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.

— Additional reporting by Jennifer Rigby in London

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Pigs represent a particular concern for the spread of bird flu because they can become co-infected with bird and human viruses, which could swap genes to form a new, more dangerous virus that can more easily infect humans.

The USDA said there is no risk to the nation’s pork supply from the Oregon case and that the risk to the public from bird flu remains low.

Pigs were the source of the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009-2010, and have been implicated as the source of others, said Richard Webby, a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital virologist who studies flu in animals and birds for the World Health Organization.

The finding of the virus in a small farm makes the pig infection less of a concern than if it had been detected in a commercial pig farm, he said.

“I think it probably doesn’t increase the risk much, but surely, if this virus starts transmitting in pigs, that absolutely increases the risk,” he said.

The Oregon farm has been quarantined, and other animals there, including sheep and goats, are under surveillance, USDA said.

Pigs and poultry on the farm were culled to prevent the spread of the virus and enable additional testing of the swine, USDA said. Tests are still pending for two of the pigs, the agency said.

The swine case originated with wild birds and not from a poultry or dairy farm, said a USDA spokesperson. Wild bird migration has carried bird flu to poultry flocks and cattle herds.

The case was one factor that drove the USDA to broaden its bird flu surveillance to include nationwide bulk milk testing, which the agency announced on Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters in an interview.

“While it’s a different variation of the virus and it is tied to wild birds, it is a factor to make sure that we understand and appreciate exactly where the virus is in dairy and in bovine,” he said.

The pigs on the Oregon farm were not intended for the commercial food supply, USDA said.

Still, the finding pressured lean hog futures prices at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a trader said.

Poultry and swine on the backyard farm shared water sources, housing and equipment, which have all served as pathways for transmitting the virus between animals in other states, the agency said.

The detection is a warning for pig farmers to be on the lookout for further infections, said Marie Culhane, a professor of veterinary population medicine at the University of Minnesota who has researched flu viruses in swine.

“People need to start increasing their plans to deal with it if it should happen in another herd and another herd,” Culhane said. “Pigs are just really good at picking up influenza viruses.”

This year, 36 people have tested positive for bird flu as the virus has spread to nearly 400 dairy herds. All but one of the people were farm workers who had known contact with infected animals.

Since 2022, the virus has wiped out more than 100 million poultry birds in the nation’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak.

—Reporting by Tom Polansek, Leah Douglas and Julie Steenhuysen

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The communications, which have not previously been reported, show how the early federal response to the U.S. bird flu outbreak was shaped in part by industry interests reluctant to cooperate with burdensome regulation, and potentially contributed to transmission of the disease across state lines.

The USDA’s order, released in April after bird flu cases were discovered in cows in eight states, requires milk-producing dairy cattle moving across state lines to secure a negative bird flu test no more than seven days prior to travel. It also allows non-producing cattle headed to slaughter to cross state lines without a veterinarian’s clean bill of health.

The USDA had initially contemplated more stringent requirements, including a three-day time frame for testing, but responded to industry feedback urging leniency before releasing the order, according to documents contained in the records request.

Relaxing the order may have enabled more spread of the virus, two veterinarians and one dairy industry representative told Reuters. They noted logistical constraints to testing animals in the shorter window.

When the agency issued the April 24 order, 33 herds had tested positive. The outbreak has since ballooned to more than 330 herds across 14 states and human cases in 17 dairy workers.

“Any changes or clarifications to the Federal Order have been made with the objective of protecting animal and public health by following scientific best practices, using the best available data, and ensuring the appropriate balance between compliance and feasibility for producers,” a USDA spokesperson said in an email.

The agency has conducted more than 16,000 pre-movement tests and is supporting an investigation in California into whether improper cattle movement introduced the virus to the state, the spokesperson said.

The rapid spread of bird flu among dairy herds and infections of 27 people this year have alarmed some public health experts, who say the USDA is not responding aggressively enough.

The order remains the only national requirement to curb transmission of the virus.

Memos and meetings

USDA chief veterinarian Rosemary Sifford met with the Livestock Marketing Association to discuss the planned federal order on the morning of April 24, according to a memo the industry group sent to USDA officials released in a public records request.

