Clifford: Avian influenza outbreak ‘largest animal health emergency’ in U.S. history
July 09, 2015 |06:12 PM
John Clifford, the chief veterinary officer of the United States, told two congressional committees this week that the outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza is “the largest animal health emergency in the country’s history,” but he declined to ask for congressional action other than long-term support for the Agriculture Department’s Animal Plant and Health Service, where he is the deputy administrator.
Clifford testified before the Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday and the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
At both hearings, he and members of the committees stressed that there is no threat to human health and no reason not to consume eggs or poultry, but that the outbreak, which has resulted in the killing of 48 million birds to control the spread of the disease, has had a devastating effect on the industry.
It is also clear from the testimony that officials fear the disease, which has so far been confined to the West and the Midwest and has taken a toll on turkeys and egg-laying chickens, will spread to the East Coast, where the broiler industry is located.
Clifford also emphasized that the Agriculture Department has given “its fullest attention” to the disease, and members of the Senate Agriculture Committee praised USDA’s performance even though some industry officials have criticized the early response.
John Clifford
“People have lost their jobs and have seen their livelihoods put in grave danger by this outbreak, and our hearts go out to them,” Clifford said at each hearing.
“I can assure you, however, that this disease has USDA’s fullest attention, and we are committed to standing with our producers and industry to get them — and the communities they live in and support — back on their feet.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., noted that her state produces the most turkeys and said the 108 farms have been depopulated and that is an emotional as well as an economic issue.
At each hearing, Clifford also explained that the disease was first detected on the West Coast in wild birds and backyard flocks that had comingled with migratory birds from Asia where a variant of the disease is widespread. From there it spread to the Midwest, where it has affected birds raised indoors and outdoors.
The disease spreads more quickly in winter, and detections this summer have “slowed to a trickle,” Clifford said. But USDA officials fear that the disease will spread again this fall, and are preparing for that eventuality.
Clifford testified he could not identify a “single, specific practice” that has led to the spread of the disease but that “lapses in biosecurity were a contributing factor.”
“Our investigation shows that the virus has been introduced into commercial poultry facilities from the environment (i.e., water, soil, animal feces, air) or from farm-to-farm transmission on human sources such as boots or equipment,” he said.
USDA has already delivered more than $190 million in indemnity payments to growers who have had to kill their birds and USDA has committed more than $500 million — an amount more than half of APHIS’s yearly discretionary budget to addressing the outbreak—and has the authority to request even more funding from the Office of Management and Budget, Clifford said. More than 400 USDA staff and nearly 3,000 USDA-contracted personnel have worked on the response, he added.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., Senate Agriculture ranking member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and other members of the committee praised USDA’s performance but stressed that they are trying to figure out how Congress can help in this situation both in the short term and the longterm.
Clifford told Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee as well as sitting on Agriculture, that APHIS has enough money for the present. Cochran told him to be sure to inform him if he needs more money.
In response to a question from Roberts on how APHIS would respond to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which affects cattle, Clifford said that federal budget cuts has caused APHIS to lose 800 personnel overall and the veterinary service 225 staff in recent years.
Clifford also said it is most important for Congress not to shut down the government, which leads to a stoppage in research. David Swayne, the laboratory director of the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service in Athens, Ga., also testified that a government shutdown leads to the killing of birds and animals involved in research activities and the need to start over.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he thinks “sequestration is awful for all agencies.”
Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., asked whether APHIS’s $250 million annual budget is “adequate, and Clifford said it was not. But when Boozman pressed him to ask for more money, Clifford said he could not do that except through “a process.”
“You can’t have it both ways,” Boozman said.
In an interview afterward, Clifford, a civil servant, said that he can only ask for more money through the fiscal year 2017 presidential budget process, which is now underway.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, asked Clifford about inefficiencies and slowness in USDA’s actions, but Clifford testified that most of those cases occurred early in the detection of the disease and have been resolved.
“There was a communication problem early on,” Clifford said, noting that APHIS has let some contractors go and wants to put one person in charge of the cleanup of each facility, with a “federal person embedded in each of the contract crews.”
Clifford also stressed that the cleanup of each facility is painstaking, exhausting work in which members of the crew can only spend half an hour in a building because of the heat before taking a break to be rehydrated and rest for 10 minutes.
