High-ranking federal officials have suggested that bird flu virus should be left to "rip" through poultry farms across the U.S. — but experts warn that this hands-off approach could hasten the beginning of a new pandemic

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, and Brooke Rollins, secretary of Agriculture, have floated the notion that instead of culling birds infected with the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, farmers should let it spread through flocks. The idea is that by doing this, farmers can "identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it," Kennedy told Fox News on March 11.

Now, a perspective piece authored by a group of virologists, veterinarians and health security experts argues that the plan would not only be ineffective, but could also increase the risk of the virus spilling over into humans and sparking a new pandemic. The researchers published their arguments July 3 in the journal Science.

"Essentially, the longer you allow a virus that has shown to be effective in infecting multiple hosts survive in an environment, the greater the chance you give it to spread, to mutate, and to try its luck at adaptation," perspective first-author Erin Sorrell, a virologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Live Science. "Worse case scenario, the virus adapts and expands its host range to become transmissible in humans … Now we have a pandemic."




H5N1 is a subtype of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), a type of bird flu that can cause severe disease and death in poultry and other birds. Since the virus began spreading widely among U.S. birds in January 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that more than 174 million birds across all 50 states have been infected with the disease. The virus’s transmission among wild aquatic birds, commercial poultry and backyard, hobbyist flocks, has led to massive culls in farms and sent egg prices skyrocketing.

The virus typically transmits among wild birds and poultry, but it's known to have also infected more than 48 mammal species, including foxes, skunks, raccoons, seals and polar bears. It has also spread to dairy cattle, causing outbreaks in more than 1,000 herds across 17 U.S. states, according to current estimates.