Should You Still Be Worried About Bird Flu? Experts Say Yes

In late 2024 and into early 2025, headlines were everywhere—including many on FoodandWine.com—discussing the potential dangers of H5N1, otherwise known as avian influenza, or more simply, the bird flu. Hundreds of millions of birds, including millions of egg-laying hens, needed to be culled, resulting in a massive egg shortage that caused the price of a dozen eggs to skyrocket. One variant was later found in dairy cows, leading the U.S. government to implement a national milk testing strategy. Several humans (mostly dairy or farm workers) were also infected, including a Louisiana farmer who died after contracting it from his backyard flock. 

However, following Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped publishing updates on the bird flu situation. In late April, the Food and Drug Administration ended the national milk testing program. All this raises the question: is bird flu over, or should we still be concerned? 

According to several experts, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

“Yes — bird flu remains a serious public health concern,” Dr. Tyler B. Evans, the CEO and cofounder of Wellness and Equity Alliance, a national alliance of public health clinicians committed to transforming health care delivery to vulnerable communities, shared with Food & Wine. “Pulling back on surveillance only heightens the risk, especially for rural communities and those with close contact to livestock. This is not the time to take our foot off the gas when it comes to monitoring zoonotic threats.” 

Evans is far from alone in this assessment. Dotsie Bausch, a public health advocate who has worked with the USDA on food policy in the past and is the founder of Switch4Good, a non-profit that advocates for a plant-based lifestyle, additionally shared, “The lack of ongoing testing by federal agencies like the USDA and FDA raises serious public health red flags.” 

And, as veterinarian Dr. Kay Russo recently told “60 Minutes,” with the lack of information from the government, it's like “we're given a stick, and they put a blindfold on us, and we're sent into a gunfight, and we're losing. We are losing.” 

Specifically, experts are also calling out the decision to roll back the milk supply testing as potentially the most dangerous act of all.

“The decision not to test the milk supply signals a broader erosion of foundational public health protections,” Evans added. “Pasteurization, sanitation, and routine quality control in dairy production have long been pillars of U.S. food safety, among the most robust in the world. Without systematic testing, we increase the risk of exposure to zoonotic pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Listeria, and Campylobacter.” 

Milk testing is crucial because it enables officials and farmers to swiftly determine if a dairy herd is infected and, more importantly, to identify the specific strain of bird flu present. This process is vital for tracking and preventing its spread between livestock and humans. Experts warn that without this testing, we risk failing to detect its pandemic potential before it's too late.

“[There is] pandemic potential for a virus like this one,” Russo told “60 Minutes.” “And you know that is the worst-case scenario, right? And ultimately, one we want to avoid. I can't say that that's gonna happen, but we don't want to play with fire.” 

Bauch agreed, noting that the situation remains “dire,” and adding that without data, we can’t “properly trace outbreaks or provide transparency to consumers that they deserve.”

And while the FDA isn't providing the data right now, Evans says there is at least one way consumers can take control. That begins by staying in “close contact” with their local public health departments and primary care providers for “up-to-date information on local outbreaks.”

“Most local and state health data are funneled to federal agencies for broader analysis and response coordination. As that pipeline weakens, the insights available to the public become less timely, less accurate, and far less actionable,” he said. 

Some states, however, are keeping their testing robust. That includes Massachusetts. At a recent Q&A with Harvard Medical School, Robert Goldstein, the state's Department of Public Health Commissioner, and a member of the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, shared that the state is continuing its “ongoing collaboration with our agricultural partners” to “institute dairy farm testing across the state.” Goldstein added, “We were the first state to do so, and we remain the only state to do it at scale. We are testing all farms in Massachusetts monthly for H5N1, and to date, no dairy farm has tested positive. We need continued collaboration with agriculture, public health, and academia to make sure that our surveillance network is as broad as possible.” 

Jacob Lemieux, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, additionally shared in the Q&A that on a scale of one to 10, he'd rate his concerns about the bird flu turning into a pandemic at “a six or a seven.” Lemieux added, “In infectious diseases, we have a saying that resistance is a function of time and titer, meaning that the ability for a pathogen to evolve depends on time under pressure and size of the reservoir. The virus has been with us for several years in multiple species, and the reservoir is large. I think we are living next to a volcano, and it may erupt or it may not. But we need to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic.”

And, as Evans and the other experts noted, testing and transparency are critical to that preparedness, which the U.S. isn't receiving anymore. 

“We're entering a dangerous era where access to basic health data is no longer guaranteed,” Evans said. “It’s a reminder that health outcomes are shaped as much by political and social decisions as by pathogens themselves.”