The Trump administration is preparing a plan for combatting avian flu that will move away from depopulating entire infected flocks and rely instead on “biosecurity and medication” to contain outbreaks, says President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser.
Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday that he has been working on the plan with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and “all the best people in government, including academics around the country and around the world.”
Hassett’s comment follows an announcement on Friday by animal drug manufacturer Zoetis that it had received USDA approval for a highly pathogenic avian influenza vaccine for use in chickens.
USDA has for years been requiring the depopulation of infected flocks to control the spread of the virus, a requirement that has contributed to skyrocketing prices for eggs.
“The Biden plan was to just, you know, kill chickens. And they spent billions of dollars just randomly killing chickens within a perimeter where they found a sick chicken,” Hassett said.
“And so what we need to do is have better ways, with biosecurity and medication and so on, to make sure that the perimeter doesn't have to kill the chickens, have a better, smarter perimeter. And so having a smart perimeter is what we're working on,” Hassett said.
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According to a statement on the website of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "HPAI is extremely deadly in poultry flocks and can wipe out entire flocks within a matter of days. There is no treatment for HPAI. In poultry, the only way to stop the disease is to depopulate all affected and exposed poultry."
The United Egg Producers and National Turkey Federation wrote Rollins on Friday in support of using vaccines to control the virus. “It is imperative that a science-based surveillance strategy be developed in which infected animals can be distinguished from vaccinated animals, and that any validated, risk-based surveillance strategy must be agreed upon by our international trading partners,” the letter said.
The National Milk Producers Federation and International Dairy Foods Association also signed the letter.
But the National Chicken Council released a letter, dated Thursday, to Rollins from co-chairs of the Congressional Chicken Caucus, that raised concerns about the potential impact on trade in broiler chickens, those raised for meat.
“To be clear, vaccination in any poultry sector – egg layers, turkeys, broilers, or ducks – will jeopardize the entire export market for all U.S. poultry products,” the letter said.
The letter said that “most U.S. trading partners do not recognize countries that vaccinate as ‘free of HPAI’ due to concerns that vaccines can mask the presence of the virus.”
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