AUSTIN (Nexstar) — There is growing concern about avian flu spreading among farm animals in Texas, with poultry producers destroying nearly two million birds at a facility near Farwell in the Texas panhandle.
This week brought a new issue; a dairy worker got the virus after contact with infected cattle.
The worker is recovering. The Centers for Disease Control reports there’s little risk to the public, but the outbreak is raising questions about the affect on the food supply.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said late last month that the state started tracking a “mysterious disease” that struck about 40% of dairy herds in the panhandle.
“We were testing for cattle disease. We’ve never had bird flu in cattle,” Miller said. “Someone noticed that there were some dead birds at one of the dairies and thought, hey, we better test for bird flu. So we did and it came back positive.”
Although the avian flu has spread into six states, Miller urges Texans not to panic.
“It wasn’t widespread enough that we’re going to have a run on grocery stores, on eggs and milk, [and it] won’t change the price,” he said.
The commissioner says the virus did not get into the food supply. He noted that poultry producers are depopulating the facility where the outbreak started. According to Miller, it’s not necessary to depopulate the affected cattle herds.
“They have a mild illness that lasts about a week, and then they’re back in the milking barn and we’re doing fine,” he said.
Miller said the virus only affects dairy cows, not beef cattle, and that pasteurization rids milk of potential pathogens. He said that cooking eggs and chicken would have a similar effect.
“The only person I’ve ever seen eat raw eggs was Rocky Balboa. I don’t think he’s doing that anymore, so I think we’re OK,” Miller said.
One person contracted bird flu, marking the second time in history a human has been infected with the virus, according to the CDC. Miller says it was a “very mild case.”
“He had pinkeye-like symptoms and that was it. He’s over in a few days,” he added.
The area is already dealing with the aftermath of Texas’ largest wildfire. Miller assured that the flu outbreak is not connected to the fire, and will only have “some economic hit to the dairy farmers but not enough to make them go bankrupt.”
Now, he’s asking farmers to “increase their biosecurity.” Methods include farm workers using respiratory and eye protection, disinfecting vehicles, and limiting visitors.
“This is spread by waterfowl,” Miller said. “So we’re encouraging at least the dairy farms to isolate cows’ ponds of water that might have had waterfowl on it, disinfect their own waters, water troughs and feeding facilities.”
As for recovery efforts, Miller says the state is working on 2,000 square miles of burnt land and having to dispose of an estimated 20,000 cattle who were injured or inhaled smoke.
The commissioner emphasized a need for fencing materials and hay in the region. More information on how to donate can be found here.
Court hearing raises question if Texas immigration law ‘went too far’
Texas was back in court Wednesday as the state’s controversial new immigration enforcement law tries to come back to life, awaiting action in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals after the court blocked it pending further litigation last week.
If allowed to go into effect, Senate Bill 4 would empower state and local police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants and allow Texas judges to order them into Mexico. The Biden administration, civil rights groups, and immigrant advocates have sued to block the law, fearing violations of civil rights and federalism.
“They have tried to develop a statute that goes up to the line of Supreme Court precedent but allows Texas to protect the border. Now, to be fair, maybe Texas went too far. And that’s the question this court is going to have to decide,” said Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson to the three-judge panel Wednesday.
Texas has long maintained that it has the power to enforce immigration law, citing the “invasions clause” of the Constitution and arguing that the influx of migrants constitutes an “invasion.” The federal government says the law is unconstitutional because it impedes on their sole authority to regulate immigration.
Today’s admission was one of the state’s clearest acknowledgements that SB 4 is on shaky legal ground. Last year, the Texas Senate’s Chairman of Border Security Brian Birdwell said the law is unconstitutional.
SB 4 empowers state and local police in any part of Texas to arrest someone on the suspicion of illegal entry, but the state says the law would only be enforced on the border itself.
“There wouldn’t be probable cause in almost all cases, unless a Texas officer sees somebody crossing the border,” Nielson said.
Concerns over the possibility of racial profiling and improper arrests led civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union to join the Biden administration in suing Texas over the law.
“It makes all of our communities less safe,” immigrant advocate and co-director of American Gateways Edna Yang told Nexstar. Yang says the communities she serves as already weary of the law.
“The conversations are really about fear,” she said. “About whether they’re going to be separated from their family, about whether, if they’re currently in an immigration process and they have a work permit, and they have a driver’s license, and they have a job, if they’re going to be affected by this law.”
Proponents have argued the law would only be reasonably applied if a law enforcement officer observes someone cross the border.
The legal drama over SB 4 has been compared to “ping pong” for weeks, and today was one of the most significant arguments over the basic merits of the law, but it’s not the final word.
It’s unclear exactly when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals may rule, but regardless, legal experts are certain this case will ultimately end in the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The administration admits there’s a crisis and a problem, because politically, they’ve gotten themselves in a mess,” said SB 4 author Sen. Charles Perry to Nexstar in February. “I think the whole environments differ around this conversation when it gets to the Supreme Court.”
Truck driver in school bus crash deemed ‘imminent hazard’
Federal transportation authorities say the driver of the concrete pump truck involved in a fatal crash with a school bus full of pre-K children on March 22 was prohibited from driving a commercial vehicle because of multiple failed drug tests, and they have disqualified him from further commercial driving, according to a March 29 order.
