Cows graze at a dairy farm in La Grange, Texas, that sells uncooked milk to the general public.
Chiara Eisner/NPR
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Chiara Eisner/NPR
Uncooked milk is getting recent scrutiny, as chicken flu continues to contaminate dairy herds.
A extremely pathogenic pressure of flu, lethal to birds, has unfold to at the least 58 herds of dairy cattle in 9 states, and to at the least two folks. Samples of unpasteurized milk have been discovered to include the virus, in response to USDA exams.
However whereas federal authorities have suggested folks to not drink uncooked milk, it’s nonetheless on sale and simply accessible in lots of locations throughout the nation.
Even in Texas, the place the chicken flu in cows was first detected and the place it has been discovered in additional than a dozen herds, some farms promoting unpasteurized uncooked milk to the general public declined to have their provide examined, NPR discovered after reporters bought uncooked milk and submitted it for testing on Might 8.
The USDA-approved lab approved to check the milk for the H5N1 chicken flu virus known as the farms to hunt their permission to look at the milk, then additionally declined to check the milk for chicken flu when the farmers didn’t grant it.
“[The farms] are conscious of what a nonnegative take a look at would do to their enterprise,” mentioned Brandon Dominguez, the Veterinary Companies Part Head on the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic laboratory in School Station, Texas. “They requested that we don’t run the take a look at.”
After NPR reported that the USDA had confirmed the company doesn’t require labs to have permission from farms to check milk samples for chicken flu, Amy Swinford, the director of the Texas A&M lab, added that another excuse the lab couldn’t carry out the take a look at is that reporters didn’t present the premise identification numbers for every of the farms. These numbers usually are not publicly out there; reporters did embrace the license numbers of every of the farms once they submitted samples for testing.
The lab and the farms’ refusal to check samples of uncooked milk comes as scientists have criticized the federal authorities for being sluggish to gather and report details about the virus. There was no widespread testing of dairy employees to know what number of could also be contaminated, no mandate that dairy farms take a look at their herds in the event that they aren’t transferring cattle between states, and no clear testing information to help federal authorities’ warnings of a possible risk of chicken flu in uncooked milk that individuals drink.
Advocates and critics of unpasteurized milk sq. off
Within the void of proof, either side of the uncooked milk debate are shoring up their conventional views.
Public well being officers and lecturers say the dangers are at present heightened, and that precautions ought to be taken till there’s a clearer understanding of the scope of chicken flu in dairy cows, and the way it’s spreading between animals and people.
“Pasteurization is efficient at inactivating the virus,” mentioned Don Prater, head of the FDA’s Middle for Meals Security and Utilized Diet, in a press name on Might 1. “[We] strongly advise in opposition to the consumption of uncooked milk – milk that has not been pasteurized – and suggest that the trade doesn’t manufacture or promote uncooked milk or uncooked milk merchandise made with milk from cows displaying signs of sickness, any sickness, together with these contaminated with avian influenza virus,” Prater mentioned.
Uncooked milk advocates say the theoretical dangers are exaggerated and are the newest chapter of their lengthy, contentious battle with the federal authorities, which banned the interstate sale of uncooked milk within the Nineteen Eighties. “The FDA will take any excuse to blast us any approach they’ll,” says Marc McAfee, a uncooked milk dairy farmer in California and founding father of the Uncooked Milk Institute, an advocacy group.
Uncooked milk on the market, however not beneficial
It’s not onerous to get uncooked milk in Texas. You possibly can decide it up at a health heart in Austin, or drive on to the farmhouse stoops of dozens of uncooked milk dairies sprinkled all through the state. There, if you happen to drop some cash in a lockbox, you may depart with a chilly gallon of milk, straight from the cow, that’s by no means been heated to a temperature that may kill the micro organism and microorganisms that is perhaps dwelling in it.
Cheryl Masraum was unconcerned about chicken flu as she purchased uncooked milk from Stryk Jersey Farm in Schulenburg, Texas, between Houston and San Antonio.
“We have been maintaining on that, nevertheless it did not appear to be a risk right here,” mentioned Masraum, noting that the outbreaks in cows have been reported in northwest Texas, close to the New Mexico border. “I feel the uncooked milk is usually a significantly better high quality, and it simply tastes higher.”
Samples of uncooked milk from totally different Texas dairy farms that NPR collected for testing.
Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media
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Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media
Masraum is a part of the small however passionate group of uncooked milk customers in America. Roughly 1.6% of U.S. adults regularly drink milk that’s by no means been pasteurized to kill germs, in response to a survey from the Meals and Drug Administration.
Now, the chicken flu outbreak in dairy cattle has prompted federal well being officers to resume their warnings to the general public to not drink uncooked milk.
Public well being officers say they’ve lengthy beneficial in opposition to ingesting uncooked milk, as a result of it may well harbor disease-causing micro organism. Pasteurization, the temporary heating of milk, can kill or inactivate microbes..
Nonetheless, the danger of contracting chicken flu from uncooked milk is essentially theoretical. “There’s not an amazing quantity of research displaying the infectivity associated to this virus and uncooked milk merchandise,” FDA’s Prater mentioned throughout the press briefing.
