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Los Angeles Times
18-07-2025
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
Immigration crackdown could stymie efforts to fight bird flu outbreak, experts fear
As authorities brace for a potential resurgence in bird flu cases this fall, infectious disease specialists warn that the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants could hamper efforts to stop the spread of disease. Dairy and poultry workers have been disproportionately infected with the H5N1 bird flu since it was first detected in U.S. dairy cows in March 2024, accounting for 65 of the 70 confirmed infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As is the case throughout agriculture, immigrants make up a significant proportion of this workforce and both industry groups and academics say many of these workers probably entered the U.S. illegally. That could spell trouble for a future outbreak of bird flu, infectious disease experts say, making workers reluctant to cooperate with health investigators. 'Most dairy and poultry workers, regardless of their immigration status, are in no way going to be like, 'hey, government, yeah, of course, check me out, I think I might have H5N1,'' said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Canada. 'No, they're going to keep their heads down and be as quiet as possible so that they don't end up at' an immigration detention center, such as Alligator Alcatraz, she said. Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture didn't respond to requests for comment. Neither did the California Department of Public Health, which has been on the front line of worker testing and safety — offering $25 gift cards to workers who agree to be tested and providing personal protective equipment to farmers and workers. 'To imply that the Trump Administration's lawful approach to immigration enforcement is somehow suppressing disease reporting is a leap unsupported by evidence and dismissive of the real work being done by the agency,' a spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Administration said in a statement. Public health officials say the risk of H5N1 infection to the general public is low. People who work with livestock and wild animals are considered to be at elevated risk. The Trump administration paused immigration arrests at farms, hospitals and restaurants last month, but later reversed course. This month, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that there are plenty of able-bodied Americans to perform farm labor and that there would be 'no amnesty' for undocumented farmworkers. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University, said that there are two big risks with the administration's crackdown. Dairy and poultry workers are on the front line of the virus, handling both diseased and infected animals. If they are too afraid to report symptoms or get tested, 'it increases the risk that someone could die because the medicines need to be given early after onset of symptoms,' she said. Nuzzo said the crackdown also decreases the likelihood that a pandemic could be detected in its early stages. 'The virus needs to change and become easily transmissible between people to cause a pandemic and we need to know about as many infections as possible to track the virus and prevent it from gaining those abilities,' Nuzzo said. '[If] people don't come forward, we can't do that.' In the spring, eight undocumented workers at a Vermont dairy were arrested; four were ultimately deported. The raids sent shock waves through the small, tight-knit dairy industry of New England and sent a message to dairies elsewhere that no place is safe. Anja Raudabaugh, chief executive of Western United Dairies, California's largest dairy trade association, said dairy farmers aren't worried about bird flu, adding that measures are in place to protect workers and to prevent a rapid spread of disease. From a public health perspective, she said, the state is better positioned than it was last year. 'One of the biggest changes in the ground response to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is that the occupational health clinics, ERs, and other rural clinics now have access to the testing equipment necessary to detect the virus (where they didn't last year),' she said in an email. In addition, the state's health department has provided the anti-viral medication, Tamiflu, to health clinics 'so the workers feel reinforced that their families can be protected.' The dairy trade group also has no objections to the immigration crackdown. 'America wants this problem solved and dairy farmers are ready to be part of the solution,' Raudabaugh said. 'We do not fear ICE. These are good, full-time jobs and we hire anyone who loves cows and wants to work in a quiet, blue-collar family environment.' Dairy farmer Joey Airoso said the effect on both his workers and cows was minimal when his Pixley dairy was hit by the virus last year. His bigger concern is 'the wide open border that's let a lot of people into are country that are here for the wrong reasons,' said Airoso, who owns about 2,600 head of cattle. But Raw Farms dairy owner Mark McAfee said he and his neighboring farmers in Fresno County are 'freaked out' by the ICE raids and 'want no part of it.' McAfee's dairy, which produces raw milk, was shut down by the virus for several months last year. He's worried not only about the virus returning, but also about immigration agents seizing his workers, many of whom are foreign born. 'Everybody we have is legal, but they (ICE) don't give a damn about that — they're picking them up, too,' he said. 'Legal status doesn't mean a lot, and that's really scary, because that's something we all relied upon for previous 25 years of operation.' One question is whether the state will face another big outbreak of bird flu. There have been only sporadic infections this summer. Detections of the virus in wastewater is low, and in the last 30 days, only two dairy herds — one each in California and Arizona — and one commercial poultry flock in Pennsylvania have reported outbreaks. But most experts agree that's likely to change as migrating birds congregate in fields and around lakes as they journey south later this year — passing virus between one another and infecting young birds with no immunity. 'We have 60,000 waterfowl in California right now,' said Maurice Pitesky, a poultry expert at UC Davis. 'By late fall, early winter, that number will jump to 6 million.' Waterfowl — ducks and geese — are considered the primary carriers of the virus. Since the virus reappeared in North America at the end of 2022, new variants and widespread outbreaks have followed the migrating birds — infecting poultry farms, resident wild birds, wild mammals, such as racoons, mountain lions and skunks, as well as marine and domestic mammals. In late 2023, the virus made a jump into dairy cattle. And in the fall of 2024, a new variant — the D1.1 version of the virus — sparked a new outbreak in dairy cows, poultry and other animals. Andrew Ramey, director of the Molecular Ecology Lab at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center, which monitors for H5N1 in wild bird populations, said one possibility is that the bird flu could return in a more virulent state. 'I think we're all kind of bracing to see what might happen this fall,' he said.
