U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has raised the alarm against vaccinating poultry in order to bring down America's astronomical egg prices. Kennedy suggested in a recent interview that doing so might transform farms into incubators for mutant viruses, creating problems far more serious for the population than eggs that cost $1 a piece.

Egg prices have spiraled out of control in recent months and years.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate that between 1994 and 2022, the price of a dozen grade A eggs remained south of $3, and with few exceptions, hovered around or below $2. Prices began to skyrocket in 2022 and have hit record highs in recent weeks.

Last month, egg prices hit an all-time average high of $4.95 per dozen. In the first week of March, egg prices were reportedly averaging about $6.85 nationally. In some places, the Associated Press reported that consumers have been shelling out as much as a dollar per egg. The USDA predicted that egg prices will increase by 41.1% this year.

While there are multiple factors at play, these unprecedented egg prices are largely the result of mass exterminations of commercial and backyard bird populations ordered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

'They're teaching the organism how to mutate.'

The stated purpose of these culls is to curb the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5) viruses. The agency has directed the extermination of over 166.41 million birds since the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspect Service first confirmed HPAI belonging to the clade 2.3.4.4b in a commercial flock in the U.S. on Feb. 8, 2022.Well over 30 million egg-laying birds have been culled since Jan. 1.

Absent these interventions, the virus would supposedly inflict devastating economic damage and possibly even pose health risks to humans — even though there has only been one recorded human death from HPAI in the U.S., and there are no documented cases of person-to-person spread.

Desperation over egg prices has prompted renewed interest in possibly vaccinating birds against the virus. The administration appears to be receptive.

While Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins noted that vaccines "aren't a stand-alone solution," she recently indicated that the USDA is committing $100 million for vaccine research and development.

There are multiple avian HPAI vaccines available, one of which received a conditional license from the USDA last month for use in chickens. However, the U.S. and the U.K. have resisted large-scale rollouts because vaccination could mask infections, delay detection, and ultimately lead to the need for larger culls. Another concern over vaccines that has been expressed on both sides of the Atlantic is the possibility that vaccination would prompt a false sense of security, thereby compromising biosecurity and again undermining efforts to protect supply.

Vaccination would also amount to an admission that the virus has become endemic rather than epidemic.

Kennedy, more than happy to acknowledge the wild endemicity of HPAI, raised an entirely different concern in a recent interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.

"All of my agencies have recommended against the vaccination of birds," said Kennedy, "because if you vaccinate with a leaky vaccine — in other words, a vaccine that does not provide sterilizing immunity, that does not absolutely protect against the disease — you turn those flocks into mutation factories."

"They're teaching the organism how to mutate," continued Kennedy. "And it's much more likely to jump to animals if you do that."

Kennedy indicated that the agency heads at the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration have suggested that vaccinating chickens "is dangerous for human beings."

'Those should be the birds that we breed.'

Not only did the HHS secretary advocate against vaccinating birds, he cast doubt on the value of culling flocks, suggesting that "you should let the disease go through them."

The culling operations cost Americans both at the grocery store and in their taxes.

The federal government pays poultry producers market value of the birds they are directed to cull. Farmers do not alternatively receive compensation for animals that die of the virus. As of January, over 1,200 producers received these federal indemnity payments, costing taxpayers over $1.1 billion.

Governing.com reported that 67 companies that have received indemnity payment have had at least two infections. There have been 18 facilities with three or more outbreaks. Since 2023, half of these payments have reportedly gone to just a handful of giant corporations.

Rather than shell out more money to kill flocks, delay the acquisition of immunity, and possibly incentivize complacency where biosecurity is concerned, Kennedy suggested, "We should be testing therapeutics on those flocks; they should isolate them; you should let the disease go through them; and identify the birds that survive, which are the birds that probably have a genetic inclination for immunity — and those should be the birds that we breed."

Kennedy intimated that shoppers should not be concerned about consuming eggs or poultry products from a bird population where HPAI is endemic. After all, the CDC has indicated that "cooking poultry and eggs to an internal temperature of 165˚F kills bacteria and viruses, including avian influenza A viruses."

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