Opinion | Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr announced on Mar. 4, 2025 that the avian influenza (“bird flu”) vaccine should not be given to chickens in the U.S. based on emerging evidence that injecting poultry with avian influenza virus (AIV) vaccine could lead to mutations accelerating evolution of the animal virus to become more of a threat to humans. In an interview on Fox News, he said, “There’s no indication that those vaccines actually provide sterilizing immunity and all three of my health agencies, NIH, CDC, and the FDA, the acting heads of those agencies have all recommended against the use of the bird flu vaccine.”1 2
USDA Head Announced Bird Flu Combat Plan That Now Will NOT Include Bird Flu Shots for Chickens
Secretary Kennedy’s recommendation came on the heels of a Feb. 26, 2025 announcement by the new Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is launching a $1 billion five-point strategy to combat bird flu circulating among US chickens, which has seen the USDA direct chicken farmers to kill more than 166 million chickens since 2022 and has caused a nationwide egg shortage with astronomical egg price increases. One of the strategies outlined by Secretary Rollins is committing $100 million for bird flu vaccine research and vaccination of egg-laying chickens. “This should help reduce the need to ‘depopulate’ flocks, which means killing chickens on a farm where there’s an outbreak,” said Rollins.3
However, the day after President Trump’s Mar. 5 address to Congress in which he mentioned the need to bring down egg prices, Rollins gave an interview to Breitbart and said the administration will be focusing on reducing egg prices by repopulating chicken farms and increasing biosecurity measures, but that chickens and other animals will not be given avian bird flu vaccines. She said:
What I learned is that looking at countries like Mexico that actually do vaccinate their egg-layers is that those chickens have to be stuck three or four or five times with those vaccine shots and then 80 to 83 percent of those chickens still get the avian bird flu. So I pulled that off the table and for a lot of reasons we are not going to be moving off the table on mandatory vaccines now or frankly ever.4
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) licenses and makes policy recommendations for vaccines used by humans but the USDA licenses and makes policy recommendations for use of animal vaccines.5 On. Feb. 14, 2025, the USDA granted New Jersey veterinary vaccine producer Zoetis, Inc. a conditional license for an inactivated avian influenza “bird flu” vaccine for chickens.6 Previously owned by Pfizer, Inc., the company is the world’s largest animal drug and vaccine producer. The Zoetis bird flu vaccine contains a killed version of the H5N2 variant currently circulating among chickens in farms across the U.S.7
Bird Flu Vaccination of Chickens Masks Symptoms, Increases Asymptomatic Transmission
The United States has the largest poultry industry in the world worth about $60 billion annually and three-quarters of the chickens affected by the current bird flu outbreak are egg-laying hens. U.S. farmers have not wanted to give bird flu vaccine to chickens, in part because (1) vaccination masks symptoms of avian influenza virus infection and increases asymptomatic transmission in vaccinated chickens; (2) the avian influenza virus mutates rapidly to evade the pressure of vaccination; and (3) many countries recognize that vaccinated chickens may still be infected and refuse to buy poultry exports from countries that vaccinate, which threatens to cripple the U.S. poultry market.8
In 2023, CNN quoted University of California Professor in Poultry Medicine Rodrigo Gallardo, PhD, who commented that it is difficult to detect asymptomatic bird flu infections in vaccinated chickens. He said:
If you’re not able to diagnose it, it might spread more than what it would do if you are able to diagnose it and eradicate it…This is a very variable virus, and if you don’t update the vaccine that you’re applying to meet the change in the virus, then you won’t be able to completely protect the birds. Partial protection means more birds will be spreading the virus.9
Bird Flu Vaccine Concerns, Including Genetic Evolution of the Avian Virus Began in 2005
Vaccination of poultry consumed by humans has been controversial since it began and, as early as 2005, a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson observed, “Vaccination can sometimes cause silent transmission of infection from asymptomatic birds.”10 Animal virus researchers in China and the United Kingdom published a study on Jan. 22, 2024 warning that if vaccinated birds become infected, it could increase the risk for genetic evolution of the highly pathogenic N5 subtype of the avian influenza virus (HPAIV). For the past two decades, China has implemented an extensive bird flu vaccination program of billions of chickens and is the number one global consumer of H5 AIV vaccines.11
The study, which was published in Science Advances, presented more evidence that poultry in China given H5N2 vaccines between 2005 and 2010 generated a “notable increase in the evolutionary rate” of the virus. Researchers stated, “We observe elevated rates of HA molecular evolution and adaptation of H5 AIV in Chinese poultry after the introduction of vaccination” and “there are concerns that mass vaccination against H5AIV could affect the molecular evolution of the virus.”12