“This finding means that based upon your present state of unacceptable safety compliance, your operation of any commercial motor vehicle substantially increases the likelihood of serious injury or death if not discontinued immediately,” said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in its disqualification order.
The pump truck driver, 43-year-old Jerry Hernandez, was already prohibited three times since 2020 from commercial driving because of positive drug tests. At the time of the deadly crash, Hernandez was listed as “prohibited” in FMCSA’s Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse due to testing positive for cocaine in April 2023, according to the Administration.
Hernandez’s pump truck veered into oncoming traffic on State Highway 21, struck a Hays Consolidated Independent School District bus and the bus flipped. Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, 5, was on the bus and died. Ryan Wallace, a 33-year-old University of Texas doctoral student, was killed while driving a car behind the school bus.
Law enforcement arrested Hernandez on March 29 and charged him with criminally negligent homicide, a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in state jail and a fine of $10,000, according to an arrest affidavit.
Hernandez should have been removed from “safety-sensitive functions,” like driving, before the crash, according to the affidavit. However, “state driver’s licensing agencies are not required to downgrade CDL statuses until 11/18/2024 according to changes in the Federal Register,” the affidavit states.
Due to the timing of the federal rule changes, Hernandez’s commercial driver’s license was still valid at the time of the crash even though his status was listed as “prohibited” in the Clearinghouse.
FMCSA said it is working with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to disqualify Hernandez’s commercial driver’s license.
KXAN reached out to DPS to ask about how it tracks the status of licenses in the Clearinghouse.
“When we come across someone operating a CMV during a roadside inspection and they are in the Clearinghouse, we will place the driver out of service,” the agency said in an email.
KXAN followed up on that question with a phone call to the regional public information officer, who explained the only other way to proactively stop someone – who, per the Clearinghouse, shouldn’t be driving – is if a state or federal audit looked into a specific driver, company or case.
From St. David’s Hospital, Hernandez admitted to a state trooper he smoked marijuana and slept for only three hours the night before the crash and took cocaine the morning of the collision at about 1 a.m. During that conversation, troopers said Hernandez fell asleep multiple times, according to an arrest affidavit.
The truck Hernandez was operating at the time of the crash was registered under FJM Concrete LLC and the company’s owner Francisco Martinez, according to Hernandez’s arrest affidavit. Martinez told investigators he “had not verified the status of Mr. Hernandez’s commercial driver’s license or his status through the federal Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse database before employing him as a driver,” the affidavit states.
Separate from the school bus crash, KXAN discovered Martinez was ticketed in 2021 for employing an unlicensed driver, a misdemeanor. That ticket was not resolved according to the office of Hays County Justice of the Peace Precinct 4, and a warrant was issued on April 1.
Hundreds of seniors kicked off Medicare benefits by mistake
Texas Health and Human Services accidentally removed 350 seniors from the state’s Medicare Savings Program, the agency confirmed, costing some lower income Texans as much as $200 a month out of their Social Security checks.
Last summer, Nexstar first reported that about 100,000 Texans were improperly removed from Medicaid coverage after the federal government rolled back COVID-era provisions meant to protect people from losing health insurance.
On April 1, 2023, the Biden administration ended its “continuous coverage provision,” which prevented states from unenrolling Medicaid recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic. That meant Texas needed to review its enrollees — about 6 million people — to determine which were still eligible for coverage. The sudden influx led to mistakes that kicked people off their coverage, compounded by alleged understaffing, technology errors, and a “toxic” environment reported by whistleblowers last summer.
Nearly a year later, the Texas HHSC confirmed seniors were also “erroneously removed” from the Medicare Savings Program.
“HHSC routinely performs quality assurance measures,” HHSC’s Tiffany Young told Nexstar. “When, through this process, the agency discovers a Medicaid recipient was terminated in error, HHSC works expeditiously to reinstate coverage for those impacted back to the date of their termination. Coverage has already been reinstated or is in the process of being reinstated for any impacted Medicare Savings Program recipients.”
Other seniors who neglected to renew their Medicare Savings Program benefits last year have experienced prolonged wait times for their applications to be approved again.
For the last four months, Ed Heimlich desperately refreshed his online healthcare benefits homepage to daily disappointment. Each day without his benefits meant another day at the food pantry, scrapping to survive on a Social Security payment that was cut even slimmer after he lost the Medicare Savings Program.
“It came without any warning whatsoever,” he said. “I found out that my benefits had been eliminated… it’s just really a struggle.”
Ed, a 69-year-old retiree in Austin, lives on $970 a month from Social Security. He is also enrolled in Medicare Part B, and about $174 was paid out of Texas’ Medicare Savings Program. But when he was removed from that program in August, that $170 was deducted from his Social Security check, dropping his income to just $795 — a nearly 20% reduction that amounts to a hefty toll for seniors already living on the edge.
“When your income is less than $1,000 a month, that is a lot. That hurts,” he said. “18% of your income suddenly taken from you through no fault of your own, through a state bureaucratic error, a state system whose computer program didn’t know how to handle the situation.”
HHS said Heimlich’s case was not related to the erroneous removals, but rather, Heimlich had neglected to renew his status and his removal was proper. Heimlich said he never received a renewal notice, and was told late last year that his removal was a “glitch.”
On the same day Nexstar contacted HHS about Heimlich’s case, Heimlich said he received two calls from the commission and they reinstated his benefits effective April 1. HHS reports the oldest application still awaiting review is 36 days old.