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How A Texas Veterinarian Helped Crack The Mystery Of Bird Flu In Cows
The first calls that Dr. Barb Petersen received in early March were from dairy owners worried about crows, pigeons and other birds dying on their Texas farms. Then came word that barn cats — half of them on one farm — had died suddenly.
Unusual reports of dead birds, ailing cats and sick cows and people led Texas veterinarian Barbara Petersen to make a startling discovery: A bird flu virus never before seen in cattle.
Sunrise Veterinary Service via APWithin days, the Amarillo veterinarian was hearing about sick cows with unusual symptoms: high fevers, reluctance to eat and much less milk. Tests for typical illnesses came back negative.
Petersen, who monitors more than 40,000 cattle on a dozen farms in the Texas Panhandle, collected samples from cats and cows and sent them to Dr. Drew Magstadt, a friend from college who now works at the veterinary diagnostic laboratory at Iowa State University.
The samples tested positive for a bird flu virus never before seen in cattle. It was the first proof that the bird flu, known as Type A H5N1, could infect cows. As of Wednesday, 36 U.S. Herds had confirmed infections, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
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"It was just a surprise," recalled Petersen. "It was just a little bit of disbelief."
At the same time, on almost every farm with sick animals, Petersen said she saw sick people, too.
"We were actively checking on humans," Petersen said. "I had people who never missed work, miss work."
So far, two people in the U.S. Have been confirmed to be infected with H5N1, most recently a Texas dairy worker linked to the cattle outbreak, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About two dozen people have been tested and about 100 people have been monitored since the virus appeared in cows, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a CDC respiratory diseases official, told reporters Wednesday.
Daskalakis said CDC has seen no unusual flu trends in areas with infected cows, but some experts wonder if anecdotal reports of sick workers mean more than one person caught the virus from the animals.
Petersen said some workers had symptoms consistent with flu: fever and body aches, stuffy nose or congestion. Some had conjunctivitis, the eye inflammation detected in the Texas dairy worker diagnosed with bird flu.
Dr. Gregory Gray, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, has been taking samples from livestock and people on two Texas farms. On farms with confirmed cattle infections, there have also been reports of mild illnesses among the workers, he said.
Cows are seen Nov. 23, 2016, at a dairy in California. So far, two people in the U.S. Have been confirmed to be infected with H5N1, and the FDA said April 23 that samples of pasteurized milk tested positive for remnants of the bird flu virus that has infected dairy cows.
Rich Pedroncelli, Associated PressHis research has been difficult. Many workers are reluctant to be tested. That may be because they have limited access to health care or fear divulging private health information.
Without confirmation, no one knows if the sick workers were infected with the bird flu virus or something unrelated, Gray said.
"They seem to be linked in time and space, so one would say it's biologically plausible," said Gray.
Some of the workers who fell ill sought treatment and were offered oseltamivir, an antiviral drug sold under the brand name Tamiflu, Petersen said.
Some farm workers who were exposed to infected animals or people were offered the medication, CDC spokesman Jason McDonald said. State health officials are responsible for evaluating and providing treatment, according to federal guidelines.
Health officials in Texas provided Tamiflu to the person known to be infected with H5N1 and family members, plus two people on a second dairy farm who were exposed to infected animals, said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. He said he wasn't sure if others had been offered the antiviral.
Farmers have been hesitant to allow health officials onto their land, said Dr. Kay Russo, a Colorado veterinarian who consulted about the outbreak with Petersen.
"This particular disease is looked at as a scarlet letter," Russo said. "It has this stigma associated with it right now."
Russo called for wider testing of cattle, people and milk.
"We do not know what we do not measure," she said. "Unfortunately, the horse left the barn and took off a lot faster than we were able to mobilize."
Gray worries that a recent federal order requiring testing of all lactating dairy cows moving between states could hinder cooperation even further. All labs that conduct tests must report positive results to the Agriculture Department. But many farmers may simply decide against testing, hoping to outlast the outbreak, he said.
The reluctance of workers and farmers to allow testing is "greatly hampering" understanding of how the virus spreads, how large the outbreak is now and how quickly it may grow, Gray said.
"It's a negative, very negative, effect," he said.
Petersen said she understands workers' and farmers' fears. She praised the farmers who had been willing to let her gather the first samples that confirmed the outbreak and reflected on what the results could mean.
"You immediately think about the cows, the people that care for them and the families that have these farms," she said. "You're thinking about the big picture, long term. Your mind starts to go down that entire path of concern."
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Two Veterinarians, Hundreds Of Miles Apart, Solved A Cow Sickness Whodunit
The Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Iowa State University tests samples from animals for viruses such as avian influenza. (Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory)
It appeared to be a problem with the food.
In February, dairy cattle in multiple herds in northern Texas were suddenly producing less milk, and what they gave was abnormal and thick.
