Chickens in one of our poultry barns tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza, otherwise known as bird flu. We immediately called our local U.S. Department of Agriculture office, but we already knew what was inevitable.

The Trump administration has fired about a quarter of the personnel at an Agriculture Department program that tracks the spread of bird flu, and has laid off some 1,200 employees at the National Institutes of Health—including many promising young disease detectives.

As the bird flu spreads across the country, it's hitting residents in western Pennsylvania for the first time in two years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports bird flu is now in Butler County,