“The 72-hour pre-movement time frame we have heard is being contemplated is simply not accomplishable,” wrote LMA’s vice president of government and industry affairs Chelsea Good, suggesting a 7- to 14-day testing window instead.

The farm agency did not include a time frame for testing in the initial order or supplemental information issued on April 25. A guidance document released on April 26 allowed dairies seven days for testing.

In an ideal world, testing would happen within 24 hours, said Keith Poulsen, a veterinarian and director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. The rural location of dairy farms makes it difficult to transport samples to a lab, he added.

During the same April week, state animal health officials told USDA it should allow states to agree on alternative documentation in lieu of a veterinary bill of health for non-lactating dairy cows moving across state lines to slaughter, the records show. Older dairy cattle are often processed into ground beef.

In the April 26 guidance document, USDA said states would be able to accept alternative documentation, which can include such basic information as addresses of cattle owners and shippers.

Requiring veterinary documents is too expensive for dairies operating on slim margins, said Bob Seiler, president of the Central Equity Milk Cooperative in Kansas. He said he has not been required to provide alternative documentation when sending non-lactating cows to slaughter.

Side-stepping the veterinary sign-off could have allowed for further spread of the virus, said Gail Hansen, a former Kansas state veterinarian.

“The chances of something slipping through the cracks is a lot bigger,” she said.

A shortage of rural veterinarians could make it difficult for farmers to get their herds inspected before every shipment, Poulsen said.

The USDA spokesperson said cows moving to slaughter are considered a lower risk for spreading bird flu and that alternative documentation allows for traceability if there are infections.

‘No upside to test’

California is examining how the virus entered the state, including whether imports of cows met legal requirements, the state agriculture department said. More than 130 herds and 13 dairy workers in the top dairy state have been infected since the end of August.

Even before the federal order, the farm sector was leaning on state officials to fend off calls for restrictions on cattle movement, according to the records obtained by Reuters.

In a March 26 email, the CEO of the Kansas Farm Bureau, Terry Holdren, asked Kansas Agriculture Secretary Mike Beam and Justin Smith, the state’s animal health officer, if they could apply “any leverage or pressure” to keep Nebraska accepting cattle, after hearing Nebraska may turn cattle away.

Nebraska on April 1 began requiring a permit for female breeding dairy cows coming from other states.

Farmers in some cases have shunned testing of cows.

“There’s been no upside to a dairy producer to report and test,” said Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association.

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This autumn, flocks in the $67 billion U.S. poultry industry for the first time face a double risk for infections from dairies and migrating birds that can spread the disease.

Bird flu, which is lethal for poultry and reduces milk output in dairy cows, has eliminated more than 100 million chickens and turkeys since 2022 in the biggest U.S. outbreak ever.

Rose Acre Farms, the second-biggest U.S. egg producer, wants the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow vaccinations, CEO Marcus Rust told Reuters. The company lost millions of hens in outbreaks and is relocating an Indiana facility for breeding chickens because it sits across a highway from a wildlife refuge that attracts migratory ducks, he said.

“We’re farmers. We want our animals to live,” Rust said.

The virus’ jump to cattle in 14 states and infections of 13 dairy and poultry farm workers this year have concerned scientists and federal officials about the risks to humans from further spread.

The nation’s leading egg, turkey and dairy groups argued in an August letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that the economic toll of the outbreak justifies deploying a vaccine. And federal lawmakers say USDA should accelerate its vaccine research and develop new methods to help farmers avoid outbreaks.

“It is obvious that the current outbreak has no end in sight,” a dozen members of Congress, led by Representatives Randy Feenstra, a Republican, and Democrat Jim Costa, said in another August letter to Vilsack.

A USDA spokesperson said the agency has been collaborating with state and federal agencies and researchers to protect livestock, farmers and farm workers and is researching animal vaccinations.

However, Vilsack said in a previously unreported March letter to members of Congress that a vaccine campaign would face challenges including potential barriers to exports. Many countries ban imports of vaccinated poultry because of concerns that the vaccine could mask the presence of the virus.

“Widespread vaccination of commercial poultry is not possible in the short term,” Vilsack wrote in the letter, which the animal welfare group Farm Forward obtained through a public records request and shared with Reuters.

