Particular scenario, we did highlevel malec there molecular analysis. Those commercial flocks and backyard flocks were point source introductions. A virus introduced directly or indirectly. It allowed local officials to identify quarantine, and illuminate those before they could spread to other farms. This emphasizes the lessons learned. The identification of infections and farms. The rapid euthanasia timeline is critical. Get on top of it as quickly as possible. Rep. Costa acknowledge it, eradicate it. Swayne unfortunately the virus changed and they did not have as much time as in california. It took a lot less virus to affect flocks. The spreading was more rapid. We cannot afford to have infected flocks sitting around. We need to get them in a proper disposal method to prevent transmission. Rep. Costa two final questions. Dr. Swayne, i have been told the funding for your facility falls dramatically short of what you believe or is believed to be needed for further efforts. Do you agree and could you elaborate . Dr. Swayne the research we generate and other partners at universities as well as the cdc and other organizations is essential in developing control policies. That become what is used in the field. Those are longterm issues. For our laboratory, staffing has declined from 35 to 20 people. That is a financial reality. Research is a longterm process. You have to hire people. They have to be trained. We are aware of the biosafety issues. They have to operate in high containment labs. The issue has become longterm permanent funding has not kept up with mission demands. Rep. Costa can you give us an estimate of what is needed . Replacing the 15 people who have been cut back, is that a start . Dr. Swayne that is a start. Theres also an of the do research safely. Adding biosafety officers. Those are permanent funds we need because you have to have the research. Rep. Costa i would suggest the subcommittee considers if there was an interest, submitting a bipartisan letter to the appropriations committee. It is going to be a fragmented approach. When they are considering the final package later this fall, we might want to make a suggestion or recommendation. We can consider that. Dr. Swayne the second piece is facility issues. Southeast poultry, our facilities are aged. There was a study. Southeast poultry was the number one requirement. Rep. Costa how close are we from developing a vaccine . Dr. Swayne we are near completing the first phase of the research. We are in discussions on the analysis of the data. Dr. Cliffords office and a mine have begun the statistical analysis. We will have a meeting to determine what that data means. We have additional studies we are working with. Some University Partners. That is lab data we are generating. We have to work with the field as far as have you possibly implement an Effective Program. Rep. Costa for a laypersons perspective, a poultry farmer, a region with a television station covering this and making the report you are ancient us, dr. Clifford to comment. When these things happen, we have to respond. Dr. Clifford we will have Vaccine Availability for the migration time. To dr. Swaynes point there are several companies that have vaccines. They are prepared to have available. We will be going out with request for proposal specifically to stockpile vaccines. Some of these will come in at different stages. For this fall and spring. Rep. Costa thank you for the subcommittee hearing. I want to thank my Ranking Member, congressman peterson. We want to cooperate to provide support for the poultry injury. Mr. Newhouse. Mr. Newhouse thank you for holding this hearing on this important topic. It seems one of the things that is an all hands on deck kind of situation. I appreciate the focus on it and the panel discussing these issues. I appreciate the presence of our state veterinarians. Your approach to helping us learn and be cared for what ever happens in the future. It seems to me when the next outbreak occurs, there will be no time for handwringing. In my experience, i appreciate dr. Cliffords valuable help dealing with Animal Health issues. Appreciative of you being here. I love the no time restraint. That is very valuable. I appreciate the opportunity to delve into this. A couple of questions to begin with. Concerning the National Health network. My understanding is the federal funding currently supplies 5 of the cost of operating the lab system. The same is critical to detection, response, recovery to disease outbreaks similar to what we have experienced. For this year, can you tell us how the initial cases in any given state were detected and by whom . To follow up, as part of this years outbreak, the iowa lab has been open 24 7. Do the labs have the support they need to sustain this type of workload . Thank you, congressman for that question. The National AnimalLaboratory Health is an important part of our infrastructure to address not just this issue but a lot of Animal Health issues. As you are aware, there was language in the farm bill that addressed this issue. That did not come with funding. The laboratories throughout this country are at Different Levels of funding. We need resources for those laboratories to be able to do the work we so urgently need them to do. To speak to a specific lab in a specific state we would have to defer more to the states themselves and the labs themselves to address those specifically. Yes, funding is needed for these laboratories. We do the best we can with the funding we have to provide resources. The house markup had Additional Resources for the laboratories which was welcomed and appreciated. As far as who does the diagnosis, it will very. In any location or state. A lot of these laboratories are very much involved in this testing. I know for example in minnesota and iowa during the outbreak there has been a huge effort with regard to putting and having personnel available to do around the clock testing. We destroy animals depopulate these animals, based on presumptive positives. Those are done by the laboratories. Rep. Newhouse another question, dr. Clifford, and you touched on this in previous questioning. Concerning trade and