California's DPH is paying Californians to be tested for bird flu, and CDC is assisting the effort. Desperately seeking cases.

However, if a local health department announces a case of bird flu that is subsequently not confirmed by CDC, it HAS issued corrections in the past.

Jon Fleetwood covered this story and brought it to my attention, but his spin is not quite right.

CBS News revealed that Californians are being paid with $25 gift cards at some vendor-run clinics to get tested for bird flu (+/- vaccinated for seasonal flu—except you are not supposed to vaccinate for seasonal flu after April 1 each year).

And while the federal CDC is assisting with the project, the gift cards are coming from California’s coffers, not CDC’s. No doubt this was for political reasons, and to justify California’s declaration of a bird flu emergency.

It was not clear whether the tests involved swabbing (presumably for active exposure/infection) or blood drawing (presumably for antibodies).

Fleetwood implied that local health departments do not correct the record when their initial positive tests for bird flu turn out to be false positives. But in fact, California DID announce that its case of presumed bird flu in a child that drank raw milk was not confirmed by either the state nor the federal CDC, and had been falsely deemed positive.

Happily, despite the gift cards, no more human cases of bird flu have turned up.