We are losing millions of birds per year

RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine views helped sideline a bird flu plan

“We are being caught flat-footed, and we are losing millions of birds per year right now,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said.

By Rachel Shin and Marcia Brown

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine views were a major factor in shelving an Agriculture Department avian flu response plan, according to five people with direct knowledge of the matter, a pause that’s alarming lawmakers as wild birds begin migrating for the winter.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins rolled out a $1 billion five-point plan in February 2025 to tackle a record-breaking spread of avian influenza. The disease has roiled the poultry industry since 2022, killing about 200 million birds and contributing to record-high egg prices last year.

Rollins later pulled back on an internal USDA strategy for vaccinating poultry and egg-laying hens initially intended to be shared widely with foreign countries and industry leaders. It’s not clear whether Kennedy urged Rollins to halt the plan, but she was concerned about whether it would clash with the Health secretary’s anti-vaccine views, according to the five people, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss the internal dynamics.

Rollins was also dealing with industry tension between egg producers who favor vaccination and meat producers concerned that inoculating chickens could hurt their ability to export. She also faced less pressure to act as egg prices fell from record levels.

Still, the pause, which went against the counsel of expert agency staff and industry leaders, continues to raise alarm among USDA employees because its other efforts to stamp out the virus have so far failed. The decision is also at odds with calls from Republican lawmakers to ensure the U.S. is prepared for a potential surge in cases this fall.

“It’s time to get a vaccine in place, but it’s also time to address the issue with our trading partners,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said in an interview. “We are being caught flat-footed, and we are losing millions of birds per year right now, which is driving up the price for protein.”

President Donald Trump bashed the Biden administration over egg prices on the campaign trail in 2024, only to see them continuing to rise as bird flu raged early in his second term last year.

“Eggs became so symbolic, almost like gasoline,” said Kevin Shea, a former administrator of the USDA agency that manages bird flu outbreaks.

Industry leaders say beginning the process of socializing USDA’s vaccine plan with other countries is crucial to avoiding a flare-up that could spike egg prices or create human health risks.

“What we do not want to happen is for egg prices to go back up just like they did last year, and there be an immediate push to have vaccines without taking into consideration how trade is going to be impacted,” Greg Tyler, president and CEO of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council, said in an interview.

USDA gave conditional approval for a vaccine as egg prices spiked last year, but Kennedy publicly disavowed the idea of inoculating birds and instead proposed letting the virus “run through” the national flock. Shortly after he contradicted the USDA’s plan, Rollins walked back her public support for a vaccine.

“After we got through last spring of 2025, she much more frequently mentioned that she was going to discuss things with Secretary Kennedy before we moved forward,” one of the people with direct knowledge of the situation said of the shelved bird flu plan. “She was certainly consulting with him, if not seeking his concurrence before moving forward with anything.”

The five people with direct knowledge of Rollins’ handling of the department’s strategy said her own misgivings were also a factor.

“It was because of her personal concerns about the vaccine, but also the Make America Healthy Again movement,” one of the people said.

USDA spokesperson Harry Fones said in a statement that the department is “fully committed to providing the most robust response” to bird flu and that its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has completed 5,000 poultry biosecurity assessments since the start of last year.

“With migratory bird season here, our goals and policy have not changed — detecting, controlling, and containing HPAI in consultation with producers and state veterinarians across the country continues each day,” Fones said.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard said the two agencies are in regular contact about bird flu, but didn’t address a question about whether Kennedy still thinks the U.S. should let avian flu run through flocks rather than inoculate birds.

“Any delays that they are putting in place on vaccine research or development is implicitly a decision not to vaccinate, because it will take time to roll out a vaccine and to negotiate with the other countries,” said Shea, the former USDA animal health official.

Early in her tenure, Rollins had directed her Veterinary Services staff to assemble an internal vaccination strategy to share with trade partners that was to be completed by June of last year, according to a second person with direct knowledge of the situation.

“When the secretary got that in June of 2025, it had not only the technical aspects, but it also included the communication aspects of how we thought it should be rolled out to industry, to trading partners,” the person said.

After submitting the strategy to Rollins, staff “did not get approval to share it with much of anybody,” the person said, adding that the document was designed to be disseminated widely among domestic industry leaders and other countries, but was ultimately sent to fewer “than a dozen people.”

The 2025 public strategy prioritized cutting down commercial poultry farms’ exposure to wild birds and deploying other heightened biosecurity practices. But industry representatives say that most farms have now made those changes — and it hasn’t stopped the spread of bird flu, which has stricken 2 million birds just in the last three months. That’s led many producers to privately call for a vaccine, despite the increased costs and trade concerns.

“We remain deeply concerned about the impacts of this devastating virus on our flocks and the disruption of the U.S. egg supply, and we firmly believe vaccination is a necessary tool to address the ongoing HPAI outbreak,” Chad Gregory, president and CEO of United Egg Producers, an industry trade group, said in a statement.

That sense of urgency isn’t shared by the businesses that produce chickens grown for meat — birds that represent just about 8% of bird flu infections in the U.S.

“We are anti-vax without assurances from our trading partners that we would still be able to export our products, even if any one sector moves forward with a vaccine,” said Tom Super, senior vice president of communications at the National Chicken Council.

Animal health experts and lawmakers fear that not enough has been done to prevent another outbreak during the seasonal migration period, when wild birds are more likely to transmit the virus among poultry operations.

“When migration starts and everything, those are absolutely things where we’re going to see upticks,” Sen. Jim Justice (R-W. Va.) said. “We could have possibly eliminated that danger of it striking again by completing the research and completing the vaccine.”