‘REASON TO HAVE HOPE’

A growing number of countries are considering once-taboo vaccines. France last year began vaccinating ducks for bird flu. New Zealand, which has never had a case of bird flu, is testing a vaccine on five species of wild birds.

The U.S. approved emergency use of bird flu vaccine to protect California condors last year.

“The only use of a vaccine in the U.S. is in this particular case due to the endangered status of that wild bird,” said Julianna Lenoch, a USDA wildlife disease expert. The U.S. vaccinated 94 condors and saw deaths from bird flu stop, she said on a Thursday webinar.

Bird flu eliminated 17 million egg-laying hens from April through July, according to USDA data. By August, retail egg prices eclipsed $3.20 per dozen and reached a 16-month high, federal data show.

The egg industry will need to increase supply to reduce prices and the migratory period creates uncertainty, said Brian Moscogiuri, a vice president for Eggs Unlimited.

The migration season for wild birds is underway and will last until December, with waterfowl flying south from northern states like Minnesota, experts said. Blue-winged Teal ducks can travel all the way to South America, said Andy Ramey, research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Brazil, the world’s top chicken exporter, could see more cases in wild birds due to migrations, its poultry association said.

Migratory birds can carry the virus without dying and transmit it to poultry. However, it appears fewer wild birds are becoming infected, probably because they are building immunity, Ramey said.

“There is reason to have hope,” he said.

Additional reporting for Reuters by Lucy Craymer in Wellington and Roberto Samora in Sao Paulo

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture has counted bird flu in about 190 dairy herds in 13 states since March. The virus’s jump from birds to cows heightened concerns that it could adapt to spread among humans. Scientists have warned that limited surveillance could weaken the U.S.’ ability to respond to further human spread.

Thirteen dairy and poultry farm workers have been infected with bird flu this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Reuters spoke with more than a dozen researchers, veterinarians, farmers, and livestock industry groups to understand whether the bird-flu spread in dairy cattle is being accurately tracked.

State animal and human health experts in three states who work closely with veterinarians and farmers said the government tally is likely an undercount because farmers are fearful of the economic hardship brought by a positive test, including being restricted from selling their milk or cattle for weeks.

The virus reduces milk production in cattle. The U.S., the world’s second-largest cheese producer after the European Union, is the only country with known infections in cows.

“While we have nine official positives, there are many, many, many more farms that are impacted or infected that are just not testing,” said Joe Armstrong, a veterinarian and cattle expert at the University of Minnesota, who has spoken with farmers across the state.

A more accurate cattle case count for Minnesota would be three to five times higher, Armstrong said.

A USDA spokesperson said the agency has encouraged testing by requiring negative tests for cows being shipped over state lines since April and offering a voluntary program for testing farmers’ milk supplies weekly. Twenty-four dairy herds are participating in that program, of roughly 24,000 farms nationally that sell milk, according to agency data.

Six farmers, veterinarians, and other experts said farmers were reluctant to test because they did not believe the virus is a serious concern, or because government incentives to test did not offset their expected losses.

Colorado farmer Terry Dye, 78, said his two dairies were infected this summer and he did not notify the state because he wanted to handle it privately. State agriculture officials eventually heard about the infections and quarantined his animals, he said.

“Sometimes it’s more convenient to not know,” said Dye.

USDA offers to compensate farmers with infected animals for veterinary care and 90 per cent of lost milk production. Forty-seven herds have signed up for agency financial assistance, though that total includes farms without infections that are seeking support for biosecurity costs.

USDA tests raw milk from cows to identify the virus in herds. The Food and Drug Administration has separately tested commercial milk supplies and says pasteurization kills the virus, so milk is safe to drink.

Tougher testing

Experts said ways to better track the spread include more states mandating raw-milk testing or higher compensation to farmers.

Michigan and Colorado have taken aggressive approaches to containing bird flu in cattle, though experts there still think cases are being missed.

Phil Durst, an educator with Michigan State University who has spoken with farmers whose herds contracted the virus, said Michigan’s 27 positive herds are likely an undercount by at least a third.

Jenna Guthmiller, an assistant professor of immunology at the University of Colorado who has studied the virus, said Colorado’s 63 positive herds are also likely an undercount.

After a series of outbreaks, Colorado on July 22 became the only state to require dairy farms to test bulk supplies of milk each week. The tests have uncovered 10 infected herds that have been quarantined.

