Category: Flu Virus

By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press

A poultry facility in Michigan and egg producer in Texas both reported outbreaks of avian flu this week. The latest developments on the virus also include infected dairy cows and the first known instance of a human catching bird flu from a mammal.

Although health officials say the risk to the public remains low, there is rising concern, emerging in part from news that the largest producer of fresh eggs in the U.S. reported an outbreak.

MORE NEWS ON BIRD FLU IN MICHIGAN: Why 6.5 million chickens were killed in Michigan this month

Here are some key things to know about the disease.

WHAT ARE EXPERTS SAYING?

Dr. Mandy Cohen, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the agency is taking bird flu seriously, but stressed that the virus has already been well studied.

The fact that it is in cattle now definitely raises our concern level, Cohen said, noting that it means farmworkers who work with cattle and not just those working with birds may need to take precautions.

The good news is that its not a new strain of the virus, Cohen added. This is known to us and weve been studying it, and frankly, weve been preparing for avian flu for 20 years.

WHAT IS BIRD FLU?

Some flu viruses mainly affect people, but others chiefly occur in animals. Avian viruses spread naturally in wild aquatic birds like ducks and geese, and then to chickens and other domesticated poultry.

The bird flu virus drawing attention today Type A H5N1 was first identified in 1959. Like other viruses, it has evolved over time, spawning newer versions of itself.

Since 2020, the virus has been spreading among more animal species including dogs, cats, skunks, bears and even seals and porpoises in scores of countries.

In the U.S., this version of the bird flu has been detected in wild birds in every state, as well as commercial poultry operations and backyard flocks. Nationwide, tens of millions of chickens have died from the virus or been killed to stop outbreaks from spreading.

Last week, U.S. officials said it had been found in livestock. As of Tuesday, it had been discovered in dairy herds in five states Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico and Texas according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

HOW OFTEN DO PEOPLE GET BIRD FLU?

This bird flu was first identified as a threat to people during a 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong. In the past two decades, nearly 900 people have been diagnosed globally with bird flu and more than 460 people have died, according to the World Health Organization.

There have been only two cases in the U.S., and neither were fatal.

In 2022, a prison inmate in a work program caught it while killing infected birds at a poultry farm in Montrose County, Colorado. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered.

This week, Texas health officials announced that a person who had been in contact with cows had been diagnosed with bird flu. Their only reported symptom was eye redness.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF BIRD FLU?

Symptoms are similar to that of other flus, including cough, body aches and fever. Some people dont have noticeable symptoms, but others develop severe, life-threatening pneumonia.

CAN IT SPREAD BETWEEN PEOPLE?

The vast majority of infected people have gotten it directly from birds, but scientists are on guard for any sign of spread among people.

There have been a few instances when that apparently happened most recently in 2007 in Asia. In each cluster, it spread within families from a sick person in the home.

U.S. health officials have stressed that the current public health risk is low and that there is no sign that bird flu is spreading person to person.

WHAT IS THE ECONOMIC IMPACT?

While its too early to quantify the potential economic impact of a bird flu outbreak, many of these latest developments are concerning, particularly the transmission of the virus from one species to another, said Darin Detwiler, a food safety and policy expert at Northeastern University.

We dont have a magic forcefield, an invisible shield that protects land and water runoff from impacting other species, Detwiler said. There is a concern in terms of how this might impact other markets, the egg market, the beef market.

If the outbreak is not quickly contained, consumers could ultimately see higher prices, and if it continues to spread, some industries could experience reputational strain, possibly affecting the export industry, Detwiler added.

The egg industry already is experiencing some tightening of supply following detections of bird flu late in 2023 and in early January, coupled with the busy Easter season, where Americans typically consume an average of 3 billion eggs, said Marc Dresner, a spokesperson for the American Egg Board.

Still, even with the outbreak in Texas and the nearly 2 million birds that were killed there, Dresner said there are an estimated 310 million egg laying hens in the U.S. and wholesale egg prices are down about 25% from a February peak.

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Associated Press reporters Jonathan Poet in Philadelphia and Mike Stobbe and videojournalist Sharon Johnson in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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What to know about the latest bird flu outbreak in the US - MLive.com

HARLINGEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that viral fragments of the H5N1 bird flu have been detected in 1 in 5 pasteurized milk samples.

