In recent news appearances, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested allowing bird flu to spread in poultry flocks unchecked. Scientists say that’s risky because it gives the virus more opportunities to replicate, increasing the chance it could change to spread easily among humans.
President Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on lowering egg prices, which increased significantly toward the end of the term of his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. Where do prices stand now? What caused them to spike last year? We answer those questions and more.
The circulation of H5N1 bird flu in animals and limited infections in humans have motivated flu preparedness activities, such as stockpiling vaccines. Social media posts have baselessly implied that these efforts are evidence that a new laboratory-derived version of the virus is going to cause a pandemic — or even that there is a conspiracy to release bird flu from a lab.
We’ve assembled answers to some questions about H5N1 bird flu.