Bird flu is not just for birds. It is about public health, agriculture and an economic crisis. That was the final takeaway of a joint hearing of the California Senate Health and Senate Agriculture Committees this week. Updates from state officials and industry leaders covered federal funding, disease containment, worker protections, trade policies and food security.
The pathogenic H5N1 virus that has killed millions of chickens and sent egg prices soaring is a highly mutable strain that transfigures between species. While still considered a low threat to humans, there are currently 38 confirmed human cases in the state, with the last one reported Jan. 14, according to the California Department of Public Health.
In a Wednesday press release, the California Department of Food and Agriculture said it has confirmed H5N1 bird flu in 11 dairy farms in the last 30 days. Since it was first detected, there have been a total of 749 infected dairies in California, with 373 of those affected fully recovered and released from quarantine.
Its rapid global spread correlates with the flight patterns of migrating wild birds. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Monday, wild bird flu has been detected in 12,467 wild birds across all 50 states.
“We have seen more dieoffs of wild birds across the country in this outbreak than in previous outbreaks,” said Rosemary Sifford, chief veterinary officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“We do monitor wildlife, but with the millions of birds out there it’s a small sampling,” said state veterinarian Annette Jones. “About 10% of the world’s wild birds sampled carry some form of influenza, in about 10% of those is the highly pathogenic form.”
State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said California needs to step up as a national leader in lieu of a weakening federal administration.
“Our new administration is basically taking a wrecking ball to basically all scientific expertise in the federal government, in public health in particular,” Wiener said. “They say they accidentally fired the avian flu experts and had a scramble to rehire them. It’s unclear to me that we’re going to have a flu shot this year since they canceled the first advisory committee hearing of the Food and Drug Administration. They’re not doing anything about the measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico. I refer to this as the Make America Sick Again agenda.”
New funding aims to curb outbreak
CDFA Secretary Karen Ross told the committee that new USDA secretary Brooke Rollins has dedicated $1 billion to enhancing biosecurity. There is also $400 million available for financial assistance to continue surveillance and testing, as well as financial relief to the farmers who have lost productivity.
“Rollins is also promising $100 million to accelerate the development of effective vaccines and therapeutics,” said Ross, but cautioned that many other countries do not allow the trade of vaccinated poultry, so that option would create a tough export market situation for the state.
Dr. Erica Pan, director of California’s Department of Public Health and the state public health officer, mentioned that the state still has strong communication with World Health Organization partners, even though the U.S. has pulled out of that organization under President Donald Trump’s new administration.
Jones, the state veterinarian, said influenza mutates all the time. We know that about seasonal flu in humans; but this virus is constantly shifting, and we keep getting new types.
“Viruses need to enter a living cell to use that cell’s mechanism in their host species to replicate, so there are some species barriers,” said Jones. “It’s a crafty virus but it’s also a wimpy virus. It’s pretty easy to kill this virus, like pH or temperature. Pasteurization is 100% effective in inactivating this virus.”
Pan said there are different strains that impact all kinds of different animals — humans, birds, pigs, cows and other mammals. But her monitoring team has seen no reported human infections in poultry workers, but farmworkers and others working with infected animals are the highest risk. She said there are 29 public health labs in the state that can test to determine whether it’s seasonal flu or bird flu.
“We’ve distributed over 4.6 million pieces of personal protective equipment to 18 counties,” said Pan. “That includes over 800,000 respirator masks, 3.5 million gloves, over 200,000 goggles and face shields, and almost 80,000 bouffant caps.”
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, the virus was initially detected in wild birds in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, in December 2021. The following month, the first wild birds were diagnosed with the highly pathogenic virus, then at the first commercial poultry facility in February 2022.
The CDFA reports that in January, a commercial duck flock in Merced County confirmed having two strains of the virus — H5N1 bird flu was reported in December 2024 and H5N9 was detected Jan. 13 of this year. The virus has also been detected in kid goats in Minnesota.
Jones noted there have been three other times when the virus spread to other animals.
“One time was in South America’s sea mammals, sea lions,” she said, “Another time was in Europe with their minks and fur farms.”
Pan added that domestic cats with symptoms should be reported to public health officials. Cats are uniquely susceptible to very serious fatal infections. On farms they travel indoors and outdoors, from barns to bedrooms. Pan described the state as taking a One Health approach, meaning they are focusing resources to address the whole ecosystem — human, animal and wildlife.
In California’s Pacific Flyway, millions of migrating birds travel each winter up the Central Valley, stopping to rest near free range chicken farms. They also drop droppings on farms from the air.
“We found that if you let the virus replicate too much, basically a viral plume evolves,” said Jones. “It could be just dust particles with virus on it. And it can literally blow poultry farm to poultry farm. Our tactic with poultry is very rapid euthanasia of those flocks. The virus kills them a with a pretty horrendous death anyway, there is a humane reason behind that rapid action. It is also the bigger humane reason, to protect the neighboring flock.”
By January, two-thirds of egg-laying hens in California were lost to the outbreak, about 10 million out of the state’s 14 million hens, according to the CDFA.
In cows, the virus goes to the mammary gland, so milk is tested. Cows react to the virus like humans to the seasonal flu. They get sick and need to be quarantined, but with supportive care they recover.
Workers face unsafe conditions
Dairy farm workers are essential to the production of California milk and dairy, yet they are largely immigrant, non-citizen, and undocumented, said Edward Flores, faculty director of UC Merced Community and Labor Center. Flores presented findings that when a dairy farm employer is noncompliant with labor standards, it presents risks for the spread of bird flu, from animals to workers and to the broader public.
“As of Feb. 22, California had already registered 753 positive dairies,” he said. “Yet nationwide, only 840 people have been tested after being exposed to sick animals. We’re not really grappling with the right questions.”
Dairy workers’ lack of an economic safety net has undermined adherence to health and safety standards, he said. Workers told researchers about unsanitary conditions, inadequate breaks and designated eating areas, lack of personal protective equipment and lack of hand soap and potable water.
“Workers shared, for example, that they often ate among cattle, sometimes while overseeing milking processes,” Flores said.
Employers at times did not properly provide needed gear, like boots, or places on site to store gear. Workers sometimes took soiled clothes with them after their shift.
“Workers expressed in many ways that their health and safety were secondary to production, including a quick pace of work that deprioritized their basic needs and the prioritization of cattle and consumer health over their own health,” he said.
Dairy workers described work environments where supervisors minimized injuries or ignored, dismissed and ridiculed workers for wearing protective equipment.
“Workers reported being told not to come back to work after requesting a day off,” he said. “Due to fear of losing their job and not having any income, some workers did not report illnesses or worse, fell sick, thereby increasing the risk of the spread of bird flu.”
State Sen. Melissa Hurtado, D-Sanger, who is chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, expressed concern over backyard flocks.
“It is chicken season. I know I’m getting a dozen chicks delivered to my farm this week,” Hurtado said. “We are seeing more flocks grow in backyard farms and in small hobby farms.”
Bill Mattos of the California Poultry Federation replied that his organization was opposed to backyard chickens.
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