Positive results from the FDAs commercial milk sampling study show the viral fragments come from milk in areas with infected herds.

Since March, bird flu detections have spread to dairy cows and herds in Texas, Kansas, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and South Dakota.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a federal order earlier this week stating any dairy cows transported from one farm to another across state lines should be tested for bird flu to minimize the viral spread.

FDA officials state that the positive bird flu detection in milk does not pose a threat and is safe to consume.

Pasteurization has continually proven to inactivate bacteria and viruses, like influenza, in milk, the FDA said. Even if virus is detected in raw milk, pasteurization is generally expected to eliminate pathogens to a level that does not pose a risk to consumer health.

The FDA says to date retail milk studies have shown the commercial milk supply is safe.

See the rest here:

FDA: 1 in 5 retail milk samples test positive for bird flu virus - KVEO-TV

What happened

Dairy cows moved across state lines must now be tested for bird flu to help quash an outbreak that has spread to at least 33 herds in eight states, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday. One Texas dairy worker contracted a mild case and the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it found inactive H1N1 viral fragments in pasteurized grocery store milk, though the risk to humans appears low.

Dairy producers have been a "little bit" hesitant to "allow us to gather information from their farms," said the USDA's Dr. Michael Watson. This federal order will "really help us address any gaps that might exist."

We may "get lucky with H1N1 and it will never manage to spread among humans," but "there is only a small window of time" to stop "dangerous novel pathogens" before they "spiral out of control," said Zeynep Tufekci at The New York Times. So far, we don't "seem up to the task."

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FDA tests to confirm there's no live virus in pasteurized milk will be "available in the next few days to weeks," said food safety director Don Prater.

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Bird flu worries mount as virus found in milk, cows - The Week

Bird flu was first detected in U.S. dairy cows in March. So far, infections have been detected in 33 herds across eight states. Derek Davis / Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found evidence of bird flu virus in pasteurized milk, but it says the milk supply is still safe to drink, according to a statement from the agency on Tuesday.

While the testsidentified genetic material from the bird flu virus in milk, the FDA suggests these are leftover particles from inactive virus that had been killed during pasteurization, rather than infectious virus. The agency is continuing tests to get more information.

To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe, the FDAs statement says.

There is no evidence to date that this is infectious virus, and the FDA is following up on that, Lee-Ann Jaykus, a food microbiologist and virologist at North Carolina State University, tells Jonel Aleccia of the Associated Press (AP).

Milk sold in grocery stores in the United States has undergone pasteurization, in which it is heated to kill viruses and bacteria. This process is expected to kill the avian flu viruswhich was detected in dairy cows last monthbut it likely wont remove all traces of viral particles, per the FDA.

This residual genetic material poses little risk to milk drinkers, David OConnor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells the New York Times Emily Anthes, Apoorva Mandavilli and Noah Weiland.

The risk of getting infected from milk that has viral fragments in it should be nil, he tells the publication. The genetic material cant replicate on its own.

Still, officials are conducting additional tests to make sure infectious virus is not present in the milk. The FDA is currently injecting chicken eggs with the viral samples to see whether they replicate, which it calls the gold standard for detecting active virus.

Pasteurization kills much sturdier viruses than influenza, so we expect it to work, Andrew Pekosz, a molecular biologist who studies respiratory viruses at Johns Hopkins University, tells Stat News Helen Branswell, Nicholas Florko, Megan Molteni and Rachel Cohrs Zhang. But itd be great to have the data.

The FDA says it will make results from these studies available in the coming days or weeks.

Of greater concern is that the virus is showing up in a lot more samples, meaning the infection is more widespread in dairy herds than we thought, a public health official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share information that wasnt public, says to the Washington Posts Lena H. Sun, Rachel Roubein and Dan Diamond.

Following the FDAs announcement, the Biden administration is now requiring dairy cows to be tested for bird flu before they are transported between states.

