{"id":5304,"date":"2025-03-07T12:56:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T17:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/?p=5304"},"modified":"2025-03-07T14:20:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T19:20:17","slug":"press-release-new-farm-forward-research-reveals-how-federal-regulators-are-making-bird-flu-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/press-release-new-farm-forward-research-reveals-how-federal-regulators-are-making-bird-flu-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Release: New Farm Forward Research Reveals How Federal Regulators are Making Bird Flu Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<section class=\"normal_content bg-white padding-top-small padding-bottom-large\" style=\"\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"row center-md\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"col-md-7\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"content-styled\"><p><strong><em>Three years into the outbreak and amidst outrageous increases in egg prices, the United States Department of Agriculture continues to make dangerous payouts to big companies and delay corrective action.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Rate of destruction among egg-laying hens appears to be increasing <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This press release was originally sent out on March 7th, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Farm Forward released a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/publications\/are-we-subsidizing-the-next-pandemic\/\"><strong>new <\/strong><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/publications\/are-we-subsidizing-the-next-pandemic\/\"><strong>repor<\/strong><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/publications\/are-we-subsidizing-the-next-pandemic\/\"><strong>t<\/strong><\/a> today detailing how the federal government\u2019s multi-billion dollar payments to meat, egg, and dairy companies encourage the spread of bird flu, despite the growing risk of the virus mutating into a deadly human pandemic. Over $2 billion in taxpayer-funded payments have gone mainly to large, industrial meat and egg companies like Jennie-O, Cal-Maine, and Tyson, to mass kill birds that have been exposed to bird flu.<\/p>\n<p>Titled <strong><em>\u201cAre We Subsidizing the Next Pandemic?<\/em><\/strong>,\u201d Farm Forward\u2019s report finds:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>USDA compensation payments to poultry farms with infected birds actually increase human pandemic risk.<\/li>\n<li>USDA compensates repeat offenders.<\/li>\n<li>Current audits of bird flu safety measures are meaningless.<\/li>\n<li>Huge loopholes in bird flu safety requirements allow many farms to take no measures at all.<\/li>\n<li>Information blackout from the new administration leaves public health officials in the dark.<\/li>\n<li>Vaccine requirements lag far behind many other countries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<a class='btn' href='https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Bird-Flu-Report-1.2.pdf' target='_self'>Read the Report<\/a>\n<a class='btn' href='https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Bird-Flu-Brief-1.2.pdf' target='_self'>Read the summary<\/a>\n<p>Nearly a year ago, it was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/02\/science\/bird-flu-aid-animal-welfare.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported that the USDA had paid out<\/a> nearly $1 billion in what the industry calls \u201cindemnity payments,\u201d which are meant to encourage meat and egg companies to report cases of bird flu by compensating them for the value of the birds they kill off. Companies like Cal-Maine (the largest egg producer in the U.S.) are getting these bailouts even though they have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calmainefoods.com\/press-releases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">seen record profits<\/a>, attributed in part to skyrocketing prices for eggs.<\/p>\n<p>In February, the Trump administration announced plans to spend another $900 million dollars in Big Ag bailouts. This brings the total taxpayer funded bailouts for the meat and egg industry to well over $2 billion since the beginning of the outbreak in February 2022. Approximately $400 million of the new funding would go to egg and meat companies to both indemnify losses and buy new flocks of birds to replace those killed (a \u201cdouble payment\u201d since these farmers were already paid by taxpayers for the value of the birds killed). Another $500 million would pay companies to increase so-called biosecurity measures\u2014measures that have so far proven ineffective at containing the virus and which taxpayers shouldn\u2019t have to pay for.<\/p>\n<p>As noted in the report, the only measure that has proven effective in other countries is vaccine mandates, which the USDA has refused to issue because of industry pressure. Farm Forward\u2019s report documents how the USDA has admitted its own failings in oversight of biosecurity measures, with <strong>no meaningful audit system in place<\/strong> to ensure compliance. Despite this and the worsening of the pandemic, USDA response to the outbreak is likely to get <strong>weaker <\/strong>due to recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iowapublicradio.org\/ipr-news\/2025-02-21\/usda-federal-layoffs-ames-iowa-bird-flu-vaccine-testing-animal-research\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mass layoffs<\/a> of regulators at the USDA and HHS, including dozens of federal employees who have provided critical testing and tracking information.<\/p>\n<p>Additional Farm Forward research reveals the extent to which the bird flu outbreak has decimated the U.S. population of egg-laying hens, and the apparent acceleration in the rate of that destruction. According to a new analysis by Farm Forward consultant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/gail-hansen-73965118\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dr. Gail Hansen<\/a>, an expert veterinary epidemiologist, the current bird flu outbreak led to the death or intentional killing of at least <strong>13 percent of the entire US egg-laying hen population in 2024<\/strong>. The rate of cullings appears to be increasing: approximately <strong>39 percent <\/strong>of laying hens killed since the beginning of the outbreak have occurred in <strong>just the last few months, <\/strong>likely due to the emergence of a new strain of bird flu, D1.1. Following the spread of the D1.1 genotype and the resulting sharp spike in the killing of laying hens, <a href=\"https:\/\/data.bls.gov\/timeseries\/APU0000708111\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">egg prices<\/a> increased rapidly through the fall of 2024, reaching an all-time high of an average $4.95 per dozen in January 2025. The D1.1 strain\u2014now the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aphis.usda.gov\/news\/program-update\/aphis-confirms-d11-genotype-dairy-cattle-nevada-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">predominant genotype in North American flyways<\/a>\u2014is also more dangerous to humans, having caused a <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Health\/wireStory\/happened-canadian-teen-critically-ill-h5n1-bird-flu-116653081\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Canadian teen infected<\/a> after no known animal contact to become critically ill, the hospitalization of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/bird-flu\/spotlights\/h5n1-response-02262025.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">patient in Wyoming<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/01\/06\/health\/bird-flu-death-louisiana\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the death of a Louisiana man<\/a>\u2014the first human death in the US from this bird flu outbreak.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you look at this data, it is 100% clear that the government\u2019s response is not working, and is almost certainly part of why the pandemic is getting worse every day.\u201d Andrew deCoriolis, Executive Director of Farm Forward said. \u201cIt\u2019s insane for us to give away $900 million in new taxpayer handouts to meat and egg companies, on top of the $1.4 billion they\u2019ve gotten already, without demanding changes to the very practices that put us at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three years into the outbreak and amidst outrageous increases in egg prices, the United States Department of Agriculture continues to make dangerous payouts to big companies and delay corrective action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-policy","category-public-health-pandemics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}