Mom Confessions

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that samples of pasteurized milk had tested positive for remnants of the bird flu virus that has infected dairy cows.

The agency stressed that the material is inactivated and that the findings "do not represent actual virus that may be a risk to consumers." Officials added that they're continuing to study the issue.

"To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe," the FDA said in a statement.

The announcement comes nearly a month after an avian influenza virus that has sickened millions of wild and commercial birds in recent years was detected in dairy cows in at least eight states. The Agriculture Department says 33 herds have been affected to date.

WellPreserved wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 11:55 am May be a stupid question but why are dairy cattle but not beef cattle infected?

The virus might be transmitted from cow to cow in milk droplets on dairy workers’ clothing or gloves, or in the suction cups attached to the udders for milking, Lyons said. (In a 30 March interview with Science, Thijs Kuiken, a leading avian influenza researcher at Erasmus Medical Center, had suggested the milking machines might be responsible because the components may not always be disinfected between cows.)

The influenza virus causing the outbreak, an H5N1 subtype that is known as clade 2.3.4.4b, has devastated wild birds and poultry around the world for more than 2 years, and researchers at first thought migratory birds were responsible for spreading it to all of the affected dairy farms. But USDA scientists now think the movement of cattle, which are frequently transported from the southern parts of the country to the Midwest and north in the spring, may also have played an important role. And they floated the possibility, without naming specific herds or locations, that all affected cows may trace back to a single farm.