Fragments of bird flu virus detected in cow’s milk sold in grocery stores – PBS NewsHour

Geoff Bennett:

The U.S. FDA says that samples of milk taken from grocery stores across the U.S. have tested positive for remnants of the bird flu virus that has infected dairy cows.

But the agency says it's confident the milk you are buying is safe. Officials also say the finding suggests the virus is spreading more prevalently among dairy herds than previously thought.

To help slow that spread, the USDA announced today that dairy cattle must now be tested for the virus before moving to a new state.

We're joined now by Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, a director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University.

Thank you for being with us.

So let's start with the latest update, particles of this virus found in commercial pasteurized milk. How concerned should the everyday consumer be?

Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, Brown University School of Public Health: I don't have any reason to be concerned at this point.

Finding evidence of genetic material, which is what the test results told us, by itself is not alarming. In order to know if the virus will infect us, we have to do a different kind of test. And this test was not that. They're actually undergoing those tests now.

But I don't have any reason to think that we will be harmed, because we use pasteurization. And I have no reason to think that the H5N1 virus is any different from all the other pathogens that we think could be in milk. Pasteurization doesn't remove the genetic material of those pathogens, but it changes the pathogens and either kills or it activates them, so that they can't infect us.

And I fully expect that that's what the test results will say, and just more reason to choose pasteurized milk over raw milk.

Original post:

Fragments of bird flu virus detected in cow's milk sold in grocery stores - PBS NewsHour