“Once we better understand the scope and scale of the outbreak, we can put measures in place to mitigate further spread,” said Maggie Baldwin, Colorado’s state veterinarian.

Some farmers do not test because they distrust government officials or information about the risks of bird flu to cattle and humans, four sources said.

“There’s plenty of dairy farms that I’ve heard about that just don’t believe it,” said Jason Schmidt, a dairy farmer in eastern Kansas.

In Oklahoma, a dairy that suspected it was infected in April did not submit stored milk samples to USDA for testing until July, according to the state. The herd had recovered by the time testing confirmed an outbreak, and Oklahoma has not had other reported cases, the state said.

In states with few or no infected cows, farmers and veterinarians are concerned that when the virus arrives or resurges, they won’t be able to track it.

“The longstanding adage is that the cure for fever is don’t take a temperature. So, if we don’t test, then we’re not positive,” said Mark Hardesty, a dairy cattle veterinarian in Ohio, which reported one dairy herd infection in April.

Wisconsin, the No. 2 milk-producing and top cheese-producing state, has not reported any bird-flu cases in cattle. Dairy farmers likely would not test even if they suspected symptoms in their herds, said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

“It’s still cheaper to just go through a herd outbreak, recover, and move on down the road,” Poulsen said.

—Reporting for Reuters by Leah Douglas in Washington and Tom Polansek in Chicago

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Reports of the deaths suggest the bird flu outbreak in cows could take a greater economic toll in the farm belt than initially thought. Farmers have long culled poultry infected by the virus, but cows cost much more to raise than chickens or turkeys.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson said the agency knew of a few deaths but that the vast majority of cows recover well. Reuters was not able to determine the total number of cows with bird flu that died or were killed in South Dakota, Michigan, Texas, Ohio and Colorado.

Avian flu has infected dairy cows in more than 80 herds across 10 states since late March, according to the USDA.

Some of the animals died of secondary infections contracted after bird flu weakened their immune systems, said state veterinarians, agriculture officials, and academics assisting in state responses to bird flu. Other cows were killed by farmers because they failed to recover from the virus.

Cattle infected with bird flu suffer reduced milk production, digestive issues, fever, and diminished appetite, according to farmers and veterinarians.

In South Dakota, a 1,700-cow dairy sent a dozen of the animals to slaughter after they did not recover from the virus, and killed another dozen that contracted secondary infections, said Russ Daly, a professor with South Dakota State University and veterinarian for the state extension office who spoke with the farm.

“You get sick cows from one disease, then that creates a domino effect for other things, like routine pneumonia and digestive issues,” Daly said.

A farm in Michigan killed about ten per cent of its 200 infected cows after they too failed to recover from the virus, said Phil Durst, an educator with Michigan State University Extension who spoke with that farm.

Michigan has more confirmed infections in cattle than any state as well as two of three confirmed cases of U.S. dairy workers who contracted bird flu.

In Colorado, some dairies reported culling cows with avian flu because they did not return to milk production, said Olga Robak, spokesperson for the state Department of Agriculture.

Ohio Department of Agriculture spokesperson Meghan Harshbarger said infected cows have died in Ohio and other affected states, mostly due to secondary infections.

The Texas Animal Health Commission also confirmed that cows have died from secondary infections at some dairy operations with avian flu outbreaks.

Officials could not provide figures for the number of statewide cow mortalities.

New Mexico’s state veterinarian, Samantha Uhrig, said farmers increasingly culled cows due to decreased milk production early in the outbreak, before the U.S. even confirmed bird flu was infecting cattle. Culling decreased as farmers learned that most cows gradually recovered, she said.

Officials in North Carolina and Kansas said there have been few to no cow deaths associated with bird flu in their states. Idaho officials did not respond to requests for information.

Bird flu virus particles were found in beef tissue taken from one dairy cow sent to be slaughtered for meat, and meat from the animal did not enter the food supply, USDA said last month.

The agency has reported that no viral particles were found in samples of ground beef collected at retail stores, and that no bird flu virus was found after cooking ground beef to medium to well done, after it was injected with a virus surrogate as part of an experiment.

To date, no Canadian cattle have been confirmed to have the disease.

—Additional reporting for Reuters by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago

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