He also noted that one of the problems is the need to have places ready to put the killed birds and the material associated with them. Communities, he noted, become concerned about what is happening and worry about the spread of disease.
Clifford said APHIS will also consider using vaccines because the killing of so many birds leads to an enormous loss of protein in the food supply, as well as severe economic losses for the industry.
But he said vaccines are not a silver bullet, partly because some countries will take the position that the United States is using vaccines because it cannot control the problem and will not import U.S. poultry products.
Vaccines are being developed, but on a second industry panel the differences within the industry were apparent.
Brad Moline, a turkey grower from Manson, Iowa, said that a vaccine would be a “powerful tool” and that “under an approved vaccine strategy we can ensure trade partners and customers that infected birds will never leave the farm and that no meat from vaccinated birds gets exported.”
But James Dean, an egg producer from Sioux Center, Iowa, said that “on the layer side we have mixed feelings about vaccine,” because it would involve vaccinating the birds at the hatchery and again while they are producing eggs.
Producers who have to vaccinate would have to handle the birds while they are in production and bear the expense of the vaccine.
Dean said he would prefer to see “an effective stamp-out program,” but that he would also favor the equivalent of a crop insurance program.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who had organized a meeting with the poultry industry and USDA’s Risk Management Agency, attended the hearing. Afterward King told reporters that an insurance program cannot be developed until the way in which the disease spreads is clear.
In addition to hearing from Clifford, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee heard from a different set of witnesses.
Jack Gelb, a professor at the University of Delaware noted that 70 percent of farm income in Delaware is tied to poultry, including the production of corn and soybeans for feed ingredients.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the ranking member on the committee, said in a statement afterward, “We cannot rest on our laurels — this avian influenza outbreak has us on high alert in Delaware and up and down the east coast, in Washington D.C., and across the country.”
Clifford testified before the Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday and the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
At both hearings, he and members of the committees stressed that there is no threat to human health and no reason not to consume eggs or poultry, but that the outbreak, which has resulted in the killing of 48 million birds to control the spread of the disease, has had a devastating effect on the industry.
It is also clear from the testimony that officials fear the disease, which has so far been confined to the West and the Midwest and has taken a toll on turkeys and egg-laying chickens, will spread to the East Coast, where the broiler industry is located.
Clifford also emphasized that the Agriculture Department has given “its fullest attention” to the disease, and members of the Senate Agriculture Committee praised USDA’s performance even though some industry officials have criticized the early response.
“People have lost their jobs and have seen their livelihoods put in grave danger by this outbreak, and our hearts go out to them,” Clifford said at each hearing.
“I can assure you, however, that this disease has USDA’s fullest attention, and we are committed to standing with our producers and industry to get them — and the communities they live in and support — back on their feet.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., noted that her state produces the most turkeys and said the 108 farms have been depopulated and that is an emotional as well as an economic issue.
At each hearing, Clifford also explained that the disease was first detected on the West Coast in wild birds and backyard flocks that had comingled with migratory birds from Asia where a variant of the disease is widespread. From there it spread to the Midwest, where it has affected birds raised indoors and outdoors.
The disease spreads more quickly in winter, and detections this summer have “slowed to a trickle,” Clifford said. But USDA officials fear that the disease will spread again this fall, and are preparing for that eventuality.
Clifford testified he could not identify a “single, specific practice” that has led to the spread of the disease but that “lapses in biosecurity were a contributing factor.”
“Our investigation shows that the virus has been introduced into commercial poultry facilities from the environment (i.e., water, soil, animal feces, air) or from farm-to-farm transmission on human sources such as boots or equipment,” he said.
USDA has already delivered more than $190 million in indemnity payments to growers who have had to kill their birds and USDA has committed more than $500 million — an amount more than half of APHIS’s yearly discretionary budget to addressing the outbreak—and has the authority to request even more funding from the Office of Management and Budget, Clifford said. More than 400 USDA staff and nearly 3,000 USDA-contracted personnel have worked on the response, he added.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., Senate Agriculture ranking member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and other members of the committee praised USDA’s performance but stressed that they are trying to figure out how Congress can help in this situation both in the short term and the longterm.
Clifford told Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee as well as sitting on Agriculture, that APHIS has enough money for the present. Cochran told him to be sure to inform him if he needs more money.