Scientific American
15-07-2025
- Health
- Scientific American
Where Did Bird Flu Go?
For months, bird flu was seemingly everywhere in the U.S.: news headlines reported the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus was rapidly sweeping through hundreds of herds of dairy cattle and leading to massive culls of poultry flocks, concerning infections in humans and grocery store aisles where nary an egg could be found. But nearly as quickly as bird flu took hold in daily conversations, it disappeared from them and most people's thoughts—making it easy for the public to think avian influenza's threat had waned. Far from it, experts say. 'The flu is still there, and we just don't know enough about it,' says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan. What made the virus apparently fade away—and what does that mean for the future of bird flu? On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. One scenario experts have definitively ruled out is that the currently circulating bird flu virus—a member of a subtype of influenza called H5N1 for the proteins on its surface—is simply vanishing on its own, says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University. 'There has been this wishful thinking that it's just going to wipe through and be gone, and we've just not seen that, and that's just not how flu viruses work,' Nuzzo says. 'This isn't going away.' Experts are still monitoring for H5N1 avian influenza in a variety of animals: wild birds, commercial poultry animals, wild mammals, dairy cattle and humans—and finding it, albeit at lower rates. But the virus is tricky, behaving somewhat differently in each host. Here's what we know about the current state of the virus. The most reliable data on bird flu prevalence come from poultry operations. That's because the virus is so devastating in chickens and turkeys that farmers must cull flocks as soon as they detect an infection to reduce spread. They are also able to report outbreaks to the federal government to receive partial compensation. There's no way to ignore a sick flock or any incentive to hide one. And right now poultry tolls to avian influenza are relatively low. Farmers reported just three million poultry birds killed by the virus or culled to stop it in March and April combined compared with 23 million and 12 million in January and February, respectively. May saw more than five million birds dead after the virus infiltrated several massive egg-laying facilities in Maricopa County, Arizona. But June rates fell far below one million birds, and July cases to date remain very low, with just one commercial facility affected so far. These lower rates of bird flu aren't particularly surprising, given the virus's past behavior in poultry to date, says Mike Persia, a poultry specialist at Virginia Tech. 'We generally see a reduction in infections over the summer,' he says. Since the current outbreak began in early 2022, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show that, each year, the monthly count of affected poultry birds has tended to dip to under five million in June, July and August. Two factors seem to contribute to the apparent seasonal trend, Persia says. The virus appears to falter in higher ambient temperatures, and the migratory wild birds that typically introduce the virus into poultry flocks aren't traveling as widely now that breeding season is in full swing. But the outbreak's history tells a cautionary tale: each autumn, the number of affected poultry birds rises again—so it would be premature to assume H5N1 is done with us. 'I'm optimistic that maybe this was the last of it, and it goes away forever. I wouldn't take the lull as proof of that, though,' says Jada Thompson, an agricultural economist at the University of Arkansas. 'We need to maintain vigilance.' Evaluating the outbreak in U.S. dairy cattle has been more difficult. Cows that are sick with bird flu eat less and produce thick and discolored milk. But the infection isn't nearly as fatal in cattle as it is in poultry, making the virus harder to see in the former. And there's no recompense for lost milk to encourage farmers to report being hit. In addition, the virus's jump into dairy cattle in late 2023 was wildly unexpected and not publicly confirmed until March 2024, giving dairy farmers and virologists little time to understand bird flu's tendencies in the species. Last year cases continued throughout the summer, particularly in the hard-hit state of Colorado. Spread proved to be difficult to contain, in part because of the movement of animals required by the dairy industry. And although the virus can be monitored through milk, officials only began mandating such testing last December, after a full year of viral circulation. This year reported infections have trailed off, with only two herds confirmed to have the virus in all of June. But it's unclear how to interpret the trend—dairy farmers, too, are left poised between caution and optimism. Throughout the outbreak, bird flu risk to humans has been low, although dairy and poultry workers with exposure to infected animals have been more vulnerable. The first detected human infection in 2024 came shortly after confirmation that dairy cattle had become sick with H5N1. Additional human cases came in flurries throughout the intervening months, totaling 70 confirmed infections, including one death, by mid-February. Since then, infection tallies at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have stalled. Experts doubt that's a good thing. 