A month ago, officials confirmed that dairy cows had been infected with bird flu in Texas and Kansas, with symptoms including decreased lactation and low appetite. As of this week, officials have detected infections in 33 dairy herds across eight states: Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota, Kansas, Texas, Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In 2022, avian flu was detected in wild birds in the U.S. for the first time since 2016. Over the last couple of years, the virus has been identified in more than 9,000 wild birds in the U.S., and it has affected more than 90 million domestic birds across 48 states. Worldwide, more than 131 million domestic poultry died due to infection or culling to stop the spread of avian flu in 2022 alone. Reports of mammals with avian flu raised concerns that the virus could evolve and jump to humans.

But so far, analyses of the viruses detected in dairy cattle have found no changes that would make it more infectious to humans, according to theU.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Only one person has been infected after exposure to sick cattle, and pink eye was their only symptom. The risk to the general public remains low, per the CDC.

Nearly all of the commercial milk supply made at U.S. dairy farms follows the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, which includes controls that help ensure the safety of dairy products, the FDA says.

Dairy producers have been diverting and destroying milk from sick cows to keep the milk supply safe, the agency adds. And in addition to being pasteurized, milk from any individual cow becomes diluted as it mixes with milk from other cows.

With a virus like this, I would have to believe even if you had the highest levels of virus activity you could ever imagine in the actual milk from the udder of an infected cow, it would be diluted millions of times over going into pasteurization, Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, tells the New York Times.

Still, scientists have recently argued the USDA isnt sharing enough information about the spread of bird flu into cattle and that it is sharing information too slowly, writes CNNs Brenda Goodman.

Flu is a fairly wimpy virus, so its fairly readily inactivated, Richard J. Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, tells the Washington Post. But thats something that has to be tested.

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Bird Flu Virus Detected in Pasteurized Milk, as U.S. Moves to Test More Dairy Cows - Smithsonian Magazine

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FDA says samples of pasteurized milk test positive for bird flu virus - TODAY

Fragments of the virus that causes bird flu, H5N1, has been found in samples of pasteurized milk, according to a Tuesday update from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Since bird flu was first reported in dairy cow herds earlier this spring, health agencies have only previously reported detecting the virus in samples of raw or unpasteurized milk, which hasn't gone through the process of heating milk to get rid of viruses and bacteria like pasteurized products have.

Still, the agency says the commercial milk supply is still safe. Pasteurization is expected to inactivate the bird flu virus and make it noninfectious -- even if parts of its genetic material are now showing up in some milk samples -- and it's a requirement for milk entering the commercial milk supply, making up the vast majority of milk found on store shelves (thoughnot all, depending on local laws).

"Based on available information, pasteurization is likely to inactivate the virus, however the process is not expected to remove the presence of viral particles," the FDA said.

"Therefore, some of the samples collected have indicated the presence of HPAI using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) testing," the agency said in the update, referring to bird flu's official term, highly pathogenic avian influenza, and a type of test that can detect evidence of a virus that isn't active or infectious.

While the current public health threat to people remains low, some scientists and infectious disease experts have expressed concerns about US health agencies' response to bird flu in farm animals and their lack of details on the information pertaining to milk samples. Virologist Angela Rasmussen, for example,said in an X threadTuesday that the new milk findings suggest the disease may be spreading asymptomatically in cows and more broadly than previously thought and that an "apparent lack of transparency and urgency" to share relevant data may be harming the ability to respond.

The US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday issued a federal order requiring testing of cows as they move across state lines, in hopes of curbing the spread of bird flu. The New York Times reported that the USDA doesn't require farms to test cattle for infection. Normally, milk from sick cows (whatever their illness) and milk that looks off is separated from the rest of the supply.

And what about the noncommercial milk supply, or raw milk that hasn't been pasteurized? While people who grew up on farms or around cattle might have had unpasteurized milk for dinner, raw milk has found a growing audience: people seeking it out for wellness purposes or sometimes traveling to local farms to consume a food they feel is more natural or holistic.

About raw milk or dairy products during these bird-flu times, citing limited information on bird flu in dairy, the FDA says it doesn't know whether bird flu viruses can be transmitted through unpasteurized products. The agency is reiterating its generalstance that people should avoid consuming raw or unpasteurized milk for risks of consuming pathogens that are particularly dangerous to children, older people, people who are pregnant and people with weakened immune systems.

