Legal Groups Sue California to Force Release of H5N1-Infected Dairy Locations

Legal challenge seeks county-level disclosure of H5N1 dairy outbreaks

California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), together with the First Amendment Coalition, filed suit Monday in Sacramento County Superior Court alleging the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is withholding the locations of dairies infected with H5N1 bird flu. The plaintiffs say the lack of detailed location data prevents targeted outreach to at-risk workers and communities.

The lawsuit contends that the California Constitution and the California Public Records Act guarantee the public's right to inspect government records and ensure officials are fulfilling their duties. CRLA attorney David Cremins said those protections support the groups' request for disclosure.

A CDFA spokesman declined to comment because the matter is in litigation. Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairies, California's largest dairy trade group, also declined to comment.

Scope of the outbreak and public health concerns

H5N1 was first detected in Texas dairy cattle in March 2024 and subsequently infected workers. In the last 18 months there have been 70 confirmed human H5N1 infections in the United States; more than half of those cases occurred among California dairy workers. Most U.S. cases have been mild, though one person in Louisiana died and several others were hospitalized.

Globally, H5N1 has killed hundreds of people and has historically had a high case fatality rate. The virus has also caused millions of deaths among wild birds, other mammals, domestic cats and commercial poultry. H5N1 was first identified in Guangdong province, China, in 1996.

Public health experts warn that even a small mutation in the strains now circulating in dairy cattle and commercial poultry could increase transmissibility between people, severity of illness, or both. Every additional opportunity for the virus to move between animals or jump species raises that risk.

Transparency dispute

The state has published county-level outbreak data for poultry facilities and wild animals, but not for dairy outbreaks. Instead, CDFA has described infected cattle only by broad regions such as the Central Valley (roughly 20,000 square miles) or Southern California (about 56,000 square miles). To date, more than 770 California dairies have been infected since the outbreak began in 2024.

Those vague descriptions are "completely useless in terms of trying to figure out how the flu is spreading around," said virologist Angela Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization. She added that the lack of transparent detail is puzzling given the stakes for workers' livelihoods and the food supply.

Cremins and the plaintiffs argue that had county-level location information been released, organizations could have focused outreach, testing and education to reduce worker exposures. The filing accuses CDFA of creating an "information asymmetry" where the agency and dairy producers know outbreak locations but workers and the public do not.

The complaint notes that other states, including Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, report dairy or agricultural outbreaks at the county level. Plaintiffs are asking the court to order disclosure of quarantine records, declare that CDFA violated California's open-records laws, and require payment of attorney fees if the plaintiffs prevail.

What this means: The case centers on balancing privacy and business concerns with public health transparency. The court's decision could affect how outbreak information is released during future agricultural and zoonotic disease events.

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.