'I can't rule out that part of why we're not finding infections is: we're just simply not looking for them,' Nuzzo says. Throughout the outbreak, the CDC has kept a running tally of the testing it is conducting, and those numbers paint a clear picture. As of July 1, the CDC noted that more than 880 people had been subject to targeted testing after exposure to infected animals. On March 1 that number had been more than 840; in contrast, the February 1 number was more than 660. The CDC tested more than four times as many people in February as in March, April, May and June combined. Another way experts have kept tabs on bird flu has been through existing national flu surveillance—but because normal flu infections are in a seasonal lull, so are tests through that network. The result is a lot of question marks. 'We are in sort of a perfect storm of no testing,' Rasmussen says. Even wastewater monitoring, which has proven helpful in understanding levels of the virus that causes COVID as testing rates have fallen, is of limited help. The approach looks for the presence of viruses in community water processing plants, but H5N1 is spread so broadly across species that it is nearly impossible to use these detections to definitively trace sources. 'You don't know how it got there,' Nuzzo says of the virus in wastewater. 'You don't know if people are infected; you don't know if [the virus is present] because birds were hanging out in the wastewater.' In some cases, spikes in wastewater levels of H5N1 have even been linked to farmers dumping milk from their infected cows. Nuzzo suspects that there have certainly been more human cases of avian influenza than the 70 confirmed to date but that the virus is not spreading widely. 'I don't think there's some huge iceberg of infections that we're missing,' Nuzzo says. Nuzzo and Rasmussen find that cold comfort, however. Instead they emphasize how vital it is to have as much intel as possible about what H5N1 is doing. Choosing not to seek out evidence of the virus's behavior means passing up on the opportunity to catch any early signs of a pandemic in the making. 'No news in my world is not good news,' Rasmussen says. 'We're just not collecting any data, and those are two very, very different things.' The U.S.'s current approach is simply further shrouding a situation that is already difficult to parse—given the complexity of a multispecies outbreak and the unpredictable nature of rapidly changing influenza viruses. 'This is the kind of thing that could become a pandemic tomorrow, [or] it could never become a pandemic. And I don't know which one is going to happen,' Rasmussen says. 'This is a huge risk, but it's also a risk that may never come to pass,' she says. 'But we won't know if we just stop looking for it.'
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Pandemic preparedness ‘dramatically eroding' under Trump, experts say
Amid controversial dismissals for independent advisers and staff at health agencies, alongside lackluster responses to the bird flu and measles outbreaks, experts fear the US is now in worse shape to respond to a pandemic than before 2020. H5N1, which has received less attention under the Trump administration than from Biden's team, is not the only influenza virus or even the only variant of bird flu with the potential to spark a pandemic. But a subpar response to the ongoing US outbreak signals a larger issue: America is not ready for whatever pathogen will sweep through next. 'We have not even remotely maintained the level of pandemic preparedness – which needed a lot of work, as we saw from the Covid pandemic,' said Angela Rasmussen, an American virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. 'But now, we essentially have no pandemic preparedness.' 'I'm concerned on a number of fronts,' said Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health. Those concerns include a lack of quality information from officials, weakened virus monitoring systems, and public health reductions at the federal, state and local levels. 'The thing that I am most concerned about is the veracity of information coming out of the health agencies,' Nuzzo said. In the ongoing outbreaks of measles, for example, Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of health and human services, has downplayed the severity of the disease, spread misinformation about the highly effective vaccine to prevent measles, and pushed unproven treatments. 'The communications on measles gives me deep worries about what would happen in a pandemic,' Nuzzo said. 