Bird flu outbreak at dairy farms continue to raise concerns about virus spreading

GEOFF BENNETT: The H5N1  virus, also known as bird flu,   is spreading rapidly among dairy cows. It's  been found in over 85 herds across 12 states. At least three farmworkers have now  been sickened by the virus. And while   public health officials say the risks to  humans remain low, concerns are growing. William Brangham has more. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, how serious is this threat?   And are we doing enough to keep  our eyes on this evolving virus? To answer that, we are joined by Rick Bright.  He's the former head of BARDA, which is the   U.S. government's lead agency for developing  countermeasures for public health emergencies. Rick Bright, thank you so much for being here. You have called this a -- quote --  "dangerous inflection point" that we   are in right now. And you recently  wrote -- quote -- "that if we keep   ignoring the warning signs, we  have only ourselves to blame." What are the warning signs that you're seeing  right now? And how are we ignoring them? DR. RICK BRIGHT, Former Director, Biomedical  Advanced Research and Development Authority: Well,   William, thanks for bringing more  attention to this crisis, this situation. We're seeing more and more animals, mammals,  in particular, infected with this virus, and,   clearly, sustainability to infect dairy  cattle and spread from cow to cow. And we   know that people are really in close contact  with these mammals. And the more mammals are   infected, the more contact we have with them,  the more risk we have of infecting people. And we're starting to see that it happened over  the last couple of months with three human cases. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So we have seen   these several farmworkers that you mentioned. The  CDC mentioned that this most recent farmworker,   the one in Michigan, exhibited somewhat  different symptoms than the others had. Why is that particularly troubling? RICK BRIGHT: Well, it's really  important to understand that,   to spread this virus efficiently from  person to person, it's going to have   to get in the respiratory tract. And this  latest infection in this patient showed that   the patient had respiratory symptoms,  meaning he was coughing, for example. The two prior cases only had an  eye infection. It's much harder   to spread a virus from an eye infection  than it is from a respiratory infection,   when you're coughing. And so that is really an  important development causing great concern. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And we have not yet seen  any transmission from a human to a human.   All these cases have thus far been one  or more animals to one human, correct? RICK BRIGHT: Well, William,  that's where I'm really concerned. When I talk about we're not doing enough about  it is, we really don't know how many humans have   been infected with this virus. And, today,  there's been very limited to almost no serology   testing done among any of the cases, the close  contacts on the farm or their family members. So it's really hard for us to know  how many people have been exposed,   and if there really is any  human-to-human transmission or not. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And how do you  explain that? Why is it -- given   that there are certainly enough researchers  like yourself within the federal government   who understand the potential here, why  isn't that we're not doing more testing? RICK BRIGHT: Well, we're finding that  it's not always a case of not having   enough tests in this situation. But  we have tests at the CDC, for example. But the problem is getting access to the  workers to test them. So there are a number   of issues and barriers that we're encountering.  And some of those have to do with the work force   itself. A large part of the work force on the  dairy farms are undocumented immigrants. And   there's concern among those workers about  being tracked or traced by the government. And they might have to face immigration  issues. There are also concerns of the   farmers and the people who own the farms,  if the federal government or even state   government were to come onto the farm, find  a widespread outbreak in animals or people,   have to shut down the farm, perhaps lose  their work force and lose their income. And there's not enough incentives to really  break through those barriers right now. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And what would  those incentives be? I mean,   I understand the farmer not wanting to  have a scarlet letter put on their herd   or on their farm. And I understand what  you're saying about the workers as well. But how do we incentivize people to do  the right thing to keep us all safe? RICK BRIGHT: We're going to have  to put some measures in place to   ensure that the workers who get tested  have the right care that they need,   the right health care, because many  of them don't have health insurance. If they lose work because they're sick and we  want them to not go back into that environment,   then there should be compensation for  sick leave and for those lost wages. If   a farmer has to put down a cow or keep  more cows out of the commission longer,   instead of putting them back on the milking line  while they might still be infected, then we have   to compensate the farmers for the loss of that  cow or, for the loss of that milk production. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So the government  says that the milk supply is safe,   that pasteurization kills the  virus. They say that the human   cases we have seen don't indicate that  the threat to us as humans is severe. How worried are you that this  could become the next pandemic? RICK BRIGHT: Well, I'm more  worried right now, William,   about the information and the data that  we're missing than the data that we have. So if you just looked on the surface  -- and that's really all we're seeing   right now -- there may not be too many  immediate flares of concern of a forest   fire or so. But if you look beneath  that surface, if we do more testing,   we might see that this virus is changing  in remarkable ways that would give it   an advantage if it were to really infect  people and transmit easily person to person. Since we're being blindfolded  in this battle right now,   I'm really concerned that the virus is  winning the game and getting ahead of us. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Rick Bright,   the CEO of Bright Global Health,  thank you so much for being here. RICK BRIGHT: Thank you, William.