Since early 2022, over 130 million farmed birds have died or been culled in the U.S. due to bird flu on poultry farms, and the devastating effects of this pathogen have not stopped there. Sadly, a person in Louisiana has now died of bird flu, too—after the virus most likely mutated post-infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), possibly leading to more severe illness.

The CDC confirmed 66 human cases in the U.S. in 2024. On January 10 of this year, the agency confirmed the second case of an infected U.S. child with unknown exposure to the virus. Now the CDC has just urged the testing of everyone hospitalized with influenza to determine whether patients have bird flu or a seasonal flu.

When bird flu was first found in cattle, scientists raised concerns that it could be mutating, warning that an evolving virus can become more infectious to humans. Nearly all documented human cases have resulted from direct contact with farmed animals rather than transmission from person to person—but that doesn’t mean that we should continue downplaying the risk to public health as a crisis unfolds before our eyes.

In the New England Journal of Medicine, infectious disease researchers recently warned that mutations found in the case of a Canadian teenager (who was treated in an intensive care unit and has since recovered), “highlight the urgent need for vigilant surveillance of emerging mutations and assessment of the threat of human-to-human transmission.” 

Perhaps even more alarming is the mutation during the fatal case found in Louisiana. The director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center called it “worrisome” that bird flu might “change in a person and possibly cause a greater severity of symptoms” than when they first became ill.

Recent developments could suggest that bird flu is a new or future danger if you’ve been heeding only the reassurances from animal agribusiness that we can continue with the status quo—and that its products are safe to consume. Yet, we have been warned and warned and warned by public health experts that, in bird flu, we could face the next pandemic.

Factory farms—intensive operations that dominate the U.S. food system and raise over 99 percent of the nation’s farmed animals—are breeding grounds for not just bird flu but other pathogens. Animals are crowded in the thousands or even over one million in often windowless sheds filled with their waste. In these facilities, animals and workers alike are vulnerable to disease.

Yet, much of the animal agriculture industry has stubbornly and recklessly refused to perform adequate testing of workers and animals. In December, the USDA ordered the testing of raw milk, which is not heated to eliminate harmful pathogens and bacteria before consumption. However, this is not enough to address the dangers posed by the mass farming of animals and not enough to offer the full picture of bird flu’s spread.

“Without a clearer understanding of the extent of exposure, infection, viral evolution, and transmission, we will be unable to properly protect our communities from a pathogen that has proven to be a formidable challenge to human and animal health,” reads the report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Farm Sanctuary has long warned of the need to take on factory farming’s reckless disregard for public health regarding bird flu. Below, read our op-eds placed in major media outlets, reaching tens of millions of people:

• Los Angeles Times: This Thanksgiving, don’t eat turkeys. Try honoring them instead.
• MSNBC: The bird flu is uncontrolled, and it keeps showing up in the scariest places (co-written with Dr. Hope Ferdowsian)
• San Francisco Chronicle: Who’s to blame for bird flu’s spread on factory farms? It’s not wild birds or animal activists 
• Des Moines Register: Like birds before a storm, agribusiness industry is eerily quiet about bird flu 
• The Hill: Yes, you should be worried about bird flu
• Time: It’s Time to End the Denial About Bird Flu (co-written with Dr. Crystal Heath)