In response to a question from Roberts on how APHIS would respond to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which affects cattle, Clifford said that federal budget cuts has caused APHIS to lose 800 personnel overall and the veterinary service 225 staff in recent years.
Clifford also said it is most important for Congress not to shut down the government, which leads to a stoppage in research. David Swayne, the laboratory director of the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service in Athens, Ga., also testified that a government shutdown leads to the killing of birds and animals involved in research activities and the need to start over.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he thinks “sequestration is awful for all agencies.”
Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., asked whether APHIS’s $250 million annual budget is “adequate, and Clifford said it was not. But when Boozman pressed him to ask for more money, Clifford said he could not do that except through “a process.”
“You can’t have it both ways,” Boozman said.
In an interview afterward, Clifford, a civil servant, said that he can only ask for more money through the fiscal year 2017 presidential budget process, which is now underway.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, asked Clifford about inefficiencies and slowness in USDA’s actions, but Clifford testified that most of those cases occurred early in the detection of the disease and have been resolved.
“There was a communication problem early on,” Clifford said, noting that APHIS has let some contractors go and wants to put one person in charge of the cleanup of each facility, with a “federal person embedded in each of the contract crews.”
Clifford also stressed that the cleanup of each facility is painstaking, exhausting work in which members of the crew can only spend half an hour in a building because of the heat before taking a break to be rehydrated and rest for 10 minutes.
He also noted that one of the problems is the need to have places ready to put the killed birds and the material associated with them. Communities, he noted, become concerned about what is happening and worry about the spread of disease.
Clifford said APHIS will also consider using vaccines because the killing of so many birds leads to an enormous loss of protein in the food supply, as well as severe economic losses for the industry.
But he said vaccines are not a silver bullet, partly because some countries will take the position that the United States is using vaccines because it cannot control the problem and will not import U.S. poultry products.
Vaccines are being developed, but on a second industry panel the differences within the industry were apparent.
Brad Moline, a turkey grower from Manson, Iowa, said that a vaccine would be a “powerful tool” and that “under an approved vaccine strategy we can ensure trade partners and customers that infected birds will never leave the farm and that no meat from vaccinated birds gets exported.”
But James Dean, an egg producer from Sioux Center, Iowa, said that “on the layer side we have mixed feelings about vaccine,” because it would involve vaccinating the birds at the hatchery and again while they are producing eggs.
Producers who have to vaccinate would have to handle the birds while they are in production and bear the expense of the vaccine.
Dean said he would prefer to see “an effective stamp-out program,” but that he would also favor the equivalent of a crop insurance program.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who had organized a meeting with the poultry industry and USDA’s Risk Management Agency, attended the hearing. Afterward King told reporters that an insurance program cannot be developed until the way in which the disease spreads is clear.
In addition to hearing from Clifford, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee heard from a different set of witnesses.
Jack Gelb, a professor at the University of Delaware noted that 70 percent of farm income in Delaware is tied to poultry, including the production of corn and soybeans for feed ingredients.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the ranking member on the committee, said in a statement afterward, “We cannot rest on our laurels — this avian influenza outbreak has us on high alert in Delaware and up and down the east coast, in Washington D.C., and across the country.”
Senate Agriculture Committee hearingWitness testimony
- John Clifford, deputy administrator, USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary Services
- David Swayne, director USDA Agricultural Research Service Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, Athens, Ga.
- James R. Dean, chairman, United Egg Producers, Sioux Center, Iowa
- Ken Klippen, president, National Association of Egg Farmers, Collegeville, Pa.
- Brad R. Moline, manager/owner, Moline Farms LLC, Manson, Iowa
- Rob Knecht, president, vice president of operations, Michigan Allied Poultry Industries and Konos, Inc., Martin , Mich.
- Thomas Elam, president, FarmEcon LLC, Carmel , Ind.
Senate Homeland Security hearingWitness testimony
- John Clifford, deputy administrator, USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary Services
- Anne Schuchat, director, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Assistant Surgeon General, Department of Health and Human Services
- Christopher P. Currie, director, Homeland Security and Justice, Government Accountability Office
- Jack Gelb Jr., director, Avian Biosciences Center, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Delaware
- Scott Schneider, owner, Nature Link Farm, Jefferson, Wisc., and president, Wisconsin Poultry and Egg Industries Association
