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Preventing and detecting bird flu infections among farmworkers is a key defense against a potential pandemic. Immigration raids and threats have undermined these efforts, researchers say.
The latest outbreak of bird flu has upended egg, poultry, and dairy operations, sickened dozens of farmworkers, and killed at least one person in the U.S. Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl Health News national public health correspondent Amy Maxmen explains why scientists are worried.
Health officials expect a measles outbreak in West Texas to exceed 100 cases because of low vaccination rates and undetected infections. Vaccine misinformation and new laws may make such situations more common and harder to contain.
Delays in urgent CDC analyses of seasonal flu and bird flu, and the agency’s silence, will harm Americans as outbreaks escalate, doctors and public health experts warn.
With hospitalizations and at least nine confirmed cases, health officials race to contain a growing outbreak in a community with low vaccination.
An unprecedented freeze on the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report sparks new concerns about political meddling in science.
By withdrawing from the World Health Organization and overhauling aid, Trump’s new executive orders endanger Americans and the globe, researchers warn. The move also cedes U.S. power to other nations.
To deliver on pledges from the new Trump administration to make America healthy again, policymakers will need to close gaps in longevity among racial and ethnic groups.
Exclusive reporting reveals how the United States lost track of a virus that could cause the next pandemic. Problems like the sluggish pace of federal action, deference to industry, and neglect for the safety of low-wage workers put the country at risk of another health emergency.
Laborers have suffered in extreme heat triggered by climate change. Deaths aren’t inevitable, researchers say: Employers can save lives by providing ample water and breaks.
Emails show how health officials struggle to track the bird flu, partly in deference to the agricultural industry. As a result, researchers don’t know how often farmworkers are being infected — and could miss alarming signals.
A Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl Health News investigation reveals that employers and the government have offered nursing aides little assistance for PTSD and other ongoing maladies triggered by hazardous work during the pandemic.
Dairy workers in Texas show signs of prior, uncounted bird flu infections in a new study. Without labor protection and better health care, cases are bound to quietly rise as the outbreak among livestock blazes in the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promises better tests are being developed, but the episode points to vulnerabilities in the country’s defense against emerging outbreaks.
So far, all 10 cases reported nationally this year at dairy and poultry farms have been mild, consisting of respiratory symptoms and eye irritation. Scientists have warned that the virus could mutate to spread from person to person, like the seasonal flu, and spark a pandemic.
Even with a stockpile of bird flu vaccinations, the federal government is not offering them to those at high risk. Along with testing and measures to prevent spread, vaccinations may protect people and stop the outbreak from becoming a pandemic.
Three months into the U.S. bird flu outbreak, only 45 people have been tested. Laboratories that are the foundation of diagnostic testing have yet to get approval to detect the bird flu virus. They say their path forward has been slowed by miscommunication and uncertainty from the CDC and FDA.
If widely used, flu tests could be helpful now. In the meantime, the government needs to clear a path for H5N1 tests, researchers warn, to avoid the early missteps of the covid pandemic.
Federal officials are offering $75 to dairy workers who agree to be tested for bird flu. Advocates say the payments aren’t enough to protect workers from lost wages and health care costs if they test positive.
Dairy farmers and veterinarians in northern Texas furiously investigated a mysterious illness among cattle before the government got involved. Their observations are telling.
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