FDA Advisers to Weigh COVID Vaccines, H5N1 in US Cows and Poultry

May 09, 2025

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said today that its Vaccines and Related Biologics Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) will meet on May 22 in an open session to discuss and make recommendations on the composition of the 2025-26 COVID-19 vaccines, according to a notice in the Federal Register. The FDA said it is holding the meeting without the usual 15-day public notice due to technical issues and the time-sensitive need for input and public discussion. Pharmaceutical companies need a few months of lead time to manufacture vaccine and get the products cleared for the next respiratory virus season. Last year, VRBPAC made its COVID vaccine composition recommendation on June 5. In a related development, the World Health Organization’s Technical Advisory Committee on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition will meet this month to make its recommendations.
Over the past few days the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has reported a few more H5N1 avian flu detections in dairy cattle and poultry. The virus was detected in 4 more dairy herds, all in Idaho, raising Idaho's total to 90 and the national total to 1,052 from 17 states. In poultry, APHIS confirmed new detections involving a backyard flock in Indiana and farms in Illinois and North Dakota. The agency also reported four more detections in other mammals in two states, including foxes in three New York counties (Madison, Onondaga, and Tompkins) and a domestic cat in Ada County, Idaho. All have mid to late April sample collection dates.

Video: Making budget friendly pig feed on a small livestock farm

I am going to show you how we save our farm money by making our own pig feed. It's the same process as making our cattle feed just with a slight adjustment to our grinder/ mixer that makes all the difference. We buy all the feed stuff required to make the total mix feed. Run each through the mixer and at the end of the process we have a product that can be consumed by our pigs.

I am the 2nd generation to live on this property after my parents purchased it in 1978. As a child my father hobby farmed pigs for a couple years and ran a vegetable garden. But we were not a farm by any stretch of the imagination. There were however many family dairy farms surrounding us. So naturally I was hooked with farming since I saw my first tractor. As time went on, I worked for a couple of these farms and that only fueled my love of agriculture. In 2019 I was able to move back home as my parents were ready to downsize and I was ready to try my hand at farming. Stacy and logan share the same love of farming as I do. Stacy growing up on her family's dairy farm and logans exposure of farming/tractors at a very young age. We all share this same passion to grow a quality/healthy product to share with our community. Join us on this journey and see where the farm life takes us.