The experts I spoke with for this story before it was first published earlier this month essentially said, in general, influenza isn't spread to people through eating or drinking. However, they stressed the existing health risks of unpasteurized milk, consumption and sales of which often fall outside what you'd typically see on grocery store shelves, dependent on local laws.

"In my opinion, there's a concern with raw milk acquisitions which can become part of the food system, and people secure that milk outside of going to the grocery store," Meg Schaeffer, an infectious disease epidemiologist and National Public Health adviser at the analytics firm SAS, told CNET when this article was first published.

Here's what to know about pasteurization and the raw milk trend in bird flu times.

Pasteurization is a heating process invented in the 1860s by French chemist Louis Pasteur and has been used widely since as a means to kill harmful bacteria and pathogens that can sometimes cause serious illness. These include bacteria that cause illness like E. coli, Listeria and Salmonella, and other pathogens.

Pasteurization is also expected to kill or inactivate the virus that causes bird flu, which is why health officials continue to say there's no risk to pasteurized dairy products or the commercial milk supply.

Some dairy products may be ultrapasteurized, which is when milk is heated more quickly than typical pasteurization (a couple of seconds) at a higher temperature and then rapidly cooled down. This extends its shelf life.

Pasteurized dairy products can be organic or nonorganic. Whether you can buy or sell raw, unpasteurized milk depends on the laws in your state. In California, for example, you can buy raw milk from stores, although it has to be properly labeled with a warning stating it's unpasteurized.

Jenna Guthmiller, an immunologist, influenza researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Colorado, told CNET for the article's first publish that if someone were to drink milk contaminated with H5N1, it doesn't necessarily mean they would be infected. Influenza viruses are unstable outside the body, she explained, and milk "bypasses the normal process by which we get infected" with flu.

Following up after health officials' latest announcement this week, Guthmiller added that bird flu outbreaks on dairy farms "seem to be linked to each other, in that the viruses are very closely related."

"At the moment, this outbreak seems to be isolated to these very large dairy farms," Guthmiller said, noting that she wasn't aware of these larger farms selling raw milk.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said in an email this week that finding bird flu virus material in pasteurized milk doesn't change the public health risk assessment.

"Pasteurization is a process that would destroy the viability of pathogens -- it's not a process that eliminates their genetic material," he said.

Adalja previously noted it's "unclear" whether there would be a live virus in unpasteurized milk or if it could infect humans by their drinking it, he explained. Influenza viruses aren't spread to humans via ingestion. But on raw milk, he added, "there are many reasons not to drink it to begin with."

Proponents of raw or unpasteurized milk prefer it for different reasons, including its creamier texture and taste or anecdotal reports that it's easier on digestion or more nutritious.

You can't argue with someone's taste or texture preferences when it comes to food. In terms of the nutritional or health benefits of raw milk compared with unpasteurized milk, research seems to have pushed back on or debunked the majority of claims. The FDA, for example, says that raw milk isn't a cure or antidote for lactose intolerance. The agency also claims on the same information page that people are misusing the results of a study from 2007 that was on farm milk consumption, not raw milk consumption.

In an analysis of the risks versus benefits of raw milk research, Healthline reported that any small antimicrobial benefit from raw milk would be neutralized when it's refrigerated. It also reported, based on the results of a systematic review, that minor nutrient losses of water-soluble vitamins, including some B vitamins, are already low in milk generally.

"Multiple studies have shown that pasteurization does not significantly affect the nutritional quality of milk," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concludes. "Scientists do not have any evidence that shows a nutritional benefit from drinking raw milk."

As someone who grew up on a dairy farm, Guthmiller used to drink unpasteurized milk herself -- she gets it. When it comes to consuming raw milk, she said, "the risks certainly outweigh the pros."

"We're getting to a point with pasteurization where it looks like real milk," Guthmiller said. In terms of nutritional quality, "you really do not affect the contents of the milk" by pasteurizing it, she said, because it's done so quickly.

If you're looking for foods with proven gut-health properties, look at adding foods like kimchi, pickled vegetables, sourdough, apple cider vinegar and buttermilk.

