The price of eggs has reached — if not surpassed — $8.00 dozen, depending on where one shops.
That’s enough to adversely effect a host of industries, including poultry farming, restaurants, bakeries — not to mention everyday folks who are trying to keep food on their tables.
In the wake of all this, the country desperately needs what it hasn’t had since Jan. 20: a fully-functioning White House that can marshal the government’s resources toward solving the bird flu crisis that’s been killing off the nation’s egg-laying poultry stock by the millions. That includes the 3,000 hens who died last month in an outbreak on a family-run farm in Matteson in the south suburbs.
The latest evidence that the spread of avian flu is getting worse: Several hundred ducks found dead, most likely from the bird flu, in the past few days along the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago and the northern suburbs, as the Sun-Times’ Kade Heather reported.
But instead of putting more focus on this issue, President Donald Trump and his administration waste time focused on a potentially ruinous tariff war and allow billionaire Elon Musk and the young, highly inexperienced employees at the legally questionable Department of Government Efficiency (created by executive order, not Congress, which has the authority to create federal departments) to run roughshod over federal government agencies and gather sensitive information.
Admittedly, skyrocketing egg prices are a global problem driven by the outbreak of bird flu. The European Commission, which is the executive branch of the European Union, reports egg prices have risen 22% in EU countries since 2024. Here in the U.S., average prices rose 50% in the past year.
Since the disease is highly contagious and has no cure, a farmer’s only solution when the flu is found is to destroy the stock. The U.S. has lost 25 million laying hens since the outbreak began — about 8% of the nation’s stock. Matteson’s Kakadoodle Farm, which had produced 2,000 eggs a week, was placed under a 150-day quarantine after last month’s outbreak, while the remaining birds are culled.
It’s imperative that the government take action, particularly since scientists are reporting the disease can also affect cows — and in rare cases, humans.
According to Nature magazine, at least 68 people in North America have become sickened by the virus. And one person has died from it.
Now’s the time for the Trump administration, and responsible members in Congress, to give the U.S. Department of Agriculture whatever it needs to solve this problem — and work with the governments of other nations toward a solution.
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