CBS News
U.S. orders cow testing for bird flu after grocery milk tests positive
The Agriculture Department is ordering the dairy industry to test milk-producing cows for infections from highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI H5N1, before they’re moved between states, federal officials announced Wednesday.
USDA’s move to ramp up testing requirements for HPAI H5N1 comes after the Food and Drug Administration disclosed Tuesday that samples of pasteurized milk that had been sold on grocery store shelves had tested positive for the virus, prompting further research to verify if the positive test was caused by lingering dead “virus particles” or live infectious virus.
It also comes after federal authorities say they have now spotted some “isolated” but worrying changes to the virus in cows, which are believed by U.S. officials to have contracted the virus from wild birds.
State veterinarians and labs that find that cattle have tested positive for the virus will be required to report their results to the USDA. Farms with cows that are sick will need to undergo investigations before moving cattle across state lines.
“The primary focus of the order, initially, will be lactating cattle. But we will certainly have the opportunity to expand beyond that as necessary,” Mike Watson, head of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, told reporters Wednesday.
Officials previously said that the unprecedented spread of the virus among dairy cattle likely traces to a single spillover event from wild birds, based on an analysis of genetic sequences collected from sick cattle.
Since then, genetic data and investigations suggest the virus has spread to infect cows across at least eight states and a human dairy worker in Texas. Egg farms from Texas and Michigan are also suspected to have been infected by virus that spread from cows, adding to millions of poultry culled because of infections from wild birds.
“Those farms have been in close proximity to affected dairy farms. And so there could be lateral flow from the dairy farms to these poultry operations, to these egg laying operations. This could be such things as transfer of the virus through fomites, such as on clothing or on vehicles,” National Milk Producers Federation chief science officer Jamie Jonker said at recent Swine Health Information Center webinar.
The virus was not initially found in the respiratory tract of most infected cows, officials said, suggesting it is not spreading through the air between cows like other kinds of influenza. Instead, H5N1 HPAI in the current outbreak has been found almost exclusively in raw milk and the cow organs that produce it. Officials think the virus may have spread between cows during the milking process on farms, through surfaces contaminated with infected raw milk.
However, Watson said that at least one cow headed to slaughter has now been found with signs of the virus in its lung tissue. The cow was condemned by USDA inspectors and did not enter the food supply, Watson said.
Federal scientists have also found a mutation in another sick cow from Kansas that had a genetic change that adapted the flu to spread better in mammals.
“The one sequence shift and the one dairy cow with H5N1 in the lung tissue so far appear to be isolated events. However, the novel movement of H5N1 between wild birds and dairy cows requires further testing,” Watson said.
Cows mostly have been recovering from the virus without dying, Watson said. That’s in stark contrast to the kind of mass die-offs seen in birds and some other species. However, dairy industry officials have previously said some cows have yet to recover their ability to produce milk, raising concerns of long-term issues for some cattle.
“We need time to develop an understanding to support any future courses of action. So this federal order is critical to increasing the information available for USDA,” said Watson.
H5N1 HPAI virus found in pasteurized milk
While health authorities say they think previous work pasteurizing eggs for HPAI H5N1 and milk for other germs suggests the process will be enough to eradicate the danger from any lingering traces of the virus found in milk, they say studies are also ongoing now to verify that pasteurized milk remains safe.
“A positive PCR test does not necessarily mean that the sample contains an intact infectious pathogen and that additional testing is required to determine whether intact pathogen is still present and if it remains infectious,” Don Prater, head of the FDA’s food safety center, said at the news briefing.
This involves what FDA says is the “gold standard” for checking if the virus that they found is potentially infectious, taking the H5N1 HPAI particles they found and seeing if it will grow in chicken eggs.
Research backed by the National Institutes of Health has also found H5N1 HPAI fragments in milk. Early testing of those samples suggests the virus in the pasteurized milk was not infectious, trying to grow the virus in cells and chicken eggs.
“While this is welcome news, the effort studied a small number of samples that is not necessarily representative of all retail milk. So to really understand the scope here, we need to wait for the FDA,” said National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo.
Prater said that the samples had come from a national survey of the U.S. milk supply, but declined to share details of where they had been found and what kinds of milk have tested positive.
“We don’t have information yet to share but it will be coming out very shortly and that’s what I can share at this point,” said Prater.
Milk from cows known to be sick with symptoms of the virus is not entering the supply chain, Prater said. But it is possible that the virus could be making it into the supply chain from other sources, Prater said, possibly from cows that are not yet symptomatic or have previously recovered.
FDA has some data that could help investigators trace where the milk with the virus made it into the food supply, Prater said.
“Right now we will be able to look at information that we are collecting as part of this. Our traceability information is good, but it’s not perfect,” said Prater.
Countries agreed on a deal to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping poor nations cope with the ravages of global warming at tense United Nations climate talks in the city where industry first tapped oil.
The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times the $100 billion a year deal from 2009 that is expiring. Delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.
“Everybody is committed to having an agreement,” Fiji delegation chief Biman Prasad said as the deal was being finalized. “They are not necessarily happy about everything, but the bottom line is everybody wants a good agreement.”
It’s also a critical step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the U.N. talks in Paris in 2015.
