
Farmers say bird flu a 'crisis' as egg prices soar
The worsening outbreak comes as President Donald Trump's new administration makes sweeping cuts to government staffing and research funding that public health experts say threatens the country's ability to respond to bird flu and other potential pandemics.This week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) told the BBC it fired several officials who were working on the response to bird flu before trying to hire them back days later. The administration also promised billions in funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health, which scientists say could hamper research that helps them understand the evolution of viruses."Right now, the risk to most Americans remains low, but the virus is continuing to surprise us, and so that could change, and could change quickly," said Michaela Simoneau, a global health security fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies."I worry, as all of these funding cuts are in the political conversation, that we don't cut those programs that have been shown to be most essential."Trump officials said they are working on a new plan to respond to bird flu, one that includes more safety precautions and vaccines while moving away from culling - a process where farmers kill all their birds after one flock becomes infected to prevent the spread of the highly contagious and fatal disease.When asked for details about the new strategy, the White House did not provide specifics to the BBC, but said Joe Biden's administration had "crushed American agriculture with regulatory uncertainty", inflation and "radical environmental policies".
Red flags as a virus mutates
Scientists have seen a number of warning signs in recent months that the avian flu is adapting to infect humans, said Andrew Pekosz, a molecular biology professor at Johns Hopkins University.Influenza viruses don't typically grow well in mammals, so the length of time the virus has circulated in dairy cows is concerning because it allows more opportunities to evolve, Mr Pekosz said.Bird flu infected cattle for the first time ever in the US at the beginning of last year. Since then, there have been nearly 1,000 confirmed cases across 17 states. There also have been 68 confirmed cases among humans, most of whom worked closely with animals.Then, in February, a new variant of the virus - called D1.1 - was detected in dairy cows and an infected worker in Nevada for the first time. The strain also caused two severe infections in humans in North America, a teenager in hospital in British Columbia and a patient in Louisiana who died from the virus.The new variant also means there are now at least two instances in which cows have caught the virus from wild birds, and not other dairy herds."We're seeing these little red flags, real signs that the virus is making some inroads," Mr Pekosz said.The virus has upended poultry and dairy farms where workers have had to kill millions of birds to prevent more infections. It's a battle US consumers have felt at the grocery store and a recurring theme during the presidential campaign - in January, the average cost of eggs in the US rose more than 15% from a year ago, to $4.95 a dozen.Mr Kreher said that despite a host of security measures, including washing vehicles on farms, wearing steel-toed boots and using lasers to deter wild birds, the outbreak continues to worsen across the country.Bird flu "is on our minds from the moment we get up to the moment we sleep, if sleep comes", he said. "We need new strategies to fight this virus."
A new Trump strategy for farmers in crisis
California poultry farmer Christian Alexandre has seen firsthand the financial and emotional devastation of a bird flu outbreak. In 2022, he had to kill all 45,000 of his chickens when the virus spread at his family farm near the Oregon border."It was extremely painful," said Mr Alexandre, president of the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association.In response to soaring egg prices, Trump officials now say they want to move away from the slaughtering, focusing instead on preventative measures.Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told the BBC's US partner CBS News last week that he is working on a plan with newly confirmed USDA leader Brooke Rollins to combat the virus "with biosecurity and medication"."Rollins and I have been working with all the best people in government, including academics around the country and around the world, to have a plan ready for the president next week," Hassett said.Mr Alexandre said he was not sure that vaccinations and other precautions could replace the need to cull flocks - but he said new ideas were desperately needed."What farmers and the USDA have been doing has just obviously not worked," he said. "We're in a crisis."Vaccines for birds against the avian flu already exist in countries around the world, and last week, the USDA granted conditional approval to a new shot developed by Zoetis.Still, many poultry industry groups oppose vaccinating birds against the virus. This is because most countries don't accept exports of poultry that are vaccinated because of fears that it masks the presence of the virus, said Tom Super of the National Chicken Council.