While the FDA says that it doesn't know yet whether bird flu can transmit to people via unpasteurized or raw dairy, it's probably not a reach to assume that raw milk is a riskier choice avian-influenza-wise than commercial milk, since raw milk hasn't gone through any type of process that would inactivate viruses.

In general, drinking raw milk has health risks. In addition to what Guthmiller called "old timey" bacteria that used to be a problem back in the day, before processes like pasteurization cleaned up the food supply, unpasteurized or raw milk can expose people to serious illnesses like E. coli and listeria. While it may cause only temporary or milder illness in most people, people with weakened immune systems, older adults, those who are pregnant and very young children are especially at risk of serious health effects from drinking unpasteurized milk.

The risk is especially high in children, according to Schaeffer, who are vulnerable to severe illness. In serious cases, health effects from drinking raw milk that's been contaminated can lead to kidney failure.

Schaeffer also pushed back on claims that diseases that once were a big problem in countries like the US, like tuberculosis, are no longer an issue. That's true about tuberculosis, she said, but we also have effective treatment for it. That's not the case, she said, for some types of illness that children can get from unpasteurized milk.

"The diseases, if anything, are even stronger -- antibiotic resistant," Schaeffer said. She added that some bacteria that may be in raw milk may go undetected by farmers because they don't cause illness in cows but do in people.

While buying raw milk from a farm you know sets higher safety standards and practices "good hygiene" during milking can reduce the risk of contaminated raw milk, it won't eliminate it, according to the CDC.

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Evidence of Bird Flu Found in Pasteurized Milk. Here's What That Means - CNET

The Biden administration on Wednesday said that it would begin requiring dairy cows moving across state lines to be tested for bird flu, which has been spreading in herds for months. The new policy is part of a growing effort to stamp out the spread of a virus that federal health officials have sought to reassure Americans poses little risk to people so far.

The new order, issued by the Department of Agriculture, says that lactating cows must test negative for influenza A viruses, a class that includes bird flu, before they are transported. The owners of herds with positive tests will need to provide data on the movements of the cattle to help investigators trace the disease.

The testing will help protect the livestock industry, limit the spread of the virus and better understand this disease, Mike Watson, a senior Department of Agriculture official, told reporters in a press briefing Wednesday morning.

Since a highly contagious form of bird flu was detected in the United States in 2022, federal officials have sought to reassure Americans that the threat to the public remained low, even as the virus infected a growing number of mammals. Federal regulators on Tuesday announced that inactive viral fragments had been found in pasteurized milk, a suggestion that the virus was likely spreading much more widely among cattle than previously known.

Dr. Nirav Shah, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters on Wednesday that there were no changes in the genetic makeup of the virus that would allow it to spread easily among people. So far, Dr. Shah said, states have been monitoring 44 people who were exposed to the virus and are being monitored for infection.

As of Wednesday, the outbreak had spread to 33 herds in eight states, according to the U.S.D.A. But just one human infection has been reported, in a dairy worker in Texas who had direct contact with sick cows. The case was mild.

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Dairy Cows Transported Between States Must Now Be Tested for Bird Flu - The New York Times

A day after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)announced that H5N1 avian flu fragments have been found in retail milk samples, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) todayannounced that lactating dairy cows must be tested before interstate transport.

The movement of dairy cows, some of which aren't showing disease symptoms, from already affected states such as Texas has been a source of H5N1 spread to dairy herds in states such as Idaho and Michigan. Also, the identification of virus fragments in finished milk suggests that the virus may be more widespread in dairy cows than currently known.

At a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) media briefing today, Michael Watson, PhD, administrator of the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said the new testing orderwhich will increase information available to the USDAalso requires labs to report the H5N1 test findings to federal officials. Positive cows must be held for 30 days before they are moved.

Watson said he expects the testing will help shed light on the extent of virus circulation in asymptomatic cows and fill other information gaps.

For now, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, which has 50 labs, has enough capacity and materials for testing and can conduct tens of thousands of tests per day, he added, noting that testing takes about 1 to 3 days. Scientists are developing a field test that producers can use on farms.