'If a pandemic were to occur today, the only thing we would have to protect ourselves on day one would be information.' The H5N1 outbreak has been plagued by incomplete information, an issue that began in the Biden administration but has amplified under Trump. In Arizona, 6 million chickens were killed or culled at a Hickman's Family Farms location because of H5N1 in May. That's about 95% of the company's hen population in the state. Hundreds of workers, including inmate laborers, are now being dismissed as Arizona braces for egg shortages. Yet even as H5N1 outbreaks continue to spread on farms and wreak havoc on the food supply, no new bird flu cases have been reported in people for months. 'I am concerned that we may not be finding new infections in humans,' Nuzzo said – and a lack of testing may be the culprit. 'We're not testing – it's not that there are no new cases,' Rassmussen said. The last bird flu case in a person was listed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on 23 February. At that point, at least 830 people in the US had been tested after contact with sick animals. This kind of testing – monitoring the health of people who regularly work with H5N1-infected animals – is how the vast majority of cases (64 out of 70) have been found in this outbreak. But then, several CDC officials overseeing the bird flu response were fired on 1 April. Since then, only about 50 people in the US have been tested after exposure to sick animals – and no positive cases have been announced. It's also been difficult to understand the extent of the outbreak and how the virus spreads among animals. 'We still just don't have a good picture of the scope and scale of this outbreak – we never really have. And until we have that, we're not going to be able to contain it,' Rasmussen said. 'It's extremely bad,' she continued. 'We don't have any information about what's happening right now. The next pandemic could be starting, and we just don't know where that's happening, and we don't have any ability to find out.' Huge reductions in the public health workforce and resources has led to less monitoring of outbreaks, known as disease surveillance. 'Cutting back on that surveillance is leaving us more in the dark,' Nuzzo said. The CDC clawed back $11.4bn in Covid funding in March. This funding was used to monitor, test, vaccinate and otherwise respond to public health issues at the state, local, territorial and tribal level. 'We're seeing health departments scrambling,' Nuzzo said. 'That infrastructure is just dramatically eroding.' International monitoring programs to address outbreaks before they expand across borders have also been cancelled. 'We have taken for granted all of those protections, and I fear that we are poised to see the consequences,' Nuzzo said. Trump's crackdown on immigration also poses a major challenge in detecting cases and treating patients during outbreaks. 'A lot of the people who are most at risk are strongly disincentivized to report any cases, given that many of them are undocumented or are not US citizens,' Rasmussen said. 'Nobody wants to go get tested if they're going to end up in an Ice detention facility.' When cases are not detected, that means patients are not able to access care. Although it's rare for people to become sick with H5N1, for instance – the virus is still primarily an avian, not a human, influenza – this variant of bird flu has a 52% mortality rate globally among people with known infections. Allowing a deadly virus to spread and mutate under the radar has troubling implications for its ability to change into a human influenza without anyone knowing. And if such changes were detected, widening gaps in communication could be the next hurdle for preventing a pandemic, Nuzzo said. 'Communication is our most important public health intervention. People, in order to be able to know how to protect themselves, need to have access to facts, and they need to believe in the messengers. And the communication around the measles outbreaks are deeply eroding our standing with the American people.' Even stockpiled vaccines and other protective measures, like personal protective equipment, take time to distribute, Nuzzo added. 'And flu is a fast-moving disease that could cause a lot of damage in the months it would take to mount a vaccination campaign.' The US government's cancellation of its $766m contract with Moderna to research and develop an H5N1 vaccine also signals a concerning strategy from health officials, Nuzzo and Rasmussen said. Other restrictions on vaccine development, like a new plan to test all vaccines against saline placebos, is 'going to make it extremely difficult to approve any new vaccine' and would 'have a devastating impact on our ability to respond to a potential pandemic', Rasmussen said – especially in a rapidly moving pandemic where speed matters. 'You don't have time for that if this virus causes a human-to–human outbreak,' Rasmussen said. All of these policies mean the US is less prepared for a pandemic than it was in 2020, she said. And it also means there will be preventable suffering now, even before the next big one strikes. 'We are actively making people less safe, less healthy and more dead,' Rasmussen said.
