Fact Check: Look out for this message about fictional recall on chicken, eggs
Claim:
In February 2025, the U.S. was experiencing a recall on chicken and Eggland's Best eggs.
Rating:
In early February 2025, people were sharing a message (archived) with an alleged warning against buying chicken and Eggland's Best eggs in the U.S. because of a supposed recall. The message read:
FYI: Sharing information that was just shared with me.
DO NOT BUY CHICKEN!!! Please tell your family and friends!
The president has paused all announcements and communications from the CDC, FDA, etc., until 2/1 and there is a hugggggheeeeeee recall on chicken and eggland eggs that is NOT being properly announced to the public. (Sound familiar... remember the COVID delayed Announcement?) Please, please, please, DO NOT BUY CHICKEN, or please do your own research before you do.
A friend works for CDC, and she confirmed this. Pass it on! Please
My contact said: The bird flu is happening and there are some confirmed cases in the United States.
Some versions of the message had slight variations, such as changing the communications pause date from "2/1" to "2/15," or saying that the information came from a "friend who works for the White House."
The message can be split into the following claims:
The U.S. government has issued a large recall on chicken and Eggland's Best eggs.
The recall is not being publicized due to an alleged mandate by U.S. President Donald Trump to freeze communications from public health organizations like the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The purported recall is apparently related to an outbreak of bird flu.
While that outbreak was based in reality — it began in 2022 and has led to a small number of human cases of bird flu in 10 states — the message's warning against buying chicken and eggs was not.
The message had several indications of being misinformation. Firstly, it incorrectly stated that the FDA and CDC were responsible for the recall. In reality, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is in charge of recalls for chicken and egg products, while the FDA is in charge of recalls for shell eggs.
Furthermore, the author of the message was unknown. The text simply cited an unnamed "friend" who supposedly works at the CDC — again, an agency that does not handle food recalls — as its purported source, though, due to their anonymity, it was impossible to verify their existence or involvement.
The message also claimed an order by Trump paused communications from public health agencies, and that the purported pause was preventing people from knowing about the suppressed recall. Several reputable news outlets reported that the Trump administration ordered a freeze on such communications (Snopes could not independently confirm the memo's authenticity). However, the memo's pause ended on Feb. 1, 2025, and made exceptions for messages that could affect people's health. Furthermore, the USDA replied to Snopes' request for comment about the recall — discrediting the assertion that the federal government was suppressing information about it — and said the agency has not stopped issuing recall alerts for products under its jurisdiction.
The reference to a communication pause stemmed from a purported memo sent under Trump that ordered a freeze on "many federal health agency communications," according to reputable news outlets including The Associated Press. CBS News and NPR published a copy of the memo, which said the freeze lasted until Feb. 1 and affected agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services, including the FDA and CDC. The memo provided an exception for any communications that might "affect critical health, safety, environmental, financial or national security functions of the Department." Presumably, a large food recall like the one described in the viral message would fall under that category.
While the FDA did not reply to Snopes' request for comment on the issue, the USDA, which is directly in charge of recalls on meat, poultry and certain egg products, did. A spokesperson said via email that the agency has continued releasing recall and public health alerts on its website for products under its jurisdiction, including meat (and catfish), poultry and all non-shelled egg products.
The USDA has issued three such alerts, including two recalls, since Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2025: warnings about a "foreign matter contamination" in certain sausage, an "extraneous material contamination" in a specific type of breaded chicken nuggets and potential misbranding of other chicken products. None of those issues involved bird flu.
In other words, the message's implication that the reported communication pause was suppressing information about a large recall on chicken was not based on fact.
The message implies the recall is due to the bird flu — and that people who consume chicken or eggs are at risk of infection.
However, the risk of contracting bird flu from eating infected chicken or egg is almost zero. According to information from the CDC published during former President Joe Biden's administration, bird flu primarily spreads from chickens and cows when people have long, direct contact with infected animals or contaminated surfaces. The virus also can spread through the air via dust particles, or via liquids like saliva, mucus, feces and unpasteurized (raw) milk. No human cases of bird flu have been reported because a person properly handled raw chicken or consumed properly cooked chicken or eggs.