Economic Issues and the steps usda is taking in terms of negotiating with foreign governments about vaccines and the potential they hold. As far as the impacts that could have on poultry exports. There is interest in grocery and Food Producers industries about the flexibilities of poultry products due to shortages experienced. Can you talk about progress on that front . Dr. Clifford we have had shipments from the European Union. Recent shipments from mexico into the u. S. Now to help address some of the shortages we have. I know of two countries right now, one mexico and the other the netherlands. Im not sure if we are bringing from other countries in the European Union or not off the top of my head, but that is something i can find out. That will continue to help us address some of the shortages we have in the u. S. Rep. Newhouse dr. Swayne, mr. Costa asked you some questions about sex scene. I appreciate your comments there about steps in this process to help stop or spread and eradicate the virus. I hate to about the sky is falling scenario but based on your observations, when you are talking about the spread of this disease and the additional or potential risk to poultry operations around the world, what specifically in other countries, central and south america, europe and asia will these flyaways go backandforth every year . What are we looking at in the future here . Are we just keeping our fingers in the dikes, so to speak. Dr. Swayne we can look back at data generated in asia, are korean our korean colleagues. They have had to bring years of migratory fowl. The second year, it reoccurred but was not as severe. The lesson, when you have an incursion of migratory waterfowl, you have a severe year, then it is mild. For us, the advantage is all the surveillance evidence suggest we do not have the virus in current farms. The risk is what would come through the migratory fly ways. That emphasizes the role of colleagues in wild life health. Surveillance programs set up across southern canada in the northern u. S. Even down the atlantic flyway coast. Trying to get a handle on whether it is in birds that are migrating. If it is identified, there should be information disseminated within those areas for farmers to be extra vigilant. To quickly report any abnormal signs that might occur. One thing to our advantage, the fly ways we have in north america go north and south. The viruses do not readily go into central and south america from us, nor their viruses coming north. The mixing is small, a small area with a small number of species that cross both hemispheres. That is to our vantage and their advantage. A critical control point. If we can control outbreaks in poultry populations, we reduce the possibility of infections. That would be a way of amplifying it. Hopefully the virus will self burn out. Surveillance by wildlife services, usgs, University Partners is critical. Rep. Newhouse going back to the authorization for the National Lab Network what beyond the diagnostic capabilities should we be considering to enhance this disease prevention . Dr. Clifford i think probably making sure that we have the proper infrastructure within the laboratories to deal with diseases that are zoonotic. Have zoonotic potential. Rep. Newhouse that would be your priority. I have a question for mr. Kelly from mississippi. With the gentleman yield . Just for us laypeople, what is zoonotic . Dr. Clifford diseases that can cross from animals to people. This one does not, thank goodness. Rep. Newhouse good question. Mr. Kelly has a broiler industry in mississippi. Apparently there are no infected herds detected. Infected birds detected. His question is why having been broilers detected . Maybe they just do a great job in mississippi as far as control . Dr. Clifford i think it is agerelated. Most of the birds infected have been older than that. One of the opportunities for managing the virus has been early marketing of birds, particularly turkeys and parts of the midwest. Some have gone to market much sooner than they would ordinarily. Those are our thoughts in North Carolina. I will defer to my usda colleagues. It is interesting to note that did happen in minnesota. We had broilers where there was infection. They were never affected at all. I think chickens are a little harder to be affected. It takes a higher dose and they do not transmit it as much as much. The age factor was there as well. If i may make a quick comment, there are two factors that have impacted the lack of euler infections broiler infections. There appears to be age susceptibility. Older birds are more susceptible than younger birds. Broilers are young. In farm operations, there are fewer entry points. Most of those have a family taking care of them. Fee trucks usually only come on the third or fourth week. Few points of entry versus if you look at a layer farm, large farms, lots of people going off. Trucks that may be shared a turkey farm. You have a greater chance for moving a iris. Rep. Newhouse i will submit my other questions for the record. I appreciate your input. I have a series of questions from my producers in minnesota. Things that have come up. One of the big concerns growers have, it is the depopulation. You heard it from them. Talking about other kinds of methods that could be used the next time around that would speed up that that the population process. You have both talked about the goal of the population in 24 hours. The turkey operation is much simpler. The layer operations, some of these big operations have 2 million or 3 million birds, it took them a couple of weeks or a few weeks to depopulate them. During a time of viruses coming out and so forth. The question is, how are we going to get to a 24 hour depopulation . Can we even a compass that . Accomplish that . We have explored a way they are the populating in canada. Using co2 gas in the whole barn. I sent one of my employees to a demonstration. I am hoping that is a method we can use in layer barns. One of the issues i have been told may make it not available in the u. S. Or at least in minnesota is our operations have five cages high to read in canada, they are three cages high. It is hard to get the co2 to the top level. We are exploring that. The only other method we know is to shut the ventilation down and heat it up. At this point, that is not considered an acceptable manner of depopulation. If you let the birds die over three weeks, im not sure that is acceptable either. None of these options are very good. Thank you, congressman peterson. Our goal is to get the birds dead as quickly as possible. 