By Leah Douglas and Tom Polansek
(Reuters) – The Trump administration has disrupted the U.S. response to bird flu as the outbreak worsens, leading to confusion and concern among federal staff, state officials, veterinarians and health experts, 11 sources told Reuters.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office on January 20, two federal agencies responsible for monitoring and responding to the epidemic have withheld bird flu reports and canceled congressional briefings and meetings with state health officials, the sources said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention withheld two weekly reports, one on bird flu transmission and another on surveillance, and canceled several meetings on bird flu with state officials.
The CDC and U.S. Department of Agriculture held no congressional briefings for three weeks, and the USDA did not respond to a state official’s request for information on a new program to protect the nation’s food supply, the sources said.
The result has been anxiety among federal health staff that critical information about bird flu will not be disseminated in a timely manner or at all, even as more people and livestock test positive for the virus.
“The confusion over messaging and who can say what or anything is complicating matters at a bad time,” said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, who has been working closely with federal and state officials on the bird flu response.
Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization has also hampered information sharing that enables officials to track outbreaks and strains of the virus in other countries, three sources said.
The CDC has said the risk to the general public from bird flu remains low. However, increasing outbreaks in livestock and humans in the U.S. have raised concerns among scientists that the virus could mutate in a way that enables person-to-person transmission.
Bird flu has infected nearly 70 people in the U.S. since April and killed one person. It has wiped out about 159 million chickens, turkeys and other birds nationwide since the outbreak began in poultry in 2022. U.S. egg prices have soared to record highs, imperiling Trump’s pledges to bring down costs for Americans.
The USDA on February 5 said dairy cattle were infected with a second strain of bird flu, increasing concerns over its spread.
Before Trump’s inauguration, federal officials were in regular contact with state officials and industry groups as part of the U.S. response to its biggest animal-health emergency in history.
The USDA said it continued regular communications with other federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, and external parties, such as states, throughout the transition into Trump’s second term.
HHS, which oversees the CDC, said it has resumed some external communications since a temporary freeze on public health agency communications ended on February 1. It did not respond to detailed questions.
REPORTS WITHHELD
The CDC has not released two bird flu reports scheduled to be published on January 23 because of a lengthy and unusual review process, according to two sources with knowledge of the agency’s activity.
One of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports describes the first bird flu infections among cats that had no access to the outdoors. The other is a report on surveillance of wastewater in Oregon near poultry and dairy farms, according to screenshots of internal summaries seen by Reuters.
For decades, these weekly reports have been a way for the CDC to communicate important information to local health officials and clinicians so they can properly treat and protect patients, said Arthur Reingold, epidemiology professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
“It’s just extraordinary, frankly, that we would slow down or delay or impede that kind of communication,” Reingold said.
‘CHAOTIC MESSAGING’
The U.S. last week did not participate in a WHO meeting of specialists looking at influenza strains, including H5N1 bird flu, said Scott Prendergast, director in the agency’s health emergencies team.
“We no longer have the communication of things that are happening in the U.S.,” Prendergast said.
At least one state, Minnesota, has struggled to get information from the USDA about bird flu.
The state’s Board of Animal Health did not receive answers to questions it posed in January about a USDA program to increase testing of turkeys to protect the U.S. food supply, said Shauna Voss, the board’s interim assistant director.
Other actions from the Trump administration, such as the planned freeze on federal funding, have added confusion, she said.
“That certainly chaotic messaging can trickle down to the state level and ultimately can impact our farmers who produce our food,” Voss said.
The CDC and USDA also canceled weekly or biweekly bird flu meetings with state veterinarians and congressional staff meant to help officials keep abreast of the latest virus detections and federal actions to contain the spread after Trump’s inauguration, five sources said.
After a three-week pause, USDA said it resumed congressional briefings on February 7.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington and Tom Polansek in Chicago; Additional reporting by Jennifer Rigby in London; Editing by Emily Schmall and Bill Berkrot)
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