Old Guard Mandatory Vaccination Proponents Want mRNA Bird Flu Vaccines for Animals and Humans
Despite more than two decades of warnings that bird flu vaccines might not be a good idea for chickens or humans, it appears that the old guard promoting mandatory use of every vaccine that Big Pharma produces is pressing full speed ahead with calls for production of a bird flu biological that uses the controversial mRNA technology. On Mar. 3, 2025, an article in STAT informed readers that DHHS is reevaluating a $600 million contract between mRNA COVID shot producer, Moderna, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to develop and fast rack production of an mRNA bird flu shot for humans. Former health agency officials and vaccine researchers were quoted explaining that most influenza vaccines currently on the market are made using huge quantities of chicken eggs, which is a very slow process compared to the mRNA “plug and play” technology that catapulted both Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID shots to market in a record 11 months by the end of 2021.13
Former head of the FDA’s regulatory Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) Jesse Goodman, MD, MPH, said that making influenza vaccines, which do not rely on eggs for production is key to rapidly making enough doses to respond to bird flu and other types of influenza pandemics. He said, “I would say the biggest priority would be to get an approved alternative technology flu vaccine to use in the pandemic… So that’s why the need for alternative technologies and mRNA is one of them.”
Suggesting that the government needs to prepare right now for an avian influenza pandemic that uses mRNA technology, another former CBER scientist, virologist Phil Krause, PhD, said that conducting clinical trials of mRNA H5N1 shots in advance would help expedite FDA authorization under the same FDA rule manufacturers use for updating seasonal flu shots. “It’s a question of preparation,” said Krause.
Luciana Boro, MD, a partner at ARCH Venture Partners and former director at the National Security Council, added that this type of advance work would help persuade people that the mRNA bird flu vaccines have been thoroughly tested. “We don’t want to be in a situation where people don’t have confidence in a vaccine that is forced through because we haven’t done the work ahead of time,” said Dr. Boro.14
And pediatrician Kathryn Edwards, MD, a longtime vaccine researcher and mandatory vaccination proponent,15 added that drug companies need advance guarantees that there will be financial aid from the government for research and development of a bird flu vaccine. “They can’t make things that may not be used,” she told STAT.
In a Mar. 7, 2025 article in Science signed by seven authors, of which five are former DHHS officials and one who is a vocal mandatory vaccination proponent,16 readers were warned that “the H5N1 virus has crossed species and adapted to mammalian hosts, including dairy cattle, causing widespread exposure and sporadic human illness….Given H5N1’s potential to spread, urgent action is needed to address pandemic preparedness gaps.” The authors called for streamlining of “vaccine development, assessment, production and access” through industry, government and regulators enhancing “collaboration on new technologies, such as mRNA-based vaccines using novel antigens…”17
Mounting Opposition to mRNA Technology for Animal and Human Bird Flu Shots
The drumbeat for the fast tracking of mRNA bird flu shots for both animals and humans is getting louder and louder among drug companies, scientists and doctors, who don’t seem to have the ability to comprehend how much people have come to dislike and fear the mRNA COVID-19 shots that have hurt so many, generating more than 1.6M adverse event reports to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).18 19 While mRNA biological products being developed and used to treat those suffering with advanced cancers offer hope as personalized therapeutics for very sick patients,20 promoting development of mRNA biologicals labeled “vaccines” that will be given and potentially mandated for healthy people is another matter entirely.
There are five drug companies developing an H5N1 biological product labeled a “vaccine” using mRNA technology to prevent H5N1 infections in humans, including GlaxoSmithKline/CureVac; Sanofi, Moderna and Arcturus Therapeutics. The Arcturus Therapeutics product is a self-amplifying mRNA “vaccine” candidate currently in clinical trials funded by the Department of Health and Human Service’s (DHSS) Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).21
A Mar. 8, 2025 article entitled “MRNA vaccines now face attacks from some in the GOP” published by KFF (formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation)22 describes mounting public opposition to the genetic engineering technology that was used to create the gene based COVID-19 biological that uses synthetic mRNA delivered in inflammatory lipid nanoparticles to program the body’s cells to make part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (like the spike protein in the COVID shot).23 24 Forcing cells to become virus manufacturing plants is, understandably, not going over well in a population becoming increasingly well educated about the risks of vaccines and genetically engineered products labeled “vaccines” like the COVID shots.