And the typically voracious eaters had seemingly lost their appetites.
Barb Petersen, of Sunrise Veterinary Service, is a dairy and beef cattle veterinarian in Amarillo, Texas. (Submitted photo)
For weeks in March, veterinarian Barb Petersen sought an answer. She talked to dairy owners and exchanged notes with fellow vets in the panhandle of Texas. She submitted numerous samples to labs that tested for more than 200 potential causes.
"Any fluid you can collect from a live animal, I collected it," said Petersen, who was raised on a dairy farm near Davenport, Iowa. "As did many others. There were so many of us at the same time texting each other and trying to figure this out."
She started messaging Drew Magstadt, who she had studied alongside at Iowa State University years before. He now works at the ISU Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory — a preeminent national animal lab in Ames — and researches infectious disease in cattle.
The H5N1 virus recently infected dairy cows for the first time, raising concerns about the bird flu's potential implications for humans.
When the voluminous amount of testing in Texas failed to find any clues, Magstadt and Petersen concluded that a likely cause was ill-made food.
"The affected cattle were very high-producing dairy cows, and they are on a race-car ration," Magstadt said. "If you mess with that a little bit, it can cause problems."
Drew Magstadt is a clinical associate professor at the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Iowa State University. (Iowa State University)
Petersen agreed to send Magstadt some samples of the feed and animals for testing.
But then the cats started dying.
Barn cats are common on farms. They kill rodents, provide companionship and need little help to survive.
Some dairy farmers also feed them milk from their cows, and sick cows can shed viruses in their milk.
"A colleague of mine, he told me, 'You know what's strange? I went to one of my dairies last week, and all their cats were missing. I couldn't figure it out — the cats usually come to my vet truck,'" Magstadt recalled. "And then someone called me and said half of his cats had passed away without warning, and so then all the alarm bells start going off in your head."
The cats had died from swollen brains, a potential result of influenza. They didn't have rabies.
Outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza have plagued poultry producers in the United States since early 2022 and have led to the culling of more than 90 million domestic birds in backyard and commercial flocks. It is often transmitted by wild, migrating birds.
The virus had never been known to infect cattle in the country, and so the potential for it to have sickened the Texas cattle seemed highly unlikely, Magstadt thought.
It would be a "zebra," Petersen said, which in medical parlance can refer to a surprising, exotic diagnosis.
Yet Magstadt immediately tested Petersen's milk samples for influenza A — which most commonly infects birds — before investigating the feed. He thought the testing would merely rule out bird flu as a potential cause, but instead it confirmed it.
"I was incredibly surprised," Magstadt said.
Further testing and retesting over days confirmed that the virus is the type that has been driving the poultry outbreaks, with an official confirmation on March 25.
The ISU Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory tests for a variety of animal illnesses. (Jared Strong/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
The initial affected herds were in northern Texas and southwest Kansas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since then, infected cattle have been discovered in far-flung states, including South Dakota, often the result of infected cattle being transported to new herds.
So far, bird flu has been detected in 28 dairy cattle herds in eight states, the USDA said. There is evidence that the virus has transmitted cow-to-cow, an alarming revelation that heightens its threat.
"There's plenty of times that we get called in to these types of situations, and sometimes we strike out," Magstadt said. "The times that we do find something, it's very rewarding. … Everybody was just stumbling around in the dark, and it's great to be involved in turning on the light."
The Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Ames is the largest tester of livestock disease in the country. It conducted about 1.6 million tests last year. The first construction phase for its new facility recently finished and the second part is expected to be complete in 2026, at a total cost of more than $140 million.
Counties with the most farmland in Iowa Counties with the most farmland in IowaFarmland across the U.S. Is disappearing by the millions of acres each decade by some estimates as sprawling urban development driven by rising housing costs pushes further into rural pastures.
The farmland that still exists in the U.S. Is heavily dedicated to growing plants that Americans can't consume—grass. That grass, accounting for more than 300 million acres now, feeds our livestock, provides sod for new development, and serves as a cover crop to protect soil health between harvests.
Demand for major crops like corn and soybeans to feed Americans is only forecast by the USDA to grow in the coming decade, and demand for U.S. Agricultural exports is expected to grow similarly.
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the way people purchased and consumed food, placing renewed attention on an increasingly consolidated agricultural industry where family farms have been swallowed up by large food corporations.
And after shifting behaviors caused massive economic swings in the U.S. And elsewhere, the Russian invasion of Ukraine forced food producers to once again account for yet another shock with so much of the world's grain capital taken offline by warfare.
War and corporate interests aside, farms have also had to reckon with a changing climate. Wheat fields were once commonplace across the country, but drought conditions of late have caused farmers to give up growing the crop entirely. Agitated by climate change, the shortage of water in parts of the country coupled with higher interest rates and the ongoing war in Ukraine are making agricultural businesses harder to run profitably.
