An inherent conflict of interest – USDA both regulating and promoting livestock industries – prevents appropriate responses to outbreaks of infectious disease.
When dairy cows in Texas started falling ill last Spring, alarm bells started to ring. Veterinarians had found feverish cows struggling to breathe and yielding barely any milk alongside rotting dead barn pigeons and dead cats that had eaten the pigeons or drunk contaminated milk. This nightmarish scene led veterinarians to suspect an unprecedented outbreak of H5N1 (bird flu) in cattle.
One veterinarian sent an urgent email in mid-March to the National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa. Days went by with no response. Finally, on March 25, USDA’s lab confirmed that the H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus had indeed infected dairy cows in Texas and Kansas.
This revelation sent shockwaves through the scientific and agricultural communities. While H5N1 bird flu had affected various species globally — ranging from skunks and bears to sea lions — this marked the first known occurrence in cattle.
The stakes are huge: Not only could an outbreak threaten the dairy and beef industries, but unchecked it could spread the virus among cows with the potential for transmission to pigs –– a species in which different viruses are able to mix and form new variants during simultaneous infection, creating an unpredictable and potentially catastrophic situation.
The H5N1, a deadly strain of flu virus with the potential to mutate and spark a pandemic among humans, has been on epidemiologists’ radar for nearly two decades. Virologists have long warned that if bird and human flu viruses recombine during simultaneous infection in animals like pigs or cattle, it could produce the worst-case scenario: a new virus capable of human-to-human transmission, and which could spread readily because humans would have little or no immunity to it. The possible impacts of such an event are dire; the Gates Foundation’s Institute for Disease Modeling estimates that a global flu pandemic could claim up to 33 million lives within six months.
Government inaction
Veterinarians assumed that once the virus was detected, federal agencies would immediately spring into action with interventions such as extensive testing and restrictions on the movement of cows, as they had in similar previous outbreaks. But that didn’t happen.
“Nobody came,” said one Western state veterinarian. “The government … didn’t know what to do so they did nothing.”
The government’s inaction has allowed H5N1 to spread with remarkably little attention. The virus has now affected at least 446 dairy herds in 15 states and more than 100 million birds, mostly commercial poultry, in addition to the documented human cases.
A report from the CDC and Michigan and Colorado public health officials released on November 7 found that a significant percentage of human H5N1 infections in Michigan and Colorado from June to August this year went undetected in dairy workers who worked on farms with cows that were confirmed positive for the virus. Among 115 farm workers who underwent blood tests in the two states, eight had evidence of recent infection in the form of antibodies — but only half could recall having symptoms. “All eight had either been milking cows or cleaning the milking mechanisms,” according to officials.
This, from a November 8 article in Fortune, summarizes the current state of the outbreak in humans:
[I]n the U.S., human H5N1 cases in California and Washington are on the rise. Nationally, 46 human cases have been documented and confirmed during the 2024 outbreak, including a person in Missouri with no known exposure to either cattle or poultry, the two primary sources of exposure so far. All of the individuals have experienced only mild symptoms, such as conjunctivitis or cough, and none have been hospitalized.
While it remains unclear how H5N1 infected the person without exposure to cattle or poultry, public health officials worry that the virus is evolving, potentially making the jump not only from cows to humans but also from human to human. In any case, the reported numbers of cases in animals and humans are surely grossly underestimated.
Dairy herds in California have been hit hard, with up to 15% of sick cows dying, significantly higher than death rates seen elsewhere. The FDA has issued warnings about the potential health risks of consuming raw, unpasteurized milk from infected herds, but assures the public that pasteurized milk remains safe to drink because any virus present has been inactivated.
What should have been an all-hands-on-deck response has instead become a cautionary tale of intimidation, politics missed opportunities, and an attitude of “if you don’t test, you don’t know.” Veterinarians who raised alarms about the virus were silenced, with some even losing their jobs. Federal agencies responsible for managing the outbreak have been accused of failing to act quickly enough and instead choosing to prioritize the dairy industry’s short-term economic interests.
USDA is the primary culprit in this failure. The department is tasked with two conflicting roles: protecting the health and safety of the nation’s livestock while promoting and protecting the $174.2 billion agriculture industry. Sick cows with a novel strain of bird flu do not bode well for business, especially for a dairy sector that exports millions of tons of milk, cheese, and other products globally each year.
Shortly after the March detection of H5N1, USDA imposed what amounts to a gag order on its employees, according to insiders. State veterinarians began receiving private phone calls from their USDA colleagues, who told them to refrain from discussing the outbreak without prior approval. This information embargo severely hindered the response from the start.
Defending the agency, Eric Deeble, the deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, denied any attempt to silence employees. He claimed the intent was merely to ensure that the agency spoke with a “single voice” and was not overly restrictive. In a statement, a USDA spokesperson remonstrated that the agency had taken swift action to halt the virus’s spread and protect the nation’s food supply. The facts argue otherwise.
Why the slow response?
Usually, the USDA’s responsibility to protect the public aligns with its mandate to advocate for the livestock industry. Not this time. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack, who previously served as president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, has been notably reluctant to publicly address the bird flu crisis.
Raising additional concerns about potential conflicting loyalties, during the World Dairy Expo, Vilsack sidestepped a reporter’s question about whether he would return to the dairy industry after his tenure at USDA. That fueled speculation about his and his department’s priorities. The overall situation has the stench of a conflict of interest if not outright malfeasance by a Cabinet secretary.
Adding to the complexity of the situation and other possible conflicts is the Biden administration’s newly established Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR). Intended to coordinate swift responses to future outbreaks, the office struggled to manage an unexpected interspecies outbreak during an election year.
Paul Friedrichs, the retired military doctor appointed to head the OPPR, graphically acknowledged the challenges: “Holding grown men in my arms while they died in Iraq was easier than coordinating the federal response to the H5N1 outbreak.”
Why so many missed opportunities to contain the outbreak? Rick Bright, a former federal Health and Human Services official, believes politics trumped public health. “This didn’t have to be a nationwide outbreak, but there was an intentional decision made by USDA and the agricultural lobbying groups to let it rip.”
Will this delayed and bungled response serve as a wake-up call for a more proactive and transparent approach to the inevitable next pandemic? Or will we continue to play a dangerous game of catch-up with a virus that could reshape the world’s public health landscape?
The solution must be found in the political realm: whether federal agencies and the officials who manage food-related crises will be permitted to operate under conditions that present a clear conflict of interest – that is, whether the government cedes its commitment to public health to a narrow, commercial constituency.
A previous version of this article was published by the Genetic Literacy Project.
Note: Much of the information herein was first disclosed by the excellent investigative reporting of Katherine Eban.