24 hours is our goal. We are looking at several options to do that. There are some other things we are looking at as well. Besides the co2. I forgot the particular product. We are looking at another product. We care about the humane treatment of the birds and putting them down as humanely as possible. With regards to euthanasia. There is a diff a definite distinction between euthanizing versus mass population. All of these things have to be considered with regards to the overall situation. The concern for Animal Health and human health. We need to look at all of these tools and try to get the birds killed as quickly as possible as humanely as possible, without further spread of the virus. As you indicated, it is important to get that done within 24 hours. If we continue to have more birds dying from the virus there is more in the environment and we know that to be a fact. Congressman peterson we have had disposal concerns, theres not room in the barns. They have been composting them outside which people are concerned this would potentially spread the virus. One thing they are looking at, dr. Hartman, are there some kind of bio bags they are using . There have not been agreements with the landfills and that slowed the process down. Where is that at . Is there going to be a way to deal with the layer operations without doing this outside . If we have another outbreak . Dr. Hartman we had one layer operation that did this. If you can depopulate that quickly, within 24 hours of the diagnosis, the composting outside is not as big of a concern. You dont have a lot of virus. You maybe have, in a 2 million bird operation, 50 dead birds that have virus. The rest do not. The key to not spreading the virus that way is you can continue to compost outside but you have to catch the disease quickly and to populate within 24 hours. With the gentleman yield for a point of clarification. Trying to understand the pathology. From the point of view of a layperson. The shelf life of the organism living in this high path influenza from the time it is detected, the time the flock is terminated, to the disposal. Does the bacteria, once the word is no longer alive it does it still live on until the time it is buried . It does live on. I am just trying to understand this better. Dr. Swain the critical issue is the sooner you can stop the birds from living, you stop producing more virus. The influenza virus does not keep growing after the body is dead, after the carcass is produced. Whereas in bacteria, bacteria can grow after you remove it from the carcass. The virus, but peak amount of virus is when the birds are lie. If you can euthanize, depopulate the birds come they stop producing virus. Over time, it is inactivated to read it is time and temperature dependent. Composting is an Excellent Way to inactivate the virus. The process has microbes that generate heat. The heat kills that virus. Also digests the virus. The compost itself is completely innocuous other than it has nutrients that have value. It is not just the euthanasia but quickly burying or composting the carcasses. If you leave it in the environment, it can be tracked on shoes or close. Clothes. The other related issue that i just heard about a couple of days ago in some of the layer operations it has been a real problem cleaning it up. The bills. This particular grower had heard about the potential of having a 120 day. A 120 day time where you wouldnt have to clean everything out. Is that the case . Yes, it is. We are looking at that and evaluating that as well as may be trying to look at heating the buildings up during that process in order to reduce the amount of cleaning and disinfection that has to be done. Our primary goal is not to clean the building. We are going to continue to evaluate. One option we are looking at. Hopefully, it will work because to me it would save and reduce work and resources that are currently having to be spent cleaning these up. This particular producer said he will probably have to be out 120 days anyway. He would be a lot cheaper for everybody. The other thing, as i mentioned in my opening statement, a lot of concern about the paperwork that is being required. It is the federal government so i understand that. As we move forward, i guess youre looking at ways to streamline this. Are you looking at things like standardizing the payments based on the Square Footage of the barns or something so you wouldnt have to have the 80 pages of forms . Also, if you did Something Like that, you might be able to lower the amount that is paid. More competition, people competing to do it. Dr. Clifford there are three things we are talking about. One is identification, that is simple. It is not 7080 pages. It is the other document that they need to sign that deals with the cmd. That document can be very extensive and long. We hope to definitely simplify it. I dont defy into the fact that because we are the federal government, it should be that long and complicated. I believe simplification is better and oftentimes better understood. Kind of like having a bio security plan that that nobody reads versus a sheet of paper somebody does read. One of the things were doing with the industry looking at maybe a squarefoot cost or house cost. Allowing the producers to handle that themselves. Rep. Peterson there has been a discussion about having an insurance system instead of indemnification. I think indemnification works but he well. You can get in there and his depopulate quickly. I think it has worked well. I dont see how you can make the insurance system work. You are going to substitute you guys for insurance companies. I think there might be a role for insurance. Maybe like business interruption. I think that indemnification i dont know if we want to cha