After months of climbing costs, February 2025 marks a record high for California’s egg prices — according to a recent United States Department of Agriculture egg market report, the cost of a dozen loose eggs has increased from a record low of $2.04 in August 2023 to the new record high of $4.95 earlier this year in January. This surge of the ongoing avian influenza crisis has led to a California Department of Public Health’s response to a State of Emergency, precautioning the spread through contact with sick birds and contaminated surfaces. The crisis has decimated poultry populations and infected a small but growing population of human patients.
Amidst growing fears of human-to-human transmission, “bird flu” is no longer just a grocery store problem — it’s exposing instability in our new administration’s approach to public health. So, how can we contextualize this public health crisis and better understand the virus?
NATHAN VILLASEÑOR / DAILY NEXUS
The biology of bird flu
“Bird flu” refers to highly pathogenic strains of Type-A Influenza virus HPAI A(H5N1), which cause severe symptoms and high mortality rates in infected poultry birds. These infectious subtypes belong to the Orthomyxoviridae virus family, meaning their genome consists of a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA molecule.
The genome is divided into eight distinct segments which each encode specific proteins, including hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. Hemagglutinin binds the virus to receptors on the surface of host cells, while neuraminidase’s enzymatic activity helps the virus detach and spread rapidly to neighboring cells.
Together, these protein functions have helped the virus propagate in 157 million birds. When the virus is detected in poultry farms, the entire flock is euthanized to prevent an outbreak, and the consequent sanitization and repopulation process can take months. After an emergent H5N9 strain was detected in a Merced duck farm, the flock of almost 119,000 birds were euthanized to prevent further infection.
Furthermore, the virus has formed mutations in infected birds which allow transmission across the species barrier. Avian bird flu has currently infected 972 herds of cattle, as of Feb. 18. Symptoms in cows can include mild respiratory signs and discolored milk, but cattle can also harbor the virus asymptomatically, making it easier to circulate through herds and form successful adaptations during viral replication.
For example, a small change in the virus’s hemagglutinin surface protein — substituting one amino acid building block (glutamine) for another (leucine) in position 226 — would change the shape of the virus to better attach to human cells. This means the binding preference would switch to human cell receptors, increasing the risk of human transmission. 64 human cases have been recorded since March 24, 2024.
In humans concurrently infected with seasonal flu, the bird flu virus is even more likely to mutate since RNA viruses are prone to reassortment. When infected by two different strains of flu viruses, their segmented genomes can exchange material, theoretically acquiring mutations to have more rapid replication in airways and efficient transmission between humans.
The fear of advantageous mutations has caused American media to question if a bird flu pandemic could occur. Fortunately, most epidemiologists and flu experts agree it’s not yet time to worry. With precautions in place — pasteurizing dairy products, vaccinating pets, maintaining epidemiological surveillance on farms and receiving seasonal flu vaccines — the public health risk remains low, and transmission of bird flu viruses between infected humans and their close contacts remains extremely rare. Furthermore, mutations that increase the transmissibility of RNA viruses often reduce their virulence (symptom severity).
The flawed federal response
The shaky response to this outbreak exposes an underlying issue in the USA’s public health system: Although there’s sparse evidence that a pandemic is around the corner, accessibility of information on this health crisis is lacking altogether.
On Jan. 21, a directive published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services paused all advisory panel meetings and external communication until the content was reviewed by a presidential appointee. This directive temporarily suspended the publication of all public health documents, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR), the “voice of the CDC” and a primary vehicle for the timely communication of reliable public health recommendations. A recent MMWR emphasizes the importance of bulk milk testing to rapidly identify infected dairy cattle, but was delayed by three weeks as a consequence of this directive.
As the executive branch withholds information about the virus, federal officials propagate misinformation: The newly appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has advised against “dangerous” bird flu vaccines on social media, posting that “there is no evidence these vaccines will work.” Contrarily, clinical trials for the FDA-approved AUDENZ vaccine confirmed that two doses elicited a strong immune response.
The executive branch is not exempt from contradictory contributions to this health crisis. While President Donald Trump’s Make America Healthy Again Commission aims to “restore trust in medical and scientific institutions,” his administration is set to fire 5,200 public health employees at agencies such as the CDC and National Institutes of Health. At the recent World Economic Forum, Trump emphasized his ambition to “reduce the cost of daily life.” However, by repealing Executive Orders 14009 and 14070, he effectively reduced healthcare accessibility — removing a special enrollment period and eliminating tax credits for uninsured Americans. His goal to “defeat inflation” is undermined by his own policies: as long as poultry flocks and cattle herds are affected by avian flu, grocery prices will continue to rise, and Americans will feel the strain in their wallets.
RNA viruses operate with incredible evolutionary intelligence. If a bird flu pandemic were to emerge unexpectedly, would our nation be prepared to respond? Ensuring scientific integrity and accessibility is crucial — not only to combat a rising virus, but also to protect public health authority and economic stability.
