If you live in a rural area, can’t afford to miss work to go to a doctor, and may not speak English as your primary language, how likely are you to go get checked to see if bird flu is the reason that you haven’t been feeling so great lately?
That is the concern of some workers’ rights advocates. While others wonder if the United States should be more like Finland and vaccinate farm workers.
Immigrants make up more than half of all dairy labor, according to the National Milk Producers Federation.
“Immigrant labor accounts for 51 percent of all dairy labor, and dairies that employ immigrant labor produce 79 percent of the U.S. milk supply. If the U.S. dairy industry lost its foreign-born workforce, it would nearly double retail milk prices and cost the total U.S. economy more than $32 billion.” --National Milk Producers Federation
RELATED: The H-2A guestworker visa program needs improvements and doesn’t fit the dairy industry’s year-round needs, according to the National Milk Producers Federation. Learn more about the organization’s priorities here.
There have only been four confirmed human cases of the H5N1 virus in the United States so far (two in Michigan, one in Texas, and the most recent earlier this month in Colorado) since infections first hit the dairy industry in March.
Fortunately, all four cases brought mild symptoms for the infected dairy workers. Symptoms tend to be mild in dairy cows, too, with most animals infected experiencing decreased milk production.
Testing on dairy cattle remains voluntary. Although, the USDA requires testing for herds that cross state lines.
RELATED: American Farmland Owner discussed the impact of bird flu in the poultry and dairy industries in April with Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig. Watch that conversation or listen to the podcast here.
Dairy workers can receive $75 to get tested, but that isn’t enough to make up for financial losses for those who need to miss a day’s wages to travel for that test. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control announced the new program in May that would pay dairy workers to take part in an interview and provide a nasal swab or blood sample to try to detect possible infection.
But Stateline did a report where workers’ advocates explained why dairy workers may see too many risks of financial hardship by voluntarily agreeing to testing for the H5N1 virus. Read that story here.
The Biden administration pledged nearly $200 million to try to reduce the spread of the virus and reimburse dairy farmers who suffered milk production losses.
The hope was that financial incentives would encourage farmers to expand testing – both for dairy cows and workers. Here is some background on that from NBC News.
Meanwhile, some veterinarians and researchers in the United States are looking at efforts in Finland to vaccinate farmworkers who could be at risk of infection for avian influenza. Mass vaccinations, some researchers believe, could lessen the chances for the virus’ rapid spread if it mutates and transfers from human to human.
However, other researchers don’t agree and believe that the Centers for Disease Control is correct in not recommending vaccinations yet, since there is no evidence yet of human-to-human spread.