We continue to ask for producer cooperation to ensure the confidence of Americans and to keep Americans safe.

Watson said so far there are no changes to the virus circulating in cows that would make it more transmissible to humans and that the risk to the public remains low.

Watson shared a few new details about the situation in cows, including that one sample from a cow in Kansas showed a genetic shift that suggests adaptation. And though cows sickened by H5N1 have shown little to no mortality, lung samples from a culled dairy cow yielded H5N1.

"We continue to ask for producer cooperation to ensure the confidence of Americans and to keep Americans safe," he said.

Donald Prater, DVM, acting director of the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), emphasized that despite test findings released yesterday, the nation's milk supply remains safe.

Though health officials feel confident that current pasteurization processes inactivate H5N1, based on what's known in the scientific literature about flu viruses and other pathogens, testing is under way to gauge the specific impacts of H5N1 in milk and other dairy products such as cream.

He also noted that heat inactivation processes for eggs, which involve lower temperatures than pasteurization, has been successful in preventing the spread of H5N1 from food to people.

Prater said the FDA is conducting tests on milk samples that yielded H5N1 fragments to assess if the products contain live virus, which would pose a larger threat. Those test methods take more time and involve egg inoculation and cell culture.

Federal health officials today noted that the virus remnants were found in tests by the FDA and in a smaller number of milk samples tested by scientists with the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (CEIRR) Network.

When pressed to share details on the geographic location of the positive milk samples, Prater said the FDA is conducting a nationwide survey and will release the results in the days ahead.

A senior official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told reporters that 44 people exposed to infected cattle have been tested, and so far, just one person has tested positive, the previously mentioned patient from Texas.

He added that the CDC's foodborne illness division hasn't detected any concerning activity linked to milk and that surveillance activity, including in areas near affected farms, has shown no unusual trends.

Regarding preparedness, Dawn O'Connell, JD, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, said states can request personal protective equipment (PPE) from the federal government to supplement their own stockpiles. She added that the federal government has millions of doses of antivirals in the Strategic National Stockpile. The CDC recently said its testing found that the virus is susceptible to currently approved neuraminidase inhibitors.

There's not currently a need to ramp up [vaccine production].

Two candidate virus vaccine strains against H5N1 developed earlier by the CDC appear to be well matched to the circulating strain, and she said hundreds of thousands of doses could be made in a matter of a week.

O'Connell said the HHS has issued a request for proposals from mRNA vaccine manufacturers in case a vaccine is needed. However, she said the risk from H5N1 to humans remains low. "There's not currently a need to ramp up."

Excerpt from:

US orders testing for certain dairy cows after H5N1 avian flu remnants found in retail milk - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

A highly pathogenic avian influenza has been spreading among cow herds over the country since February and has jumped species, infecting humans and chickens. Most recently, particles of the virus have been detected in pasteurized milk, but its not a cause for worry, according to the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and several experts in food safety and risks.

The presence of the virus, even in pasteurized milk, doesnt necessarily signify safety concerns to people, according to a statement by the FDA, due to the pasteurization process, which very likely inactivates infectious qualities of the virus, and the agencies work to divert and destroy milk from infected cows.

The FDA has been working closely with several other entities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state veterinary and public health officials, to investigate the virus, which now affects 33 cow herds in eight states, according to the Department of Agriculture. Several of the entities do not anticipate significant disruptions to the supply chain of milk, including factors like availability and price, but some states are still responding to the developing virus situation by imposing restrictions and requiring veterinary clearances on cows before they cross state lines.

In a statement, the FDA explained how pasteurization, a process that uses heat to kill harmful bacteria in milk and cheese, is very likely to kill the infectious qualities of the virus and is one of the biggest reasons that even milk with a virus present can be regarded as safe to consume. There continues to be no concern that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health, or that it affects the safety of the interstate commercial milk supply, the FDA wrote, because products are pasteurized before entering the market.

The FDA uses two different methods to test samples of milk, according to Donald Schaffner, a professor of food science at Rutgers University. To test for viral presence, the agency uses a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) test. It uses a process called egg inoculation to test if a virus is infectious.

