Elon Musk’s and his Department of Government Efficiency forced the USDA into an embarrassing walkback after it was revealed that staffers who were working on combatting the current bird flu epidemic were mistakenly fired.
U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said Tuesday it had mistakenly laid off “several agency employees who were vital in the government response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak, reports NBC News. The department is now scrambling to rehire those who were fired.
The bird flu epidemic has been tearing across the U.S. in recent months – resulting in the culling of millions of birds, outbreaks in dairy cows, egg prices skyrocketing, and infecting dozens of humans.
The DOGE error was exposed just days after U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that Musk’s DOGE had been working at the agency for weeks – a move that she hailed as positive.
“We know that work will make us better here at USDA. It will make us stronger, it will make us faster, and it will make us more efficient,” Rollins said.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention insists the risk to the general public “remains low” amid the current crisis, one person died from H5 bird flu in Louisiana earlier this year.
The CDC has warned that people working in jobs that had exposure to animals were at an increased risk, particularly if appropriate personal protective equipment was not being worn.
At present, there are 68 active cases of bird flu in the U.S.
Now the government department is frantically trying to reinstate the workers, according to reports.
A USDA spokesperson released a statement to NBC Tuesday: “Although several positions supporting [bird flu efforts] were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters.
“USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and we are continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfill our statutory mission.” the spokesperson continued.
Several agency positions were automatically excluded from the cuts enforced by the DOGE department, said the spokesperson, while stressing that USDA “continues to prioritize the response to highly pathogenic avian influenza.”
As DOGE quickly sought to raise the stakes by slashing government workers from departments, it was caught out for stumbling in its execution.
On Tuesday, The New York Times, scoured the DOGE website after its department claimed to have saved $16 billion from gutting several government contracts. But their reporters found the DOGE list massively overstated their efforts as a closer inspection revealed that, for example, a vital contract for ICE was actually for $8 million, not $8 billion.
Equally, it tried to rectify another firing mishap Friday when it told nuclear safety employees that they would now be reinstated – despite not issuing revised contracts.
The Independent contacted the USDA and DOGE for comment.
