A shadowy virus is spreading with unknown frequency and risk to humans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to distribute rapid tests nationwide so consumers can see if they are infected.
It’s not 2020, but the deep distrust engendered by federal public health agencies’ sometimes botched and seesawing response to SARS-CoV-2 is hanging over their response to H5N1, more commonly known as bird flu.
Dairy farms are resisting cooperation with the CDC to track and contain the spread of the flu in their cows, and state and local leaders are chafing at what they perceive as public health agencies marginalizing the Agriculture Department’s experts, Politico reported early Monday.
Texas said none of its dairy farms was willing to participate in CDC epidemiological field studies, and a potential USDA commissioner in a second Trump administration, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, said the feds need to “back off.”
Brown University epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo, a vocal critic of the CDC’s one-size-fits-all approach to COVID-19 boosters, said the resistance wasn’t surprising because of federalism and lack of incentives for farms to play ball with the CDC.
It’s election year after all. You knew they’d try the virus game again
Delusions of Adequacy 