April 4, 2025  
          

US sacked FDA staff involved in bird flu response efforts, according to veterinary medical association

 

 

US President Donald Trump's administration has fired staff who were working on the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) bird flu response as part of its mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association and a source familiar with the situation.

 

The April 1 firings, which many employees learned of as they attempted to enter office buildings and were denied access, are part of the administration's effort to shrink the federal government.

 

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he will fire 10,000 people across the agencies under the health department.

 

Among those fired were leadership and administrative staff at the FDA's Centre for Veterinary Medicine, according to the source.

 

An employee at the Centre for Veterinary Medicine said almost all the administrative staff were terminated, along with staff on the policy, legal, and external communications teams.

 

Managers were also eliminated in the office of the centre's director, said the employee, who recently took part in a deferred resignation programme that reduced the government's headcount.

 

The American Veterinary Medical Association wants to work with the US Congress and the administration to restore key positions eliminated within the health department, its president, Sandra Faeh, said. Department cutbacks affected offices dealing with bird flu, animal and human food safety, and other issues, she added.

 

The FDA centre's Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network tests pet food for bird flu. The FDA has issued raw pet food recalls after detecting bird flu contamination that was linked to the deaths of house cats.

 

The laboratory programme office told staff in an email sent on April 1 that job cuts at the centre "may cause significant challenges and delays," according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters.

 

While staff of the laboratory network were not cut, the axing of leadership and administrative staff will bring its operations to a halt, a source said.

 

The cuts are also likely to significantly disrupt efforts under way to develop bird flu testing infrastructure for aged artisan raw milk cheese, said Dr. Keith Poulsen, a veterinarian and director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory who has been involved in the effort.

 

Coordinating bird flu testing through the national lab network is critical to tracking and managing the virus' spread, Dr. Poulsen said.

 

"You chop off the head of the leadership, and now we have to reinvent that wheel. That's not in our best interest," he said.

 

Bird flu has killed nearly 170 million chickens, turkeys, and other birds in an ongoing outbreak that began in 2022 and has driven egg prices to all-time highs. Prices have dipped somewhat in recent weeks amid a lull in new infections and increased imports.

 

- Reuters