The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius and carbon emissions keep rising.
Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, like multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks — rich countries didn’t think it was realistic to only rely on public funding sources — but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.
“The $300 billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” said World Resources Institute President Ani Dasgupta. “This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries’ transitions.”
It’s more than the $250 billion that was on the table in the first draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit. After an initial proposal of $250 billion a year was soundly rejected, the Azerbaijan presidency brewed up a new rough draft of $300 billion, that was never formally presented, but also dismissed roundly by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside.
The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a vague but not specific reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of the oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal, but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.
Countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, creating markets to trade carbon pollution rights, an idea that was set up as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement to help nations work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing nations to put planet-warming gasses in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Supporters said a U.N.-backed market could generate up to an additional $250 billion a year in climate financial aid.
Despite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don’t prevent misuse, don’t work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.
“What they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Greenpeace’s An Lambrechts, called it a “climate scam” with many loopholes.
With this deal wrapped up as crews dismantle the temporary venue, many have eyes on next year’s climate talks in Belem, Brazil.
The promotion of a three-star general who was part of the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has been paused by Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, three sources familiar with the move confirmed to CBS News Saturday.
Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue was slated to be promoted to a four-star rank and take command of the U.S. Army in Europe. However, he was not included in a batch of nearly 1,000 promotions that moved through the Senate Armed Services Committee this week despite receiving a Pentagon recommendation.
Mullin has put a hold on the promotion. The intention is to allow for the new Republican-controlled Congress and President-elect Donald Trump to weigh in on the promotion given Donahue’s involvement in the Afghanistan withdrawal, two sources familiar with the situation told CBS News.
Behind the scenes, there is an effort underway by the Army and other allies to convince Congress to move forward and lift the hold, which appears to be politically motivated, sources said.
ALLISON JOYCE/AFP via Getty Images
During the campaign, Trump frequently mentioned his surprise that no officers were consequently fired by President Biden for the chaotic withdrawal.
Military officers execute U.S. policy but do not create it. It was the Trump administration that in February 2020 brokered the deal with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, but it was Mr. Biden who decided to execute that withdrawal despite the Taliban breaking the terms of that U.S. agreement.
Donahue was the last U.S. soldier to exit Afghanistan in 2021. The U.S. evacuated about 125,000 people, including 6,000 Americans, over the course of its withdrawal, during which dozens of Afghans and 13 U.S. service members were killed in a suicide bombing outside Hamid Karzai airport in Kabul.
The U.S. underestimated the speed with which the Taliban would capture Kabul and the well-documented U.S. logistical and planning failures have been a focus of multiple internal probes at the Pentagon, State Department, and in Congress.
An extensive State Department report released last year found that “insufficient” planning, communication failures and an inability to grasp “the scale and scope of the operation” contributed to the chaotic operation.
CBS News has reached out to Mullin’s office but did not receive a response. It is not clear whether Trump is aware of the hold.
contributed to this report.
President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that he will nominate former White House aide Brooke Rollins to be his agriculture secretary, the last of his picks to lead executive agencies and another choice from within his established circle of advisers and allies.
The nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, which will be controlled by Republicans when Trump takes office Jan. 20, 2025. Rollins would succeed Tom Vilsack, President Biden’s agriculture secretary who oversees the sprawling agency that controls policies, regulations and aid programs related to farming, forestry, ranching, food quality and nutrition.
Rollins, who graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in agricultural development, is a longtime Trump associate who served as his former domestic policy chief. She is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Rollins, 52, previously served as an aide to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ran a think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Rollins’ pick completes Trump’s selection of the heads of executive branch departments, just two and a half weeks after the former president won the White House once again. Several other picks that are traditionally Cabinet-level remain, including U.S. Trade Representative and head of the Small Business Administration.
Trump didn’t offer many specifics about his agriculture policies during the campaign, but farmers could be affected if he carries out his pledge to impose widespread tariffs. During the first Trump administration, countries like China responded to Trump’s tariffs by imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports like the corn and soybeans routinely sold overseas. Trump countered by offering massive multibillion-dollar aid to farmers to help them weather the trade war.
President Abraham Lincoln founded the USDA in 1862, when about half of all Americans lived on farms. The USDA oversees multiple support programs for farmers; animal and plant health; and the safety of meat, poultry and eggs that anchor the nation’s food supply. Its federal nutrition programs provide food to low-income people, pregnant women and young children. And the agency sets standards for school meals.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has vowed to strip ultraprocessed foods from school lunches and to stop allowing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries from using food stamps to buy soda, candy or other so-called junk foods. But it would be the USDA, not HHS, that would be responsible for enacting those changes.
In addition, HHS and USDA will work together to finalize the 2025-2030 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They are due late next year, with guidance for healthy diets and standards for federal nutrition programs.
Compromise deal reached at COP29 climate talks for $300 billion a year to poor nations
GOP senator blocks promotion of general involved in Afghanistan withdrawal, sources say
Trump picks former White House aide Brooke Rollins to lead the USDA
Compromise deal reached at COP29 climate talks for $300 billion a year to poor nations
GOP senator blocks promotion of general involved in Afghanistan withdrawal, sources say