Bird flu in U.S.  Is it safe to drink cow's milk?

 A virus of chook flu keeps to spread amongst cows. The virus has now been positioned in almost 50 dairy herds in 9 states. 

Fitness officials say milk that is pasteurized to kill germs is secure to drink, however the food and Drug management has renewed its caution toward uncooked milk.

We maintain to strongly discourage the consumption of uncooked milk and advocate that the enterprise now not produce or sell raw milk or uncooked milk products.

Now, unpasteurized -- or uncooked -- milk continues to be offered in lots of states. 

And raw milk advocates say the federal government has constantly negative its intake, so why want to they pay interest now? To speak extra about this entire situation are NPR's Pien Huang and Chiara Eisner. Hi there to every of you.

Hiya. So Chiara, I need to begin with you due to the fact you went to Texas remaining week. And you have been here in this project to discover uncooked milk and take a look at it for this virus. What did you find?

I've found that shopping in Texas is quite clean. It's jail there and all I had to do changed into drive to these farms and purchase the milk right away from them. 

In a few instances, there was a store attendant that I paid money to. In different instances, no person was even there. 

I really opened the refrigerator door, took the milk, left the money in the field and went out. At any such farms in San Antonio, I met some other female shopping for milk. 

Her name was Cheryl Masraum. And she or he stated she's been ingesting uncooked milk for the past 15 to twenty years.

Due to the fact I anticipate raw milk is usually heaps higher satisfactory. In the meanwhile we're just form of monitoring the scenario..

That used to be in Texas, which become as soon as floor 0 for the cow bird flu outbreak. As a protracted way as scientists can inform, it genuinely is wherein bird flu jumped to cows very last December and began this entire epidemic.

The checks have been terrible, indicating that there has been no evidence of live H5N1 hen flu virus in the pasteurized milk. 

"This hooked up conclusively that extensive pasteurization inactivates the impact all through raw milk processing," the commercial enterprise agency concluded.

Wait, so humans can get hen flu from eating uncooked milk, Pien? What do we recognise approximately the risks?

Nicely, it's far all theoretical and the answer is feasible. But frankly, health specialists sincerely do not know. 

So Don Prater from the FDA, we heard him in the intro. It is very clear that the corporation does not propose ingesting raw milk, but it also says there are numerous open questions.

There aren't a large quantity of studies showing infectivity associated with this virus and raw dairy products.

To this point, the most effective individual who has in reality reduced in size bird flu used to be a dairy worker in Texas who had contact with ill cows. He was probable uncovered to sprays of inflamed milk and manure. 

In keeping with health government, no individual has yet reduced in size hen flu from consuming raw milk. So what they're basing their advice on is the fact that human beings are getting sick from various things in uncooked milk, like salmonella and E. Coli, and this is why they anticipate people have to now not drink it.

We've reached out to severa raw milk organizations and they say their clients are asking a whole lot of questions, however name for appears to be keeping consistent.

"Pasteurization equals protection," Michael Payne, a researcher on the Western Institute for food protection and security at the university of California, Davis. 

"The science and generation of pasteurization has been keeping people safe because the 1860s."

A 2020 observe found that each one viruses, besides parvovirus, are "touchy to warmness killing". 

There are essentially no virus risks in pasteurized milk, Payne says. "This moreover applies to dairy products made from pasteurized milk - butter, cream, and many others."


Is milk safe to drink?-UNP


"inside the past, i've campaigned aggressively in competition to the sale of commercial raw milk in stores at the grounds of public protection," Payne says. 

“folks that desperately be given as true with they've placed a silver bullet for fitness are undeterred and irritated at a technology that has finished extra for meals safety than another invention.

"unfortunately, I do not believe there is the political will to change the law on the industrial sale of an unpasteurized product."

The countrywide Federation of Milk manufacturers is actively campaigning for the repeal of uncooked milk guidelines and a ban on its sale. 

Alan Bjerga, the federation's vice president of enterprise family members, says the H51N outbreak is a reminder of the significance of pasteurization.

K, so we do not know how a whole lot of this virus is gift inside the modern uncooked milk supply. I guess my question now's how should we observe the risks here, Piene?


Can cows get the flu?-UNP


"Pasteurization proves all over again why it's miles the cornerstone of food safety. 

We in fact wish that the instantaneous the overall public is reminded of the fee of pasteurization, the unwell-recommended raw milk legislation is stopped and that the current reintroduction of unnecessary risks into our food device is reversed."

ultimately, in many states it's far as much as the purchaser to pick out uncooked or pasteurized. However Payne advises milk drinkers to play it secure.

Bird flu in U.S.  Is it safe to drink cow's milk?

"I might now not allow anyone I cared approximately devour raw milk, in particular [from] a herd wherein the virus was once circulating in farm animals," says Payne. 

"eating raw, unpasteurized milk has typically been a sport of Russian roulette. It's as authentic today because it changed into one hundred fifty years within the beyond. 

With hen flu circulating, we've just brought another bullet."