The Trump administration will shift the nation’s tactics of battling highly pathogenic avian influenza to focus on “medications” and enhanced biosecurity instead of depopulating flocks.

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, outlined the change during an appearance on CBS’ “Meet the Press” Feb. 16.

Hassett said he and new U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins have worked with officials and scientists to develop a HPAI plan.

More details are expected to be announced this week.

Hassett said farmers need to have a better, smarter perimeter around their operations, and noted that HPAI is spread by wild waterfowl.

Inflation context

The discussion of bird flu on the television program came in the context of inflation.

Hassett said the Biden administration didn’t have a plan regarding HPAI and if it did, retail egg prices would be lower.

“The Biden plan was just to, you know, kill chickens. And they spent billions of dollars just randomly killing chickens within a perimeter when they found a sick chicken,” Hassett said.

USDA policy for years, including during Trump’s first term as president, has been to depopulate flocks to halt the spread of bird flu.

More than 160 million birds have been killed in the U.S. from the latest outbreak of HPAI as of Feb. 18. About three-fourths of those were commercial egg-laying hens, according to the USDA.

Vaccinations needed

Rebecca Thistlethwaite of the Oregon State University Extension Service, a former egg farmer, said vaccinations are needed.

“Otherwise, we’re going to have a continued shortage of meat and eggs and we’re going to see the virus spread,” Thistlethwaite added.

She said chicks are vaccinated against many diseases while they’re still inside the egg, and wondered if that would be possible for HPAI.

HPAI morphs, just like human influenza, so new vaccines would need to be developed regularly, she said.

“Other chicken producing countries are moving toward vaccination. I don’t see why the U.S. isn’t doing the same,” Thistlethwaite said.

Industry resistance

The broiler segment has been reluctant about vaccines because of the loss of export markets.

U.S. trading partners do not accept poultry exports from countries that vaccinate due to concerns that vaccines can mask the presence of the virus, wrote the co-chairs of the Congressional Chicken Caucus, in a Feb. 13 letter to Rollins.

U.S. broiler product exports are valued at $5 billion annually, they added.

“A widescale HPAI vaccination program in the U.S., without first strengthening our animal health trade agreements, could cause our trading partners to take action that would significantly harm our domestic poultry sector,” the officials wrote.

Public opposition

Besides industry opposition, there’s also public resistance, with a growing number of Americans distrusting vaccines for livestock or humans. “Which is really unfortunate, as we’re seeing with the measles outbreak in Texas,” Thistlethwaite said.

She added that chickens won’t build up natural immunities to HPAI, which has a 95% mortality rate. Animals that survive aren’t breeding stock.

Thistlethwaite remained skeptical because of Trump’s track record, including cuts to researchers and agencies.

The USDA was trying to rehire some employees working on bird flu who had been fired in a purge of federal employees Feb. 13.