Who will win the war between what the people want and what old guard government scientists, doctors and academic researchers engaged in lucrative public-private business partnerships with Big Pharma want?25
With the winds of change bringing about an age of enlightenment in what has been a fierce Vaccine Culture War in America for nearly half a century,26 my bet is on the people.
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9 Responses
A victory for science, common sense and protecting Americans.
Finally, common sense! That’s great news!
Thank you for the recommendation, RFK, Jr. but how about solidifying that with an order against ever using these vaccines in chickens. We know what happened with Marek’s disease. Vaccination does not prevent infection with the virus, Marek’s is still transmissible from vaccinated flocks to other birds, including the wild bird population.
Thank God people are starting to use their brains! Thank God for Bobby Kennedy, I don’t think we would be seeing these changes without him. DON’T BACK DOWN!
This article was surprisingly educational and informational. So in usual fashion I scrolled to the top to identify the author. Oh, it’s Barbara Fisher again. Another excellent piece, thank you.
Article quote: Kathryn Edwards, MD, a longtime vaccine researcher and mandatory vaccination proponent, added that drug companies need advance guarantees that there will be financial aid from the government for research and development of a bird flu vaccine / Correction – drug companies WANT financial guarantees, because the entire reason they’re into this line of ‘science’ in the first place is to receive government money.
Let’s talk about ‘the cosmic cobra effect’. This concept made the rounds in mortgage related subject matter lately. Read this short but interesting article for a primer on the concept and relations to the vaccination industry.
The concept is also known as perverse incentives. The good Dr Ron Paul talks about this concept frequently. Often in relation to free market principals. Good old supply and demand, as they say.
Whenever the government becomes involved, they interfere with the free market and despite best intentions the people are usually left with a much bigger more complex problem then they would have dealt with, had the government never have became involved in the first place. If people will please take this concept seriously and educate others about these easy to understand principals, we can all move along and most of these alleged problems will simply go away.
https://georgedell.com/what-is-an-appraisal-cobra-farm/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
The perverse financial effect is overwhelmingly obvious when it comes to pharmasuetical activity in relation to the insatiable need and continued demand for more of our tax dollars.
Who’s still buying this? This is not a sufficient free market demand for this activity and these products because if not for the government money, there is not a chance that agricultural communities farmers and consumers of chicken eggs would willingly pay medical researchers and posh pharmasuetical executives more than they personally earn on the agricultural products, to produce a quasi vaccine of this nature.
Egg eaters are getting the worst of this right now. We are in fact, being forced with a choice to continue paying high egg prices or simply abandon this line of food completely soon. Egg prices can be brought down, by rescinding the government money which is currently directed at monitoring chickens health and vaccinating chickens.
OMG I can’t believe I have to even write this down on the board. But it’s true, the sky is falling because; sick chickens. The concept is laughable. Are they dinner? Are they food supply? Or are those little chickens humanities last hope and we need to all lay down grave sacrifices so they don’t get ill and perish a lonely death with ‘bird flue’? Cut their heads off, pluck them, bbq them, and put that little chickie on a plate. If you run short on supply, pop the eggs in incubators and make more of them. Maybe stop grinding half of them to death with those machines when they’re identified as male instead of female at birth, so there could be more chickens. This is not rocket science.
Let’s be logical for a moment. What happens with the flue? You get sick. Then most of the time you get better. Who’s to say that letting all the chickens simply be sick then get better is not the better more medically sound course of action? Who will ask the most basic of question that did more chickens die because we killed so many of them ‘to stop transmission’, than would have died if we let them have the flue and did not intervene in the first place?
Can people identify the language similarities here compared to covid and humans? It’s the same line of reasoning and same talking points, just with alternative language. People apparently need to learn this lesson the hard way through repetition. If you objected to the concept of covid being valid, you should be naturally dismissive of ‘bird flue’ right now as well. It’s the same playbook, hands out for government money, drumming up fear in the people to drive the illusion of public demand and imminent need. They’re not doing this because they care about chickens. They’re promoting the topic for profit.
Wouldn’t the chickens have acquired natural immunity by now? Or is natural immunity off the table once more, again relegated to the history books as a myth and non fact? Again, the same play right out of the book. It’s obvious the vaccine does not work, if as the article states, in other countries they need three or four jabs. In what sensible world do people go back and buy products over and over again, when the dang product does not even work in the first place?