Public health experts have been critical of the US government's response to bird flu since the virus first spread to dairy cows, arguing Biden officials fell short in their disease surveillance efforts.But Trump's team has slowed communications about the disease, which also concerns public health experts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reportedly withheld weekly reports on bird flu and canceled weeks of briefings with lawmakers and state health officials."I haven't seen anything from this administration that would say that they're taking this outbreak any more seriously," Mr Pekosz said.Ms Simoneau sees one encouraging sign from the Trump administration: Gerald Parker, a bird flu expert, veterinarian and former top-ranking health official, was chosen to lead the White House's Pandemic Office.At the same time, she said, the wide cuts and the decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization under Trump's leadership could hamper efforts to respond to H5N1."We're cutting ourselves off from that global information system at a time when we really need all of those signals that we can get," she said.Ms Simoneau said fatigue and a decrease in trust in public health officials following the Covid pandemic makes for a difficult environment for any administration to respond to a potential health crisis. But, she said, the threat is one Trump officials should take seriously."We don't know if this could be an emergency for humans next week, or if it could be several months from now, or if it might not happen at all," Ms Simoneau said. "But taking your eye off the ball isn't really an option."

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Mirror
7 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Tennis legend goes public with heartbreaking health diagnosis
Monica Seles was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis - a neuromuscular autoimmune disease - in 2022 and the nine-time Grand Slam winner has now chosen to go public Tennis legend Monica Seles has revealed that she was diagnosed with a life-changing neuromuscular disease three years ago. Seles, 51, decided to go public with her rare condition - myasthenia gravis - ahead of this month's US Open. A nine-time Grand Slam champion, the Serbian-American player won the Australian Open four times, the French Open three times and the US Open twice in her prestigious career. Seles retired in 2008, although her last match was five years prior. The former world No.1 now deals with a rare condition which causes muscle weakness and can affect most parts of the body. Seles says that she first noticed symptoms around five years ago. "I would be playing [tennis] with some kids or family members, and I would miss a ball," she told the Associated Press. "I was like, 'Yeah, I see two balls.' These are obviously symptoms that you can't ignore. "It took me quite some time to really absorb it, speak openly about it, because it's a difficult one. It affects my day-to-day life quite a lot." The 51-year-old said that she'd never heard of the condition until seeing a doctor and being referred to a neurologist. Her symptoms included double vision and weakness in her arms. "Just blowing my hair out... became very difficult," she added. "When I got diagnosed, I was like, 'What?!' So this is where - I can't emphasise enough - I wish I had somebody like me speak up about it." Seles - who has two children and is married to Tom Golisano, 83 - is getting used to the 'new normal', categorising her illness with another incident in her life. In April 1993, she was attacked by a man with a knife at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany. The 1995 US Open marked her return to competition, making it to the final before losing to Steffi Grafi. "The way they welcomed me... after my stabbing, I will never forget," Seles recalled. "Those are the moments that stay with you. She went on to say: "I had to, in tennis terms, I guess, reset - hard reset - a few times. I call my first hard reset when I came to the US as a young 13-year-old (from Yugoslavia). Didn't speak the language; left my family. It's a very tough time. "Then, obviously, becoming a great player, it's a reset, too, because the fame, money, the attention, changes (everything), and it's hard as a 16-year-old to deal with all that. Then obviously my stabbing - I had to do a huge reset. "And then, really, being diagnosed with myasthenia gravis: another reset. But one thing, as I tell kids that I mentor: 'You've got to always adjust. That ball is bouncing, and you've just got to adjust'. And that's what I'm doing now."


The Independent
9 hours ago
- The Independent
A record number of Americans see moderate drinking as harmful, a new Gallup poll shows
Fewer Americans are reporting that they drink alcohol amid a growing belief that even moderate alcohol consumption is a health risk, according to a new Gallup poll released Wednesday. A record high percentage of U.S. adults, 53%, now say moderate drinking is bad for their health, up from 28% in 2015. The uptick in doubt about alcohol's benefits is largely driven by young adults — the age group that is most likely to believe drinking 'one or two drinks a day' can cause health hazards — but older adults are also now increasingly likely to think moderate drinking carries risks. As concerns about health impacts rise, fewer Americans are reporting that they drink. The survey finds that 54% of U.S. adults say they drink alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer. That's lower than at any other point in the past three decades. The findings of the poll, which was conducted in July, indicate that after years of many believing that moderate drinking was harmless — or even beneficial — worries about alcohol consumption are taking hold. According to Gallup's data, even those who consume alcohol are drinking less. The federal government is updating new dietary guidelines, including those around alcohol. