Bird flu
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In two recent interviews on Fox News, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. downplayed concerns about H5N1 avian influenza in the U.S., raising alarm among public health and infectious disease experts.
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The Trump administration has not staffed an office established by Congress to prepare the nation for future pandemics, according to three sources familiar with the situation.
The White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy was established by Congress in 2022 in response to mistakes that led to a flat-footed response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The office, called OPPR, once had a staff of about 20 people and was orchestrating the country’s response to bird flu and other threats until January 20, including hosting regular interagency meetings to share plans.
“We did it very much behind the scenes,” said Dr. Paul Friedrichs, a physician and retired Air Force major general who was director of OPPR during the Biden administration.
As of this week, only one staffer will remain, and it’s unclear who that person reports to, according to a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information. OPPR’s pages have also been removed from the White House website.
The new administration has not halted the country’s response to bird flu completely, but recent agency announcements and interviews with government sources show its focus has changed. For example, a leading goal of the response now is to bring down egg prices, rather than tackling the spread of the virus or preparing for a worst-case scenario in which the virus mutates and spreads easily from person to person.
OPPR exists “in name only,” said a source familiar with the status of the office who worked inside the White House during the last administration. “It has fallen into the abyss.”
Duh.
President Donald Trump disbanded a similar White House pandemic unit in 2018 and was heavily criticized for the move when Covid-19 hit the US.
Despite this, in an interview with Time magazine when he was campaigning in April, Trump said he thought he would disband OPPR if elected because it was expensive and potentially wasteful when pandemics are difficult to predict.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/17/health/pandemic-preparedness-office-trump-bird-flu/index.html
