to look at the root causes of disease, as well as to help to optimize with lifestyle, is where we need to be.'