How a lot chicken flu virus is in milk?
The FDA discovered chicken flu virus fragments in 20% of pasteurized, grocery retailer samples the company collected and examined, in response to a latest survey. These virus fragments weren’t able to inflicting an infection, in response to FDA exams.
In keeping with the federal authorities, the virus seems to be spreading between herds by the motion of contaminated cows. Within the present working principle, H5N1 jumped from birds to dairy cows in Texas in the direction of the tail finish of 2023. Then, “the transportation of cattle from Texas to a lot of different states principally created issues in these states,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack instructed reporters Might 10. Vilsack mentioned that the USDA’s present technique – of requiring cows to check destructive earlier than they transfer throughout state strains – is aimed toward “making an attempt to include the unfold and ultimately permitting for particular herds to have the virus peter out.”
Uncooked milk advocates say their farms are small, and their herds are comparatively remoted. Uncooked milk can solely be legally bought within the state it’s produced in. “There’s been no publicity of our cows with cows which are optimistic from different states. We don’t purchase cows from different states. So why would [our cows] be optimistic?” McAfee, in California, says. No cows or milk samples from California have examined optimistic.
Virus researchers counter that there’s not sufficient ongoing surveillance to determine the bounds of the outbreak. “I do not know that now we have the knowledge as a result of we’ve not been systematically testing,” saysDr. Helen Chu, an infectious ailments specialist at College of Washington in Seattle. “It is a virus that mutates in a short time, that goes from people to birds to pigs to cows – to all of those totally different species.” Provided that avian influenza is carried by wild waterfowl and migratory birds “who’re flying in every single place and defecating into the feed of farms all over the place… I do not know that we have been trying [enough] to know for positive that that is the one occasion,” Chu says.
One technique to decide if there’s H5N1 virus in uncooked milk, supposed for people to drink, is to check for it. Chu’s colleague Lea Starita, who leads a genomic testing lab on the College of Washington, has examined dozens of milk samples, uncooked and pasteurized, bought from native farmer’s markets and grocery shops. She has discovered possible viral fragments in about 5% of the samples, although the uncooked milk samples have examined destructive.
However testing uncooked milk for chicken flu is just not occurring recurrently, and farms have declined requests to have their uncooked milk examined, NPR and others have discovered.
“They’re frankly afraid of what is going on to occur to their farms, their households. It is not simply strictly a public well being subject. It is a problem of economics and admittedly, survival,” mentioned Swinford, the director of the Texas A&M lab that declined to check the milk NPR submitted for evaluation.
On Might 21, an worker of the Texas A&M lab confirmed that the lab may ship the samples to a different laboratory for NPR, and that delivery was a service the lab offered to purchasers. However on Might 22, Swinford known as a reporter to say that she wouldn’t enable that for the uncooked milk that NPR bought and submitted for testing of chicken flu.
“I’m not going to facilitate that…as a result of these dairies instructed us to not take a look at them,” Swinford mentioned.
May consuming avian influenza in uncooked milk infect folks?
The federal authorities’s warnings in opposition to uncooked milk consumption are based mostly on identified risks. Uncooked milk has been implicated in meals poisoning of greater than 2,500 folks meals poisoning over the previous 20 years, with micro organism resembling Campylobacter and Cryptosporidium. However whether or not unpasteurized milk can provide folks chicken flu is unclear.
Farm cats that drank unpasteurized milk from contaminated cows grew to become critically ailing – some cats went blind, skilled severe neurological results and died after ingesting it, in response to a latest report within the journal Rising Infectious Illnesses. And mice that have been fed samples of contaminated, unpasteurized milk from cows in New Mexico obtained sick in a short time and had excessive virus hundreds of their respiratory tracts, in response to a Might 24 report within the New England Journal of Medication, co-authored by Swinford at Texas A&M.
To this point, there are not any confirmed instances of people getting chicken flu from ingesting uncooked milk. Two dairy employees – one in Texas and one in Michigan – obtained sick with avian influenza after working intently with contaminated cows. In each instances, the employees developed eye infections and have since recovered.
On Might 1, the CDC mentioned well being authorities had monitored over 100 uncovered employees with out discovering any chicken flu infections. However a veterinarian in Texas instructed the publication Bovine Veterinarian of sick farm employees that haven’t been examined.
So far as customers go, McAfee and different uncooked milk advocates see the shortage of instances to be reassuring. If no person has caught chicken flu from ingesting uncooked milk but, it might not occur in any respect.
However public well being officers keep that chicken flu in dairy cattle stays a brand new, evolving state of affairs. “There are a whole lot of unanswered questions, and far more to be taught,” says Lori Freeman, head of the Nationwide Affiliation of County and Metropolis Well being Officers. “Till we be taught extra about this specific pathogen spreading amongst animals and to folks, we ought to be taking an abundance of precaution.”
Uncooked milk farmers say they’re following the developments intently, and dealing to make sure that their cows are wholesome and their milk is secure. And that these arguments are unlikely to sway lots of their dedicated prospects. “Folks that comply with us – if FDA says it is unhealthy, they will run [towards] it,” McAfee says, “In my view, right here in California with our uncooked milk, it is a lot ado about zero.”
