Bird flu is not just for birds. It is about public health, agriculture and an economic crisis. That was the final takeaway of a joint hearing of the California Senate Health and Senate Agriculture Committees this week. Updates from state officials and industry leaders covered federal funding, disease containment, worker protections, trade policies and food security. 

The pathogenic H5N1 virus that has killed millions of chickens and sent egg prices soaring is a highly mutable strain that transfigures between species. While still considered a low threat to humans, there are currently 38 confirmed human cases in the state, with the last one reported Jan. 14, according to the California Department of Public Health. 

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Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.