Globe and Mail
11-06-2025
- Health
- Globe and Mail
Kennedy's firing of U.S. immunization committee is worrisome, Canadian scientists say
Canadian doctors and scientists say Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s firing of an immunization advisory committee south of the border is worrisome. On Monday, the U.S. health and human services secretary – a longtime anti-vaccine advocate – said he will appoint new members to the scientific group that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about vaccination. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, said Tuesday that the move will foster more false anti-vaccine beliefs, not only in the U.S. but also in Canada. 'It creates a culture in which anti-vaxx beliefs are more accepted and challenged a lot less. And also it creates an environment where there's an alternative to an evidence-based recommendation framework,' she said. Opinion: The measles outbreak shows why we need a vaccine registry Even though Kennedy's new appointments will make vaccine recommendations specific to the United States, any disinformation could also feed vaccine hesitancy among Canadians, Rasmussen said. 'We have a lot of the same anti-vaxx sentiment up here. Certainly this will at the very least empower [that],' she said. Rasmussen said current measles outbreaks in both countries show the consequences of disinformation that leads to parents not immunizing their children against preventable diseases. She said Canada could also experience some fallout if the new committee pulls back vaccination recommendations, because manufacturers may cut back on production and that could lead to shortages. 'There's a lot of potential for really, really damaging vaccine access throughout the U.S. and potentially around the world because the U.S. market has a big impact on what vaccine manufacturers are actually going to make and manufacture,' she said. 'There's so many ways that this can end up really badly for vaccination in general. And it really causes me a lot of concern.' Rasmussen said the firing of the advisory committee members is just the latest in a series of anti-public health actions Kennedy has taken. 'It's a death by a thousand cuts,' said Rasmussen, who is American and moved to Canada during the pandemic to work at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization. Ontario baby's measles-related death highlights that vaccination is critical, health experts say U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has already cut billions of dollars in research grants at the National Institutes of Health. In May, the administration cancelled a contract with mRNA vaccine manufacturer Moderna to develop a vaccine against potential pandemic influenza viruses, including H5N1 avian flu. 'It just seems that there is a top-down approach that views mRNA vaccines in particular – vaccination in general, but mRNA vaccines in particular – with distrust and is trying to dismantle that particular avenue of medical research,' said Dr. Jesse Papenburg, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Montreal Children's Hospital. Papenburg, who is a member of Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization but was not speaking on its behalf, said although the Moderna contract cancellation and the firing of the U.S. vaccine advisory committee members are two separate actions, they're both concerning as Canada tries to prepare for potential human-to-human transmission of H5N1. 'Both are potentially very dangerous when it comes to America's and the world's ability to respond to emerging infectious diseases for which vaccines could be a useful medical countermeasure,' he said.
CTV News
11-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
RFK Jr.'s firing of U.S. immunization committee worrisome, Canadian scientists say
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Cheryl Hines talk to guests before President Donald Trump speaks during a summer soiree on the South Lawn of the White House, Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) TORONTO — Canadian doctors and scientists say Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s firing of an immunization advisory committee south of the border is worrisome. On Monday, the U.S. health and human services secretary — a longtime anti-vaccine advocate — said he will appoint new members to the scientific group that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about vaccination. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, said Tuesday that the move will foster more false anti-vaccine beliefs, not only in the U.S. but also in Canada. 'It creates a culture in which anti-vaxx beliefs are more accepted and challenged a lot less. And also it creates an environment where there's an alternative to an evidence-based recommendation framework,' she said. Even though Kennedy's new appointments will make vaccine recommendations specific to the United States, any disinformation could also feed vaccine hesitancy among Canadians, Rasmussen said. 'We have a lot of the same anti-vaxx sentiment up here. Certainly this will at the very least empower (that),' she said. Rasmussen said current measles outbreaks in both countries show the consequences of disinformation that leads to parents not immunizing their children against preventable diseases. She said Canada could also experience some fallout if the new committee pulls back vaccination recommendations, because manufacturers may cut back on production and that could lead to shortages. 'There's a lot of potential for really, really damaging vaccine access throughout the U.S. and potentially around the world because the U.S. market has a big impact on what vaccine manufacturers are actually going to make and manufacture,' she said. 'There's so many ways that this can end up really badly for vaccination in general. And it really causes me a lot of concern.' Rasmussen said the firing of the advisory committee members is just the latest in a series of anti-public health actions Kennedy has taken. 'It's a death by a thousand cuts,' said Rasmussen, who is American and moved to Canada during the pandemic to work at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has already cut billions of dollars in research grants at the National Institutes of Health. In May, the administration cancelled a contract with mRNA vaccine manufacturer Moderna to develop a vaccine against potential pandemic influenza viruses, including H5N1 avian flu. 'It just seems that there is a top-down approach that views mRNA vaccines in particular — vaccination in general, but mRNA vaccines in particular — with distrust and is trying to dismantle that particular avenue of medical research,' said Dr. Jesse Papenburg, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Montreal Children's Hospital. Papenburg, who is a member of Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization but was not speaking on its behalf, said although the Moderna contract cancellation and the firing of the U.S. vaccine advisory committee members are two separate actions, they're both concerning as Canada tries to prepare for potential human-to-human transmission of H5N1. 'Both are potentially very dangerous when it comes to America's and the world's ability to respond to emerging infectious diseases for which vaccines could be a useful medical countermeasure,' he said. — With files from The Associated Press This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 11, 2025. Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content. Nicole Ireland, The Canadian Press