Again, who’s still buying this? Humanity is doomed, humans collectively appear incapable of independent thought and are so easily programmed to believe lies, that if they hear lies long enough, or there is a long standing mis understanding about a human practice, this is adopted again and again generationally with no correction. It is because special interests are directing attention to the issue, that the issue is being talked about. If we can all stop being so easily influenced to being hand wringers and worry warts about the chickens and all the germs, we can direct our energies and time to more productive matters. If we’re killing all these chickens, why hasn’t the price of a chicken sandwich gone down? This is not making sense.
Let’s try and bold and new experiment. Simply stop taking vaccines. Stop paying for vaccines. Stop paying for vaccine research. Let these genius people in white lab coats put their time and energy into something else for a change. Barbara and whomever else is listening, this is why we constantly drone on about the principals of liberty and free markets. Because no amount of education on the details of ‘vaccines’ will solve the core issue.
The presence of these substances and the dastardly network of power control and influence which has sprung up around them is due to the cold hard fact these pharmasuetical substances are no longer a product of the free market. We can call this the cosmic vaccine effect if you will. Another perverse incentive. Now with chickens! As seen on tv! They’re going to need a special sound jingle and a new commercial to go with this. Really ramp up the sales you know.
Maybe they should put little tiny masks on all the chickens instead eh? The entire thing is beyond ridiculous and many people like myself can’t even begin to fathom how the medical industry, associated government people, insurers, news people, politicians, ranchers, consumers, egg eating humanoids are even taking this seriously in the first place.
But you know, the momentum is there. The perverse financial incentive is firmly in place. So as long as that access to government money is presented, someone out there is going to have their hands out to receive it, and weave a grand and glorious tale justifying why they should get that free tax money. Yesterday it was covid. Today it’s chickens. What will tomorrow bring? Your tax dollars hard at work. We live our entire lives under the yolk of taxation without representation. Can I please have a bigger tax refund instead of this, or perhaps a lower priced chicken dinner? I’ll take mine deep fried please.
Thanks for reading the Vaccine Reaction. Excellent. Love this website. Long time NVIC supporter.
Please make your comments shorter
or link to them to your facebook or a blog etc. Way too much and I suspect no one can get through them give the article was also long. Please. Thank you
TLDNR? That’s what the people at NIH, USDA, FDA, and CDC all said when they approved this madness in the first place. I do not have facebook or a blog page. I post anonymously and that hand typed unique comment is only available exclusively here because I support this site’s efforts. If the website managers want shorter comments, they can impose character count limitations in the text entry fields. As that is not imposed, one presumes they don’t mind long form commentary.
Try summary reading and only read the first line of each paragraph, pursue only the content which is interesting to you, skim the rest to get the gist of the matter. Reading both the primary article and all comments, including long comments, should take no more than ten or so minutes even with complete attentive full text reading.
The bird flue story is yet another in a never ending line of contemporary examples of poisonous protectionism and perverse financial incentives imposed due to government intervention. It’s important for more people to understand these concepts. If we seek solutions to these problems, it is essential to educate the people on the root causes; Central planning never works. The fact the federal government is involved is why the problem is amplified and made worse. Hope that helps. Thanks.
Is it out of the question to treat these chickens by natural means? Boosting the immune system: reduce crowding, reducing stress, give fresh water, fresh land and extra minerals during outbreak? If my family or work group pass around a flu bug, even a bad one like covid we treat it therapeutically. we all don’t line up for the firing squad.
Exactly Malinda, exactly. I like the firing squad comments. Can’t they at least turn them into low priced dog food or something more productive? Chickens can not gain natural immunity over time? We like Vital Farms eggs. They score higher on the Cornicopia Institute egg score cards. There is always this little flyer which changes every month or so, the featured hen update and a corny farm joke, a dash of education. Not surprisingly, during this ‘outbreak’, Vital Farm members were not systematically destroying chickens by the millions or overly worried about testing and compliance. Because the supply network is a coalition of small scale organic farmers, better insulated from these issues. We never ran out of eggs and they continue to be available at Natural Grocerers. We’ve been paying ten dollars a dozen for years, just for the better egg product. In a surprising turn of events, Vital Farm eggs in many situations now cost less than conventional eggs and their prices barely moved at all over the past year. That’s a no brainer consumer choice if you ask me.
Informational references;
https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/eggs/
https://vitalfarms.com/vital-times-online/