USDA Scrambles to Rehire Employees Who Were Combatting Bird Flu After Accidentally Firing Them

The US Department of Agriculture has admitted that it is scrambling to repeal terminations of employees assisting with the government's response to the H5N1 "bird flu" outbreak after they were accidentally fired.

"Although several positions supporting [bird flu efforts] were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters," a USDA spokesperson said in a statement obtained by NBC News. "USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and we are continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfill our statutory mission."

The office of the USDA's National Animal Health Laboratory Network program, a program through which employees from around 58 facilities attempt to curtail the impact of the bird flu outbreak, lost 25% of its staff through Trump administration efforts to terminate federal employees on a large scale, as reported by POLITICO.

As a result of these layoffs, labs within the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians have been facing slower processing times for things like testing following these layoffs, limiting the speed with which they can work on curtailing the viral outbreak.

"They're the front line of surveillance for the entire outbreak," Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, told POLITICO. "They're already underwater and they are constantly short-staffed, so if you take all the probationary staff out, you'll take out the capacity to do the work."

The spokesperson for the USDA noted that, despite the Trump administration's attempts to remove dozens of federal employees, multiple necessary agencies will not be affected by sweeping employee cuts, and that the USDA "continues to prioritize the response to highly pathogenic avian influenza."

The avian influenza outbreak has resulted in the death of more than 100 million birds since it began in 2022. The killing of egg-laying hens has subsequently placed pressure on the supply of eggs, causing the price of eggs to skyrocket.

Republican lawmakers have voiced concerns about the impacts of the mass terminations being carried out by the Trump administration.

"They need to be more cautious," Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, a member of the Agriculture Committee, told NBC News, speaking about the DOGE team. "There's an old saying, 'Measure twice, cut once.' Well, they are measuring once and having to cut twice. Some of this stuff they're going to have to return back. I just wish they'd make a better decision up front."