MW Egg prices could get higher again if the U.S. doesn't take this action right now, says former FDA chief under Trump

By Weston Blasi

Scott Gottlieb served as FDA commissioner from 2017 to 2019, during Donald Trump's first White House term

'A sensible first step is to seriously consider strategies for vaccinating egg-laying hens.'

That was Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, discussing the avian-flu crisis in the U.S. in a recent op-ed in STAT, a publication that specializes in health and medicine.

Gottlieb is advocating that U.S. government agencies should look into vaccinations for parts of the country's chicken and hen populations to protect them from the avian flu, which, among other things, could help keep egg prices in check.

The average price of a dozen large eggs rose to an all-time high of $5.90 in February, more than doubling roughly $2.50 in February 2024, according to U.S. consumer-price-index data. As of March 21, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a total of 168.2 million birds have been affected by bird flu since January 2022.

The U.S. doesn't vaccinate birds against avian flu, and industry groups representing two categories of farmers are at odds over the issue. The broiler industry, or meat producers, is lobbying against vaccination, while egg producers are pushing for it. France, China and Mexico are among the countries that vaccinate poultry against the H5N1 bird flu.

"We have vaccines for bird flu made by American companies and used overseas, but, so far, federal officials don't seem poised to use them here," Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb also noted that bird-flu vaccinations could carry both political and trade considerations.

"Before wild birds resume migrating, the U.S. has time to take additional steps to fortify farm defenses against such threats and boost the supply of eggs available to consumers," Gottlieb wrote. "We will start to see more outbreaks as birds start to migrate again."

"Small increases in the supply of eggs can translate into meaningfully lower prices for consumers, [and] this might be one path to creating a more sustainable marginal capacity for more eggs available on store shelves," he added.

Opinion: Bird flu ravaged this farmer's chickens. Here's his plan to lower egg prices.

Gottlieb's op-ed comes with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. having recently advocated that the U.S. let this latest bird flu proliferate and identify hens that display immunity to the bird flu.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in February that it plans to invest up to $1 billion to combat bird flu and bring down egg prices. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said half of those funds, or $500 million, will go to biosecurity research, while $400 million will be disbursed as financial relief to farmers, and $100 million will go toward "exploring the use of vaccines and therapeutics for laying chickens."

The USDA could decide whether vaccinations should be carried out, something it did on a conditional basis with animal-health company Zoetis $(ZTS)$ last month. The USDA didn't respond to MarketWatch's request for comment.

The Justice Department launched an investigation into the causes of rising egg prices earlier in March, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Sharmah Seakar, senior procurement lead at Efficio, a global supply-chain consultancy, told MarketWatch this month that egg prices will likely remain high and that, "given new industry realities, a stable price of $3 [to] $3.50 per dozen may be the new norm."

Read on: Why eggs are nearly $9 a dozen in California - and when prices could drop

-Weston Blasi

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March 21, 2025 17:08 ET (21:08 GMT)

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