In the PCR test, Schaffner told Fortune, the FDA is looking for the nucleic acid from the virus, but just because something contains viral nucleic acid doesnt mean that it contains infectious virus. To figure out if its infectious, he said, the FDA identified egg inoculation tests as the gold standard. The process involves taking a sample of milk that contains the virus and putting it into an egg. If the virus is infectious, it will grow in the egg, Schaffner said. According to the FDAs statement, these tests are currently underway and those results will be made available in the next few days to weeks, but still, the department added, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe.

While research on how pasteurization effects this particular avian virus is limited, largely because this disease has never been detected in cattle before, several federal agency staff and food science experts agree that pasteurization is very likely to neutralize any infectious quality of the virus since the process has been previously studied in chicken eggs. From those prior experiments, Schaffner confirmed, egg pasteurization gets rid of the virus in eggs, adding that dairy milk is subjected to a more severe pasteurization process than for eggs.

The FDA concurred, writing that inactivation of infectious qualities of the avian flu has been successful during the pasteurization process for eggs, which occurs at lower temperatures than what is used for fluid milk, and that the process has proven effective for decades against a wide range of pathogens.

As of today, strains of the virus have been detected in 33 herds of cows from eight states including Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas, according to the Agriculture Department.

In Texas, the virus has been widespread, affecting around 40% of cattle herds in the states panhandle in March. Since then, according to Sid Miller, the commissioner of Texass department of agriculture, about 10% of the states cows were at one point infected with the virus, and most recovered within a week. Disinfecting milking machines after each use, he said, has now helped his states farmers report zero cases of infections in the last four weeks.

Thats just cowboy logic, Miller said, but stated the extra cleaning has been instrumental in reducing the states case count of infected cows.

The cause of the virus in cows is not clear yet, according to several of the agencies. The virus situation is very much still emerging, Nicole Martin, an assistant research professor in dairy foods microbiology at Cornell University, told Fortune, adding that there are many unanswered questions dairy industry experts and infectious disease scientists are trying to answer. The symptoms of infected cows are analogous to a person with a cold or flu virus and cows often recover within a week or two, Martin said.

The avian virus is a much more common, and deadly, issue for poultry flocksand can be so dangerous that infected birds are often killed to prevent its spread. Between 2022 and 2023, almost 60 million chickens and turkeys were killed on American farms for prevention purposes, but theres no such recommendation to kill cattle since they experience much milder symptoms. The disease has also spread to other species in the past, including seals and sea lions, but infections in humans are exceedingly rare.

The most serious symptom in cows, Martin said, is decreased milk productionand, in rare cases, a permanent depletion of milk.

On an individual small farm, she explained, if 20% of cows have clinical signs of this disease, which would mean a temporary reduction in the amount of milk theyre making, that could make a big impact. However, she said, we dont anticipate a major supply-chain issue.

More concerning, she said, is the virus spreading between cows in transport across the country. Moving animals from one herd to another is somewhat commonplace across the industry, Martin said, and theres a lot of states now implementing restrictions of cautionary steps prior to the animals travels.

On Monday, New York State announced new temporary import requirements for dairy cattle coming in from other states. The requirements prohibit the entry of cows from areas with confirmed cases of the avian flu or areas under investigation in relation to the flu, and require cows from affected states to have a certificate of clearance of the avian flu, issued by a veterinarian within 10 days of its entry into the state.

The certificate, Martin said, has to include specific language that relates to this highly pathogenic avian influenza. In her view, the mild nature of the illness, in combination with these protocols, suggest it does not appear that there will be a major impact on the milk production overall across the country.

New York joins 21 other states that have implemented avian-flu-related restrictions, namely Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

The FDA asked farmers to monitor dairy cows for signs of illness to ensure that milk from sick cows does not enter into interstate commerce, and called for those who identify sick cows to work with state animal health officials to test milk samples.

Across the board, FDA officials and professors say there is little cause for concern over nationwide milk shortages, price hikes, or another widespread pandemic.

For a consumer, theres no reason to be concerned about consuming milk in the marketplace, Martin said. I continue to do so, and all of my colleagues continue to do so.

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Bird flu fragments are in pasteurized milk now, but government still considers it safe to drink - Fortune

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