An avian flu outbreak in dairy herds has stoked tensions between the federal government and raw milk advocates. Milk testing could provide assurances and useful data, but some farmers oppose it.
iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/g-s1-460/1251647613" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">of dairy cattle in nine states, and to at least two people. Samples of unpasteurized milk have been found to contain the virus, according to
“ are aware of what a nonnegative test would do to their business,” said Brandon Dominguez, the Veterinary Services Section Head at the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic laboratory in College Station, Texas. “They asked that we do not run the test.
Raw milk advocates say the theoretical risks are exaggerated and are the latest chapter in their long, contentious battle with the federal government, which banned the interstate sale of raw milk in the 1980s. “The FDA will take any excuse to blast us any way they can,” says Marc McAfee, a raw milk dairy farmer in California and founder of theIt’s not hard to get raw milk in Texas.
Now, the bird flu outbreak in dairy cattle has prompted federal health officials to renew their warnings to the public not to drink raw milk.Still, the risk of contracting bird flu from raw milk is largely theoretical. “There's not a tremendous amount of studies showing the infectivity related to this virus and raw milk products,” FDA’s Prater said during the press briefing.
But testing raw milk for bird flu is not happening regularly, and farms have declined requests to have their raw milk tested, NPR and Farm cats that drank unpasteurized milk from infected cows became seriously ill – some cats went blind, experienced serious neurological effects and died after drinking it, according to a recent report in the journal.
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