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President Trump gave Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., marching orders: Go wild on health. That’s just what RFK2 is doing at the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services. His order to cancel $500 million in funding for mRNA avian flu research and development puts our region’s health directly at risk.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a leading epidemiologist and an expert on avian flu at the University of Minnesota.
The trade publication Global Biodefense said:
“This decision not only reflects a political departure from science-backed strategies but also comes at a dangerous inflection point. H5N1 has infected over 173 million birds in the U.S. since early 2022 and has spilled over into dairy cattle, cats, and humans across multiple states. Without timely access to effective vaccines, the nation is now less prepared to respond to a viral threat that is both expanding and evolving.”
Promising new mRNA vaccines can protect the poultry flocks whose eggs provide the base material for so many other vaccines. A bird flu pandemic can be fatal to vaccine production.
mRNA vaccines can be developed faster and offer a more flexible response to mutating viruses than egg-based vaccines.
Kennedy has suggested that pandemics could be allowed to just run their course in order for natural immunity to establish itself. The idea is miserable and preposterous. Millions upon millions of animals, and untold human lives, would be wasted to Kennedy’s brand of hokum.
He is dismantling the Centers For Disease Control, which until recently informed the world on health standards. Now Kennedy, who never sought a briefing from CDC officials over bird flu or any other illness, presumes to be the leading authority. He has a law degree and an addled mind.
Several former executives of the Centers For Disease Control authored a column in The New York Times on Monday under the headline: “Kennedy is endangering every American’s health.”
No moreso than here, we would submit. Buena Vista County has been at the epicenter of huge pandemic outbreaks repeatedly, with chickens and turkeys. It is a public health threat, and disease does serious economic harm on a chronic basis such that it is starting to drive off producers.
Funding for research into livestock disease has been stunted for many years by a lamebrain Congress that cannot even pass a farm bill. That research is at the very core of our physical and economic well-being.
We must demand protection from these freaks playing with our lives and livelihoods. Ultimately, somebody’s interests are being served by this malpractice. It certainly is not ours.
China has not bought any US soybeans directly this year. None. Zilch. Normally it would be over 10 million tons. The USDA blames Brazil and not our own trade war with the world. A deputy secretary of agriculture told the Farm Progress show that they are working on new markets for soy. China accounts for a quarter of world soy demand.
Predictably, crop prices are slumping and farm income has been weak. Rain makes grain, and it certainly is in the making for a record year for yields. Iowa State University ag economist Dr. Chad Hart had a bleak outlook for income in his latest Ag Decision Maker newsletter.
“The 2025 crop prices have now sunk well below breakeven for both crops. The potential size of the 2025 crops limits any upside potential, especially for corn,” Hart said. “The upcoming marketing year will be more about limiting losses than capturing profits. However, if crop usage can continue to build, this year’s hardships could set up better times ahead.”
Farmers are counting on up to $60 billion in bailout payments, just like the Trump Bump checks from his first trade war in his first term. It becomes difficult to develop new markets when you are in open conflict with Canada, Mexico and India.
It is showing up in net farm income. Reports of stress among producers are rising. Those Trump Bumps had better be on the way, or the people who supported the promised trade wars could be in severe financial trouble.
Iowans worked for over a half-century developing markets in Asia, only to watch Trump destroy them. This is not all Brazil’s fault, but it certainly will rip up the rain forest to satisfy China’s appetite. This is our fault for thinking that we can get by shutting out our biggest soy customer. Pretty important pork customer, too. Fools we are. It is getting us nowhere. The leaders of China, Russia and India have a stronger bind than ever. Our export markets are in decline, and so are prices.
The administration owes production agriculture amends for deliberately decoupling from Asian markets, especially for soy and pork. Instead of using bailouts to incentivize more production, it would make more sense to pay farmers for conservation. If we intend to forego full-out agricultural and food trade with China and India, then we will have to adjust our production by idling acres to conservation. We should expect that fencerow-to-fencerow production while actively restraining trade will result either in massive government subsidies or extreme hardship among producers.
Iowa has problems with too much surface water pollution from growing cheap corn and soybeans, and too many cheap hogs concentrated around packing plants, all so we can provide cheap products for export markets that are closing to us. We need to change with the trade winds, and the transitions are less painful with generous conservation payments that could help reorient rural America. In that way, we could suppose that a trade war would not be such a bad thing, if it resulted in clean air and water, more diverse holdings and stronger rural communities. That was not what happened following the first Trump trade war with China, which was quietly continued by the Biden Administration and is at the root of our current price dilemma. Things have not been right with the export-dependent Iowa ag economy since then.
We suppose that the Trump Bumps will return, and things will continue as they are. The biggest operations sitting on cash will accumulate more, while the bottom quarter of farmers remain stressed and bleed out as they will. The trade wars will wring out some more, in the absence of an alternative to more subsidized over-production and more consolidation.
The Chinese will buy our soy when it gets cheap enough. Trump and Wall Street are working on that as hard as they can. In the meantime, Brazil will plow under the rain forest to feed China.
As we said last week, there’s always hope. Even in the face of an authoritarian affront. A federal judge in the District of Columbia halted an airplane full of unaccompanied children about to be deported to Guatemala on the eve of Labor Day. This after she issue an order earlier in the day instructing federal authorities to keep the children in the US until a hearing could be held.
The children were taken off the airplane on the emergency order.
The Trump Administration backed off. That is a victory for the Constitution. This is a nation of laws, not kings.
A few days before the runway stop, another federal judge blocked rapid deportations without due process in the interior of the country. Rapid deportation had been used when agents encountered immigrants at the border, to essentially turn them around.
These are but two of many examples of lower-court judges defending due process and asserting judicial authority over the Trump Administration. The administration complies sometimes, knowing that the Supreme Court has its back. The first lines of defense for checks and balances in a democracy are resisting the onslaught. That does not mean that children who fled to the safety of the United States won’t be deported into a life of terror, pending a higher court ruling. But the rulings are signs of hope for basic rights under the Constitution.
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