A 2010 report coauthored by the FDA and USDA modeling a hypothetical outbreak of bird flu found that between 95% and 98% of chicken and turkey flocks infected with bird flu would be identified before they were killed and packaged for human consumption and more than 99.99% of eggs produced by infected hens would be removed from circulation before making it to supermarket shelves.
Also, cooking chicken properly (to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit, or 73.9 degrees Celsius, all the way through) inactivates the virus, rendering the chicken safe to eat. Washing your hands and cleaning your cutting boards and knives after handling raw chicken eliminates contamination risk.
For eggs, the 2010 report states that in-shell pasteurization will also inactivate the virus.
In other words, even if the recall were real, the risk of catching bird flu from eating contaminated chicken or eggs is negligible, especially if people practice good food safety.
The message did say one thing correctly — "The bird flu is happening and there are some confirmed cases in the United States."
Many stores and restaurants across the nation were reportedly facing egg shortages due to the outbreak, as of early February 2025.
According to data from the CDC and USDA, the flu has infected more than 153 million birds nationwide and numerous herds of cows in 16 states since the outbreak began in 2022. As of this writing, 67 people across 10 states have tested positive for bird flu, and one person has died. All but four cases involved people who work in agriculture, putting them in close proximity to potentially infected animals.
Crucially, no human infected with bird flu in the current outbreak has transmitted the disease to someone else. The CDC currently rates the risk of bird flu to the general population as "low."
2022–2024 Detections of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.
CDC. "Current Situation: Bird Flu in Humans." Avian Influenza (Bird Flu), 14 Jan. 2025, https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/inhumans.html.
---. "H5 Bird Flu: Current Situation." Avian Influenza (Bird Flu), 4 Feb. 2025, https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html.
---. "Raw Milk." Food Safety, 31 Jan. 2025, https://www.cdc.gov/food-safety/foods/raw-milk.html.
---. "USDA Reported H5N1 Bird Flu Detections in Poultry." Avian Influenza (Bird Flu), 4 Feb. 2025, https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/data-map-commercial.html.
---. "What Causes Bird Flu Virus Infections in Humans." Avian Influenza (Bird Flu), 6 Nov. 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/virus-transmission/avian-in-humans.html.
Confirmations of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Commercial and Backyard Flocks | Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/commercial-backyard-flocks. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.
"Egg Shortages Are Now Hitting Restaurants, With No Relief in Sight." Bloomberg.Com, 4 Feb. 2025. www.bloomberg.com, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-04/egg-shortages-spark-price-spikes-and-are-now-hitting-restaurants.
FDA Pauses Updates on Foodborne Outbreak Probes as Health Agencies Regroup on Communications - CBS News. 24 Jan. 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-pause-foodborne-outbreak-probes-updates-communications/.
Golden, Neal, et al. Interagency Risk Assessment for the Public Health Impact of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus in Poultry, Shell Eggs, and Egg Products. U.S. Department of Agriculture, May 2010, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media_file/2022-03/Report.pdf.
H5N1 Bird Flu Might Spread from Cows to People in Several Ways. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/media/images/2024/07/cows-spread-flu.jpg.
How H5 Bird Flu Could Spread on a Dairy Farm. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/media/pdfs/2024/11/Bird-Flu-Could-Spread-Handout.pdf.
How Infected Backyard Poultry Could Spread Bird Flu to People. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Program, Human Foods. "Investigation of Avian Influenza A (H5N1) Virus in Dairy Cattle." FDA, Jan. 2025. www.fda.gov, https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/investigation-avian-influenza-h5n1-virus-dairy-cattle.
---. "Questions and Answers Regarding the Safety of Eggs During Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Outbreaks." FDA, Aug. 2024. www.fda.gov, https://www.fda.gov/food/egg-guidance-regulation-and-other-information/questions-and-answers-regarding-safety-eggs-during-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-outbreaks.
"Trump Administration Freezes Many Health Agency Reports and Online Posts." AP News, 22 Jan. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/trump-health-communications-cdc-hhs-fda-1eeca64c1ccc324b31b779a86d3999a4.
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