The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the detection of genetic material from the bird flu virus in pasteurized milk. This discovery has raised concerns, but the FDA assures the public that the milk supply remains safe for consumption.
The FDA’s testing identified genetic material from the bird flu virus in milk. However, experts suggest that these are inactive virus particles that were killed during pasteurization, not infectious virus. The agency is conducting additional tests to verify this assumption.
“To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the FDA stated. As milk undergoes pasteurization, which involves heating to eliminate viruses and bacteria, the avian flu virus is expected to be killed. However, residual genetic material may remain, posing minimal risk to consumers.
The FDA is currently conducting further tests, including injecting chicken eggs with viral samples to determine if they replicate, considered the “gold standard” for detecting active virus. “Pasteurization kills much sturdier viruses than influenza, so we expect it to work,” said a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins University.
The FDA expressed concern over the increasing prevalence of the virus in dairy herds, indicating a more widespread infection. In response, the Biden administration has implemented a requirement for dairy cows to be tested before interstate transportation.
As of this week, avian flu infections have been detected in 33 dairy herds across eight states: Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota, Kansas, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina.
In 2022, over 9,000 wild birds in the U.S. tested positive for avian flu, affecting more than 48 states. Globally, over 200 million birds died due to infection or culling to prevent the spread of the virus.
While reports of mammals contracting avian flu raise concerns about potential transmission to humans, analyses have not yet identified changes that would make the virus more infectious to humans. Only a few cases of human infection have been reported, all involving direct exposure to sick cattle.
The general public’s risk remains low, according to the CDC. Nearly all commercial milk in the U.S. follows the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, ensuring dairy product safety. The FDA emphasizes that dairy producers are diverting and destroying milk from sick cows to maintain the safety of the milk supply.
Despite these measures, scientists have criticized the USDA for allegedly withholding information about the spread of bird flu into cattle and sharing it too slowly.