To illustrate where American farms still persevere, Stacker compiled a list of counties with the most farmland in Iowa using data from the Agriculture Department's Farm Service Agency. Farmers reported the data as mandated by participation in USDA income support programs, including Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage as well as loan assistance. Counties are ranked by total acres of farmland.
In Iowa, there are 8,549,170 acres of farmland, with common soybeans being the most common crop.
- Farmland: 328,985 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 2,251
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (164,269 acres, 49.9% of county farmland)
Joel McCartan // Shutterstock #24. Lyon- Farmland: 332,480 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 2,333
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (175,158 acres, 52.7% of county farmland)
Canva #23. Calhoun- Farmland: 333,168 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 2,238
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (165,907 acres, 49.8% of county farmland)
Robert O Hull // Shutterstock #22. Pocahontas- Farmland: 333,358 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 2,231
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (170,700 acres, 51.2% of county farmland)
Canva #21. Buena Vista- Farmland: 333,605 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 2,425
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (159,972 acres, 48.0% of county farmland)
Naw Eh Wah // Shutterstock #20. Wright- Farmland: 338,473 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 1,892
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (175,427 acres, 51.8% of county farmland)
Canva #19. Greene- Farmland: 338,631 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 1,974
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (166,419 acres, 49.1% of county farmland)
dustin77a // Shutterstock #18. Grundy- Farmland: 340,299 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 1,861
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (131,071 acres, 38.5% of county farmland)
Melissa L Oltman // Shutterstock #17. Monona- Farmland: 341,546 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 1,684
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (116,426 acres, 34.1% of county farmland)
Canva #16. Carroll- Farmland: 341,712 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 2,061
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (178,801 acres, 52.3% of county farmland)
Jacob Boomsma // Shutterstock #15. Ringgold- Farmland: 348,475 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 2,097
- Most common crop: 2+ interseeded grass mix mixed forage (94,690 acres, 27.2% of county farmland)
Life Atlas Photography // Shutterstock #14. Shelby- Farmland: 349,622 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 2,067
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (166,106 acres, 47.5% of county farmland)
Canva #13. Winneshiek- Farmland: 351,385 acres (1.2% of state total)
- Farms: 2,434
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (150,234 acres, 42.8% of county farmland)
Canva #12. Clinton- Farmland: 356,505 acres (1.3% of state total)
- Farms: 2,315
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (183,284 acres, 51.4% of county farmland)
Eddie J. Rodriquez // Shutterstock #11. Harrison- Farmland: 356,740 acres (1.3% of state total)
- Farms: 2,200
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (150,160 acres, 42.1% of county farmland)
Canva #10. Jasper- Farmland: 365,142 acres (1.3% of state total)
- Farms: 2,436
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (167,816 acres, 46.0% of county farmland)
Canva #9. Fayette- Farmland: 366,012 acres (1.3% of state total)
- Farms: 2,604
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (179,673 acres, 49.1% of county farmland)
Kuehner // Shutterstock #8. Tama- Farmland: 374,650 acres (1.3% of state total)
- Farms: 2,413
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (150,688 acres, 40.2% of county farmland)
Lucas Oglesbee // Shutterstock #7. Webster- Farmland: 378,030 acres (1.3% of state total)
- Farms: 2,579
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (189,928 acres, 50.2% of county farmland)
Canva #6. Benton- Farmland: 401,547 acres (1.4% of state total)
- Farms: 2,414
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (176,110 acres, 43.9% of county farmland)
SevenMaps // Shutterstock #5. Crawford- Farmland: 425,485 acres (1.5% of state total)
- Farms: 2,263
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (203,182 acres, 47.8% of county farmland)
Canva #4. Sioux- Farmland: 440,040 acres (1.6% of state total)
- Farms: 2,716
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (218,245 acres, 49.6% of county farmland)
Canva #3. Woodbury- Farmland: 441,266 acres (1.6% of state total)
- Farms: 2,556
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (195,074 acres, 44.2% of county farmland)
Canva #2. Plymouth- Farmland: 481,230 acres (1.7% of state total)
- Farms: 2,570
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (228,957 acres, 47.6% of county farmland)
Canva #1. Kossuth- Farmland: 597,684 acres (2.1% of state total)
- Farms: 3,599
- Most common crop: Yellow corn (282,419 acres, 47.3% of county farmland)
Joel McCartan // ShutterstockDepartment Of Agriculture, Veterinary & Rangeland Sciences
The Department is devoted to providing strong educational programs for undergraduate, graduate and professional students, and conducting cutting edge research to enhance our agricultural assets and effectively manage our rangeland resources. We maintain an active engagement with our primary stakeholders, the general public, to share our scientific knowledge.
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