The layoffs in USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network program office come as egg prices reach record highs amid worsening outbreak. 

Laboratories in a national network of 58 facilities responding to the spread of bird flu were notified Friday that 25 percent of the staff in a central program office coordinating their work was fired in the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal employees.

USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network program office has a staff of only 14 people, but it plays a major role in responding to animal disease outbreaks. It’s responsible for data management, ensuring that labs across the country are conducting the same tests and following similar protocols to accurately and effectively track animal diseases.

The labs that make up the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians were informed that testing and other responses to the H5N1 outbreak would be slower after the layoff, said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

“They’re the front line of surveillance for the entire outbreak,” Poulsen said. “They’re already underwater and they are constantly short-staffed, so if you take all the probationary staff out, you’ll take out the capacity to do the work.”

USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The department’s work responding to diseases like African swine fever and foot and mouth disease could also be affected.

Avian influenza has killed more than 100 million birds since the start of the current outbreak in 2022, including 22 million in the last 30 days, according to USDA’s latest data. The virus has spread in the past year to dairy cattle, infecting the majority of California’s herds and setting off outbreaks in more than a dozen states. 

USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced a third spillover event — the term for when a new strain of the virus infects another species — in dairy cattle in Arizona, another indicator that the nation has not yet contained the H5N1 virus.

The outbreak has sent the price of eggs skyrocketing to a record high of $4.95per dozen and led to shortages in some grocery stores.

Brooke Rollins, who was confirmed and sworn in as secretary of Agriculture this week, said that she convened a meeting about bird flu on her first day on the job. It’s unclear whether the layoffs were discussed.

Thousands of USDA employees across multiple agencies, most of whom are new hires, have been notified they would lose their jobs as the Trump administration moves to aggressively shrink the federal government.

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