Senators warn of possible bird flu outbreak

Members of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee are bracing for the possibility of another outbreak of the Avian bird flu that devastated the poultry industry this year.

In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack this week, committee chairman Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and ranking member Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) how it plans to improve disposal and disinfection processes, what it will cost to build an adequate stock pile of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) vaccines, what biosecurity improvements can be made on farms to safeguard poultry flocks and if the agency is giving the appropriate amount of funding assistance to affected farms. 

{mosads}“Earlier this year, HPAI spread rapidly across some of the most dense egg and turkey producing regions of the country, causing extreme devastation and resulting in widespread depopulation to control the spread of HPAI,” the senators wrote.

In their letter, Roberts and Stebanow said nearly 50 million birds were depopulated to control the most recent spread of disease, a relief effort that resulted in a significant expense for U.S. taxpayers.

“In July, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, held a hearing on the impact HPAI is having on the U.S. poultry sector,” they wrote. “Following that hearing, questions remain regarding the potential threat of a recurrence of HPAI this fall and preparedness efforts underway, at both the state and federal level and on farms.”

The committee heads also wanted to know what criteria the USDA will use to decide whether to permit or require vaccination in response to an HPAI outbreak, and how it plans to weigh vaccine efficacy, apprehensions raised from trading partners and other concerns in determining whether to adopt a widespread vaccination plan.