pandemic prep
When avian flu becomes a 'game changer'
Humans are still at very low risk of contracting the avian flu that has hopped from poultry to cow herds, and one Texas farm worker. But as states prepare more testing and even some protective gear to limit the spread, officials are asking — are we in a new normal with livestock flu outbreaks?
"We know a lot about poultry and where the problems are. We know a lot, historically, about dairy and dairy and animal diseases. What we don't know much about is a poultry disease that's now prevalent inside dairy," Russell Redding, Pennsylvania's agriculture secretary, told me.
While Pennsylvania hasn't logged a confirmed H5N1 case in cattle yet, the farm-laden state has had its fair share of livestock disease outbreaks and is also one of the biggest producers of raw milk in the country. The latter poses a looming dilemma, as infectious disease experts are already warning against consuming unpasteurized products.
But that doesn't mean Pennsylvania is closing the barn doors. If cases pop up in the Keystone state, Redding said they'd have a "serious conversation" about restricting raw milk sales. Even that, though, would be a big messaging challenge. "We are challenged every day on this issue of raw [milk]," he said. "Louis Pasteur was probably on to something, right?"
Offshore oversight
Congressional scrutiny of Chinese biotechs grows
The House Oversight Committee is ramping up the rhetoric against China's biotech ambitions, my colleague John Wilkerson reports.
Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) sent nine letters to federal agencies warning against what he views as Chinese political threats to the United States. The FDA and NIH were among those agencies. The letter to the FDA includes a long list of developments that Comer is worried about. China is the third largest exporter of drugs to the United States and makes the ingredients that go into a large swath of drugs from other countries that FDA isn't able to track. Among his concerns, Comer says, is that China is stealing U.S. inventions in a bid to overtake the United States in the biotechnology sector. The Chinese government then could withhold drug exports to punish the United States.
The Oversight Committee plans to mark up legislation this month that would restrict U.S. biotechnology companies from doing business with a Chinese company that makes key drug ingredients for much of the U.S. market. That company, WuXi AppTec, is name checked in the panel's letter to the FDA.
cdc steps
Masking up for milk
The CDC on Monday recommended that livestock farms supply masks and other protective gear to workers in a bid to stave off more human transmission of the avian flu.
The federal agency pressed in a call with state health officials and vets to find distributors for personal protective gear like masks to supply them to poultry and dairy farms along with slaughterhouses, especially in places with confirmed cases.
However the CDC cannot order protective measures, particularly in the farm industry, which is under the jurisdiction of the USDA. Deputy Director Nirav Shah instead on Monday "asked state health departments" to work with their peers in agricultural divisions to " identify farmworker organizations that can help coordinate and facilitate" PPE distribution. The call to action comes amid some farms' hesitance to let CDC workers onto their grounds — and Republicans' calls for calm as concern about dairy grows.
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