Senators of Both Parties Prioritize Vaccines, Prevention, and Indemnity Payments to Counter Bird Flu

A letter signed Tuesday by 16 U.S. senators of both parties asked U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins to “enhance the response to the ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in our nation’s animal agriculture sector.”

“We support measures that have been proposed to you by egg and turkey farmers, many of whose operations have suffered HPAI outbreaks,” the senators wrote, naming the following measures:

• · An aggressive, forward-looking strategy for vaccination in affected laying hens and turkeys, including the acquisition of vaccine stockpiles, field trials of vaccines, the development of more practical methods of vaccine administration, and outreach to trading partners to ensure trade is not significantly impacted and that they understand the need for vaccines and abide by international standards for maintaining trade;

• · An HPAI Strategic Initiative to engage experts within industry, universities, and government to expand knowledge and develop novel methods of prevention, detection, and response; and

• · Movement controls that apply to all animals that present risks and support for states moving quickly through the first four stages of USDA’s National Milk Testing Strategy.

The senators, whose signatures can be seen here, then asked Rollins to address two other items regarding “indemnities” for farmers who agree to cull their flocks.

First, they requested USDA train more biosecurity auditors to conduct audits on previously infected farms so that, in keeping with an interim rule, the farmers can then be “eligible for indemnities.”

Second, the senators expressed that the amount paid by taxpayers to farmers to “depopulate their flocks in an HPAI infection” is too low:

… current indemnity rates for laying hens and pullets are based on inaccurate data and are artificially low. We support a proposal by the egg industry to revise these calculations, relying entirely on data from USDA and land-grant institutions, in order to make indemnities fairer. HPAI indemnities are similar to disaster assistance for crops and livestock—the funds respond to a catastrophic situation that producers could not have averted and never fully make up for the entire loss. The indemnities also recognize that producers are legally compelled to depopulate their flocks in an HPAI infection—they do not have a choice. Even with revisions to indemnity formulas proposed by egg farmers, these payments will not come close to making producers whole for their losses.

"I’m working to protect and preserve the livelihoods of our farmers, the stability of our local economies, and our food supply chain impacted by the spread of HPAI," Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) told Fox News Digital. "By partnering with the Trump administration to identify solutions, we can ensure our producers have the tools they need to stop avian flu."

During an interview Sunday with CBS’ Face the Nation, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said he and USDA Secretary Rollins have developed “better ways” to manage the threat of avian flu – a plan that includes “biosecurity” measures and “medication.”

Hassett responded to questions posed by host Margaret Brennan about the high cost of eggs.

“[T]he Biden plan was to just, you know – kill chickens,” he said. “And they spent billions of dollars just randomly killing chickens within a perimeter where they found a sick chicken.”

“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,” Hassett continued. “And that's the kind of thing that should have happened a year ago. And if it had, then egg prices would be, you know, a lot better than they are now.”

According to a news release at USDA, on her first day in office as secretary, Brooke Rollins “convened a briefing on avian flu and reviewed options for a comprehensive strategy to combat Avian flu and lower the price of eggs.”

“We’re looking at every tool in the toolkit including biosecurity measures,” Rollins told Breitbart News in an interview published Monday.

“There are some successful models out there that the USDA is implementing on a much smaller scale,” she added. “Maybe with all of the cancellation of DEI programs, and we can talk about DOGE too, but identifying additional funding for our farmers to be able to protect against the avian flu is really important in terms of biosecurity measures.”

“There are other countries in the world that use vaccines for their egg-layers that have none of these issues,” Rollins added. “That’s a complicated solution because there are some trade implications that have to be considered. But listen, when Canada’s price of eggs is much lower than ours and they’re using that approach, that’s something we need to take a very strong look at.”

The farm journal AgWeb reported Sunday that “[m]ajor poultry and dairy organizations back vaccine use to control the virus,” but at the top of the industry journal’s list of “several potential measures to stabilize egg prices” is: “Enhance biosecurity: Promote and enforce stricter biosecurity measures across poultry farms.”

In his column Thursday titled “Fox in the Henhouse – mRNA ‘Bird Flu’ vax,” physician and scientist Robert Malone, M.D. said we are now in “yet another cycle of ‘Bird Flu’ psychological bioterrorism.”

“Only now, in its wisdom, the Trump Administration’s USDA has conditionally authorized veterinary product manufacturer Zoetis to market and distribute a vaccine to protect the poultry,” Malone wrote. “Zoetis is the former ‘animal health’ division of Pfizer, but was spun out (2013). The main shareholders now include Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street, and State Farm.”

Vaccine- and test-obsessed health professionals, government agencies, pharmacological giants – and their protective media – appear eager to get Americans hooked on another pandemic by remaining hyperfocused on the price – and shortage – of eggs. But, as we observed January 31, many Americans have not been aware that USDA has funneled more than a billion dollars in taxpayer funds to bail out large poultry producers who cull (kill) their chickens – whether they are sick or not.

Corporations that received the most in indemnity payments during the 2022-2024 bird flu outbreak are listed here.

“If your flock is infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will provide indemnity and compensation for some of your losses and costs,” a USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) notice explains to poultry producers.

Epidemiologist with the McCullough Foundation Nicolas Hulscher, MPH, affirmed Tuesday at Focal Points: Courageous Discourse that USDA “has spent $1.25 billion on mass culling for H5N1 bird flu – with disastrous consequences.”

“The strikingly large sum of indemnity payments not only incentivizes farmers to comply with state-run mass killing of their animals but also represents a serious misuse of taxpayer money, as mass culling triggers a cascade of severe downstream consequences,” Hulscher wrote.

In an interview February 12 with Real America’s Voice, cardiologist and pioneer of early treatment for COVID-19 Peter McCullough, M.D. cautioned that “culling poultry is an ineffective and costly biosecurity measure.

“Mallard ducks continually reinfect farms with mild H5N1 bird flu,” McCullough posted to X. “Paying farmers to kill healthy flocks is driving up the price of eggs, creating egg shortages. Agriculture policy should shift to allow natural immunity, increase the egg supply, and quell the outbreak.”

Physician Kris Held, M.D. – a past president of AAPS – responded to McCullough’s post on X.

“Those who propose culling are denying natural and acquired immunity,” she warned. “When will this failed, destructive policy end? Do they kill any and all sick animals? From any disease? If they’ll kill animals as their solution, will they kill people as a solution? We must regain our critical thinking, common sense, and moral code.”

Held urged strong resistance against “gain of function manipulation and the biolabs that do this evil work that threatens the survival of humanity.”

“Culling is an extension of the evil mindset of death and destruction that has invaded science and defense,” she added.

Joseph Varon, M.D., president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance and a professor at the University of Houston College of Medicine, warned Wednesday as well about the risks of “rushing bird flu mRNA shots.”

“America needs to pump the brakes on any rush to rollout a Bird Flu mRNA shot,” Varon wrote. “That’s because we first need to truly understand the COVID-19 mRNA impacts, many of which are still emerging several years after their introduction.”

In addition to reports of a dramatic rise in cancers among young people and increases in miscarriages and premature births among women who took the COVID mRNA shots, Varon said we now have “thousands of peer-reviewed studies showing serious adverse events to using mRNA, including myocarditis, blood clots, autoimmune disorders, severe immunosuppression, neurodegenerative disorders like dementia, Parkinson’s, and prion disease.”

“Influenza viruses, including bird flu (H5N1), mutate rapidly,” he cautioned as well. “That means, even if scientists develop an mRNA vaccine for one strain, it will not be effective against the next variant. This would force us into an endless cycle of booster shots, each arriving too late to keep up with viral mutations, but contributing to further mutation.”