As one of the largest dairy producers in the U.S., Colorado’s dairy and poultry farms have increasingly reported widespread outbreaks of bird flu.
In May, a dairy farm in Colorado reported the first case of a cow testing positive for bird flu. Then, in July, after a group of contract workers entered poultry barns to cull millions of infected chickens wearing only gloves for protection, six of those workers tested positive for bird flu a few days later.
KGNU’s Alexis Kenyon spoke with Rae Ellen Bichell, a reporter for KFF, who says that despite CDC warnings and the Department of Agriculture offering free personal protective equipment, farm workers report regularly coming into contact with sick animals without any protective gear.
Read Rae Ellen Bichell’s story on farmworkers who lack protection from bird flu here.
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Colorado Farmworkers are coming down with Bird Flu Alexis Kenyon
Interview Transcript (edited for readability):
Alexis Kenyon: Rae, tell me about your reporting. How did you get in touch with farm workers, and what did you begin to hear?
Rae Ellen Bichell: It was hard to talk to farm workers. Many of them don’t see the value in making this information public because they’re worried about losing their jobs. However, the people I did speak with said they don’t feel safe at work.
They’re working with dairy cows, and even when cows have bird flu, they might not show symptoms. So, it’s hard to tell if a cow is infected. What we do know is that working with raw milk is risky. The milk we drink is pasteurized, so there’s no risk of getting bird flu from that. But if raw milk splashes in your eyes, gets in your mouth, or on your hands, and then you rub your face, that’s a known way to pick up the infection from animals.
Yet, these farm workers were working with sick cows or raw milk and didn’t have much protection beyond gloves. One person I talked to even bought his own goggles after getting an eye infection, which is the primary symptom of bird flu in humans. He wore those goggles every day at work after that.
The CDC recommends much more than just gloves and goggles—like masks, coveralls, and full protective gear. The workers I spoke to said they really want more protection.
Alexis Kenyon: So how did bird flu become such a problem in Colorado in the first place? For those who don’t know, “culling” means taking out and killing sick chickens. Why were they culling millions of chickens in Colorado? Is this happening everywhere?
Rae Ellen Bichell: Bird flu is definitely a national problem. Texas, California, and other states have also been hit hard. It’s widespread.
When I spoke to others, they said Colorado is doing a really solid job with testing. For example, Colorado started bulk-testing raw milk, which I don’t think other states are doing. But despite the testing, farmers and farm workers have had a rough few months. They’ve had to kill a lot of their animals, implement quarantines, and hopefully comply with the recommended protective gear. They’ve also been working to get their employees up to speed on how to protect themselves.
It’s been a big burden for both producers and farm workers here in Colorado.
Alexis Kenyon: In your article, you mentioned that the state offered PPE, but only 13% of producers accepted it. Is this a problem employers do not know about? Or is it that they don’t care?
Rae Ellen Bichell: I’d really like to know the answer to that. I called several producers and dairies, including Dairy Max, an organization that represents dairies in Colorado and other states. But people didn’t really engage with the question. All I know is hearsay from talking to community health workers who are indirectly in the loop about what’s happening on dairy farms.
It would be really helpful to hear directly from the producers, that’s for sure.
Alexis Kenyon: It’s disturbing to hear about farm workers going into 106-degree heat to cull millions of chickens, only to end up contracting bird flu themselves. That story is sickening. How serious is this exposure, and how big is the risk that people are getting bird flu in Colorado?
Rae Ellen Bichell: It’s a good question, and things are evolving quickly. What’s new about this strain is that it’s infecting mammals, which is different from previous strains. Scientists get worried anytime a virus infects a new type of animal, and they’re tracking that closely.
The infection itself tends to be mild. It’s called a mild virus, and the main symptom is pink eye. But the concern is that the more it spreads, the more chances it has to change. There’s also the worry that it could infect someone who has another virus, like the common flu, which is much more contagious. Scientists are concerned because bird flu can undergo something called reassortment, where it swaps genes with another virus. That could make it more contagious.
Another issue is that farm workers often don’t have time to go to the doctor or don’t feel comfortable getting tested. They also don’t feel comfortable telling their employers that they might have bird flu. This is concerning to public health experts because it means there could be a lot of undetected infections. If the virus becomes more easily transmissible between people, we might not know until it’s too late.
