At Wednesday’s Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar welcomed the new USDA avian influenza strategy, calling it a priority issue she raised with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “It was the #1 thing I raised with her; we must follow the science to build on the existing national testing strategies and support for farmers engaging with experts to develop new prevention and response methods and a thoughtful vaccine strategy.” Klobuchar also spoke about the importance of keeping non-partisan experts in the federal government. “Veterinarians, animal disease researchers, frontline animal disease responders, my colleagues and I, pressed (the administration) when some of these people were laid off. I understand some of them are being rehired, but we can’t mess around with this right now. We must make sure that the USDA has the resources available to respond to this outbreak.”
