Stephen Cadogan: Could Ireland become gripped by US egg-shortage conspiracies?
With bird flu killing millions of egg-laying chickens, prices surged more than 55% from a year before. Picture: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg
Could a US-style panic develop in Ireland after one of new Agriculture Minister Martin Heydon's first important tasks was to emphasise the need for poultry biosecurity after bird flu struck a small captive bird flock in Co Derry in Northern Ireland?
In the US, the price of eggs is expected to jump by a further 20% this year, due to a national egg shortage after 23.2 million birds had to be killed in December 2024 alone, after contracting the bird flu virus.
And in the land of disinformation, authorities had to step in, after online conspiracy theorists said the reason only domesticated birds were being culled was to manipulate US food supplies.
It was explained to them that culling wild birds was generally not feasible, even though migratory wild birds are a natural reservoir for the virus, and can spread it to domesticated poultry, through direct contact or by contaminating surfaces.
Euthanising wild birds has been done, but is rare, for practical reasons.
It was also explained to the social media conspiracy theorists that the virus spreads so rapidly in poultry, with high mortality, that it is only humane to put down all the birds in a shed where bird flu is detected. That is why poultry are culled when bird flu is detected in even one bird in a flock.
Online conspiracy theorists may also have wondered why it is not standard practice for livestock such as dairy cattle, also frequently infected in the US, to be culled. However, the explanation is that they generally recover from the less pathogenic version of the disease which infects them (although dairy herds in Nevada have now tested positive for a new variant of the virus that has been associated with severe infections in humans).
It is hardly surprising to hear of bird flu conspiracies, because like all issues in the news in the USA, it has become a Republicans versus Democrats political football.
Some Democrats in Congress have criticised President Donald Trump’s chaotic reform agenda, warning his moves to dismantle various parts of the federal government could exacerbate the bird flu pandemic, and further raise the escalating price of eggs, which is the main bird flu effect as far as American consumers are concerned.
Egg prices jumped 15% last December, their biggest monthly increase since 2015, adding to the grocery price inflation which is such a touchy topic in US politics.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said egg prices surged because the Biden administration culled so many hens (130 million since 2022). However, culling is the accepted way worldwide of dealing with bird flu.
Trump and his administration may find they are no match for the march across their country of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus.
It is well established in US wildlife, found in more than 300 dead wild birds across five Michigan counties so far in 2025, for example. Parks around the New Jersey borough of Allentown were closed after about 30 dead Canadian geese were removed over a recent weekend.
The US could introduce poultry vaccination, which France has successfully used to slow the spread of the virus, in flocks of ducks raised for foie gras. But a vaccination policy could threaten trading by the US, which is the world’s second largest exporter of poultry meat.
Some also call for countrywide testing of milk on US dairy farms, as part of a robust surveillance system.
Perhaps better compensation of depopulated poultry farmers could help. Some farmers said the US Department of Agriculture covers only a third of the value of culled flocks.
It can take nine months to re-populate a flock of egg-laying hens, which is why egg prices are predicted to stay high this year. Prices rose from $2.52 per dozen for large, grade A eggs in January 2024 to $4.15 last December, a nearly 65% jump in 12 months.
However, poultry meat prices have not been affected by bird flu, because broilers are reared on different farms, and are marketed after about seven weeks.
Along with social media conspiracy theorists, thieves have latched onto the egg crisis in the US.
They stole 100,000 organic eggs worth more than $40,000 from a trailer in south-central Pennsylvania. And more than 500 eggs, plus other breakfast items, were stolen last week from a Seattle café.
Although there have been 68 confirmed cases of bird flu in humans across 11 states due to exposure to infected commercial poultry, dairy cattle herds, or other animals, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the US public health risk of bird flu is low.
US consumers have been told that egg processors wash and sanitise eggs before sale, and the normal cooking process would kill any virus anyway. The only theoretical risk is eating raw or undercooked eggs (or unpasteurised "raw" milk).
Bird flu was blamed for the death of a 65-year-old Louisiana man in early January. He reportedly had underlying medical problems and was exposed to a backyard flock and wild birds. But most human cases are mild, and there is currently no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
From early December to last week, there were five detections of infection in wild birds in the Republic of Ireland.
Since mid-January, there were four wild bird cases in Northern Ireland, and about 20 cases in Great Britain since the start of December.
The latest Northern Ireland case was in a small captive bird flock at a nature reserve in Magherafelt, Co Derry. Only a small number of birds tested positive, but all the remaining birds were culled. The premises were closed to the public, and immediate restrictions introduced in a captive bird temporary control zone within 3km.
South of the border, Mr Heydon urged anybody who has poultry or kept birds to exercise the highest standards of biosecurity to protect them, and thus to protect the poultry sector in Ireland.