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, government data showed U.S. alcohol consumption was trending up. But other government surveys have shown a decline in certain types of drinking, particularly among teenagers and young adults. This comes alongside a new drumbeat of information about alcohol's risks. While moderate drinking was once thought to have benefits for heart health, health professionals in recent years have pointed to overwhelming evidence that alcohol consumption leads to negative health outcomes and is a leading cause of cancer. Growing skepticism about alcohol's benefits Younger adults have been quicker than older Americans to accept that drinking is harmful, but older adults are coming around to the same view. About two-thirds of 18- to 34-year-olds believe moderate drinking is unhealthy, according to the new poll, up from about 4 in 10 in 2015. Older adults are less likely to see alcohol as harmful — about half of Americans age 55 or older believe this — but that's a substantial increase, too. In 2015, only about 2 in 10 adults age 55 or older thought alcohol was bad for their health. In the past, moderate drinking was thought to have some benefits. That idea came from imperfect studies that largely didn't include younger people and couldn't prove cause and effect. Now the scientific consensus has shifted, and several countries recently lowered their alcohol consumption recommendations. Earlier this year, the outgoing U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, recommended a label on bottles of beer, wine and liquor that would clearly outline the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. The federal government's current dietary guidelines recommend Americans not drink or, if they do consume alcohol, men should limit themselves to two drinks a day or fewer while women should stick to one or fewer. Gallup's director of U.S. social research, Lydia Saad, said shifting health advice throughout older Americans' lives may be a reason why they have been more gradual than young adults to recognize alcohol as harmful. 'Older folks may be a little more hardened in terms of the whiplash that they get with recommendations,' Saad said. 'It may take them a little longer to absorb or accept the information. Whereas, for young folks, this is the environment that they've grown up in ... in many cases, it would be the first thing young adults would have heard as they were coming into adulthood.' The government is expected to release new guidelines later this year, under the directive of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has promised big changes. Kennedy has not hinted at how the alcohol recommendations may shift. Drinking rates fall to decade low Slightly more than half of Americans, 54%, report that they drink alcohol — a low in Gallup's data that is especially pronounced among women and young adults. Young Americans' alcohol consumption has been trending downward for years, accelerating the overall decline in alcohol consumption. In sharp contrast with Gallup's findings two decades ago, when young adults were likeliest to report drinking, young adults' drinking rate is now slightly below middle-aged and older adults. Americans' reported drinking is among the lowest since the question was first asked in 1939. For most of the last few decades, at least 6 in 10 Americans have reported drinking alcoholic beverages, only dipping below that point a few times in the question's history. Americans who drink alcohol are consuming less Even if concerns about health risks aren't causing some adults to give up alcohol entirely, these worries could be influencing how often they drink. The survey found that adults who think moderate drinking is bad for one's health are just as likely as people who don't share those concerns to report that they drink, but fewer of the people with health worries had consumed alcohol recently. About half of those who worry moderate drinking is unhealthy said they had a drink in the previous week, compared with about 7 in 10 who did not think drinking was bad for their health. Overall, only about one-quarter of Americans who drink said they had consumed alcohol in the prior 24 hours, a record low in the survey. Roughly 4 in 10 said that it had been more than a week since they had poured a drink. ___


Telegraph
9 hours ago
- Telegraph
Councils turn down swimming pool temperatures to cut energy costs
Swimming pool temperatures have been turned down as councils grapple with rising energy costs. Some 15 per cent of councils have turned down the temperature of pools they run across leisure centres and other facilities since 2020, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) response. The Local Government Association (LGA) linked the reduction to the financially 'fragile position' of authorities. Five of the authorities laid part of the blame on sustainability and net zero targets, the BBC reported, with critics saying they feared it could put people off swimming. Tiffany Watson, who used to swim to help her muscular dystrophy, which is muscle weakness that worsens over time, urged councils to reconsider the move. Out of 256 councils across the country, 39 admitted they had reduced the temperature of their pools in the past five years. Some 33 local councils had reduced it permanently, in at least one main pool, or a learner pool. However, no council lowered the temperature below the guidelines issued by the Pool and Water Treatment Advisory Group, the standards body for swimming pools in the UK. South West England had the highest percentage of councils that had reduced their pool temperatures, with 27 per cent of authorities making the change. More than 30 of the local authorities admitted they had done so due to energy price hikes following the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The price of electricity has risen since 2019, more than doubling in that period from 12.9 p/kWh to 28.39 p/kWh in 2023. A spokesperson for the LGA said that 'rising energy and operational costs' had forced councils to reduce, or close altogether, their leisure facilities. A Department of Culture, Media and Sport spokesperson said the government was 'absolutely committed to building a healthier nation and reducing pressure on our NHS'. The department said that they were working with the sport and leisure sector as part of a £400m pledge to support grass roots facilities, promote 'health, wellbeing and community cohesion' and help 'remove the barriers to physical activity for under-represented groups'.