RFK Jr. Prescription for Avian Flu on the Farm: Spread it

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country's top health authorities, has an unorthodox idea to tackle the avian flu that permeates poultry farms in the United States. Rip the virus.

Instead of culling birds when an infection is discovered, farmers need to consider the possibility of running flocks.

He repeated the ideas in other interviews on the channel.

Mr. Kennedy has no jurisdiction over the farm. However, agricultural secretary Brooke Rollins has also expressed support for the concept.

“There are farmers who are willing to try this in their pilots. We'll build safe boundaries around them and see if there's a way to move forward with immunity,” Rollins told Fox News last month.

However, veterinarian scientists said not checking a poultry herd for the virus is inhumane and dangerous, with great economic consequences.

“That's a really bad idea. For one reason or another,” said Dr. Gale Hansen, a former state veterinarian in Kansas.

Since January 2022, more than 1,600 outbreaks have been reported in farm and backyard herds in all states. More than 166 million birds have been affected.

All infections are another opportunity for a virus called H5N1, which evolves into a more virulent form. Geneticists are closely following the mutation. So far, the virus has not developed the ability to spread among people.

But if H5N1 is allowed to run through a flock of five million birds, “it's literally a five million chance for that virus to replicate or mutate,” Dr. Hansen said.

Many infected birds are likely to transmit huge amounts of viruses, putting farm workers and other animals at great risk.

“So now you're preparing yourself for bad things to happen,” Dr. Hansen said. “It's a disaster recipe.”

Emily Hilliard, deputy press chairman of the Department of Health and Human Services, said Kennedy's comments were intended to protect people “from the most dangerous version of the current avian flu seen in chickens.”

“Culling wants Secretary Kennedy and the NIH to limit culling's activities because they are at the highest risk of exposure,” she said, referring to the National Institutes of Health. “culling is not the solution. Strong biosecurity is.”

In his plan to fight the avian flu, Rollins recommended increased biosecurity on the farm. It prevented the virus from entering the facility and halted its spread with the strict cleaning and use of protective equipment.

But that is a long-term solution. The USDA has launched these efforts in just 10 states.

The virus was first rooted among wild birds, and it was transmitted to poultry and various mammalian species. Currently, if one infected duck is flying overhead, it could drop excrement on a farm where chicken or turkey could potentially consume it.

Farmed chickens have a weak immune system, are subject to extremely large environmental stresses, and are often packed into wire cages and barns with poor ventilation. Within a day, H5N1 becomes sick, just like a third of herds.

Infected birds can develop severe respiratory symptoms, diarrhea, trembling, and neck twisting, which can produce misshaped or vulnerable eggs. Many people die breathlessly. (Some birds die suddenly without showing any symptoms.)

The rate at which infected birds collapse is cited as one reason authorities believe eggs are safe for consumption. Most diseased birds either die before they can lay eggs or are visiblely ill, making them easy to rule out.

Poultry farmers will call authorities as soon as they find signs of illness or death. If the avian flu tests positive, you will be refunded to kill the remaining flocks before the virus spreads further.

If farmers were trying to get the virus to cross the farm instead, “these infectious diseases would cause extremely painful deaths in almost 100% of chickens and turkeys,” said Dr. David Swain, a poultry veterinarian who worked at the USDA for nearly 30 years.

The results “will create an unacceptable animal welfare crisis,” he added. (The way to cull birds is also cruel, but at least in general, it's quick.)

Farmers who control infected swarms should clean their property and pass an audit before restocking. They often want to resolve the crisis quickly. Simply retreat will have serious economic consequences.

The strategy “means quarantine, increased downtime, lost revenue and increased costs,” said USDA scientists who are not allowed to speak to the media.

Kennedy suggests that a subset of poultry may be naturally immune to avian flu. However, chickens and turkeys lack the genes needed to resist the virus, experts said.

“Now, the way we raise birds is not very genetically variable,” Dr. Hansen said. “They are basically all the same birds.”

Public health regulations would ban very few birds who could survive the infection being sold. In any case, these birds may only be protected against the current version of H5N1, rather than the other birds that appear as the virus continues to evolve.

“Biology and immunology don't work that way,” said Dr. Keith Poursen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostics Institute.

Spreading the unchecked virus is likely to lead to a trade embargo from the US on poultry, he added. “There will be a huge economic loss soon.”

In one interview with Fox News, Kennedy also suggested that the virus “doesn't look like it hurts wild birds – it has some kind of immunity.”

In fact, ducks and shearbirds may not show symptoms, but H5N1 has killed birds of prey, water birds, sand hill cranes and snow geese among many other species.