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If avian flu returns to Minnesota, there's no doubt infected poultry flocks would have to be killed. But new federal rules detailing how the birds should be killed has ignited a controversy.
 

Critics say the U.S. Department of Agriculture is supporting an inhumane, slow killing procedure — shutting down barn ventilators and turning up the heat so the animals die of heat stress. Veterinary officials in Minnesota, which was rocked this year by the bird flu, don't like it either, but they concede that it's now an "acceptable form of mass depopulation."

Avian influenza

 
No one disputes that infected poultry flocks must be killed to protect other flocks. But after this year's heavy economic toll, including more than $3 billion in losses nationwide, the response to future outbreaks must be faster. The avian flu outbreak this year spread so quickly and killed so many birds that it appeared at times to be out of control.

 
Speed is now the top priority, USDA chief veterinary officer John Clifford says.

 
Clifford told a U.S. House subcommittee the goal is to kill off infected flocks within 24 hours of an avian influenza diagnosis. "If we don't, and we continue to have more birds dying from the virus, then there's more virus in the environment and more spread."

 
University of Minnesota researchers found that the amount of virus left behind can be hundreds of thousands of times greater if it takes a week or two to kill a flock, compared to a 24-hour time frame. So state and federal officials have increased equipment and personnel to meet the one day goal.

 
If they aren't available in time, Clifford says "closing up the houses and turning off the ventilators and heating up the house" is a last-resort option, at least with chickens.

 
The houses are barns densely populated with thousands of birds that generate huge amounts of body heat. Once the ventilators are shut-off, the barn temperature rises until the poultry die of heat stress.   
 

Michael Blackwell with the Humane Society says the organization supports killing infected flocks. But he says ventilation shutdown is a terrible way to kill birds.
 

"They're suffering pretty badly," said Blackwell.  "Essentially their organs start to fail.  And it's just not a very quick way to die."
 

Death takes about half an hour. Much longer than the mere minutes it takes conventional methods, such as using foam or carbon dioxide to suffocate the birds.

How to get rid of millions of dead birds

Even though they've approved ventilation shutdown, USDA acknowledged in 2011 the tactic may cause the birds "prolonged suffering."  
 

Minnesota's state veterinarian Bill Hartmann sounded like he didn't think much of ventilation shutdown either at a congressional hearing last July.
 

"That is not, at this point, considered an acceptable manner of depopulation," said Hartmann.
 

Hartmann, though, acknowledged in a recent statement to MPR News that ventilation shutdown would now be acceptable "in order to minimize the impact of the disease."
 

Economic pressures appear to be the major driver of this queasy acceptance of the procedure.
 

USDA estimates the 24-hour depopulation goal could reduce bird flu losses by more than a third and shrink taxpayer reimbursements to farmers for their lost birds by nearly 80 percent. 
 

But even though they've pledged to use ventilation shutdown and other depopulation tools if needed to control influenza, some top USDA officials like John Clifford wish there was another way. "We in the world have to stop eradicating diseases through the total destruction of animals," he said.
 

The obvious alternative is vaccination to prevent birds from getting sick in the first place, but that approach has been blocked mostly to protect poultry exports. Some countries would ban US poultry meat since vaccinated meat can test positive for avian influenza.
 

The U.S. and most other nations say vaccines would create confusion. It would be difficult to separate influenza-infected birds from the false positives of inoculated poultry. If bird flu returns this fall, federal regulators say vaccinations will be used only in emergency situations. 

 
Meanwhile, the state's poultry farmers are just hoping the debates over ventilation shutdown and vaccination remain purely theoretical.

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If avian flu returns to Minnesota, there's no doubt infected poultry flocks would have to be killed. But new federal rules on how to kill them has ignited a controversy.

Divisions deep over feds' back-up plan to kill birds if avian flu returns

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