Raw milk lovers not deterred by bird flu risk in dairy products

Government scientists are warning consumers to stay away from raw milk, citing studies showing “high” loads of avian influenza viruses in samples taken from infected cows and the carcasses of a group of barn cats that ate contaminated raw milk. Disturbing.

“We continue to strongly recommend against the consumption of raw milk,” said Donald Platt, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

But raw milk lovers are doubling down on the claimed benefits and safety of their favorite miracle cure, and say government warnings are nothing more than “alarmism”.

Mark McAfee, founder of Fresno Fresh Farms and the Raw Milk Institute, said his phone has been ringing off the hook with “customers asking for H5N1 milk because they want to be protected from the virus.” effects. (Avian influenza has not yet been detected in dairy cattle herds in California.)

Other raw milk drinkers, such as medical microbiologist Peg Coleman, who runs Coleman Scientific Consulting, a food safety consulting firm in Groton, N.Y., claim the government’s warnings are unrealistic. in accordance with.

Coleman is a consultant for the Raw Milk Institute and has provided expert testimony in courts across the country on the benefits of unpasteurized dairy products.

“It’s a fear factor. It’s an opinion factor. It’s based on evidence from the 19th century. It’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said, citing research showing that a healthy gut biome and breast milk can provide benefits to the immune system. benefit.

The process of heating milk to a specific temperature for a specific time and then allowing it to cool rapidly is named after French chemist and germ theory pioneer Louis Pasteur. Recently, the FDA reaffirmed the effectiveness of pasteurization in destroying highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and other viruses, as well as harmful pathogenic bacteria and other microorganisms.

However, Coleman says the risk is exaggerated.

“It’s all people’s opinions, their gut feelings and their ignorance,” she said. “I think if you did a study and tested the microbiome of raw milk drinkers, you would probably find a healthier gut microbiome that was better able to withstand occasional challenges.”

Health officials and food safety experts say the message is dangerous and reckless, especially as government investigators scramble to understand the extent of the outbreak in dairy herds and the potential harm.

“Intentionally consuming raw milk to gain immunity to avian influenza is like playing Russian roulette,” said Michael Payne, a researcher and outreach coordinator at the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at the University of California, Davis. “Deliberately exposing yourself to a known pathogen goes against all medical knowledge and common sense.”

He and other food safety experts say the safest way to consume dairy products is to consume only pasteurized dairy products.

“It’s been the gold standard for more than a century,” he said.

HPAI viruses have been found in 36 cattle herds in nine states and detected in samples of commercially sold pasteurized milk. Tests showed these viral fragments were inactive—neutralized by the pasteurization process.

On the other hand, live viruses have been detected in raw milk and colostrum (the nutrient-rich milk secreted by mammals in the first few days after giving birth), and one study examined dead barn cats from a dairy infected with avian influenza. Texas and Kansas say contaminated raw milk can be dangerous to other mammals, including humans.

However, researchers were unable to definitively prove that cats contracted the virus through raw milk. It’s possible they ate sick birds.

Coleman seizes on this point, stressing that it proves the government’s caution about drinking raw milk is specious.

“Let me see if it infects the cat through the gastrointestinal tract,” she said. “Otherwise, you’re just…crying wolf and trying to blame raw milk, or saying…that raw milk is inherently dangerous, even though the scientific evidence doesn’t support that.”

She noted that the cat’s symptoms are not gastrointestinal in nature. On the contrary, they suffer from lethargy, stiff body movements, loss of coordination, pus from their eyes and nose, and even blindness. More than half of the farm’s cats died. She said even if cats contracted the virus through milk, it would likely be the result of inhaling the milk droplets rather than consuming them.

“Have you ever seen a cat eat?” Coleman asked. “It’s a mess.” If they contracted the disease from milk, it was probably because they inhaled it.

Eric Burrough, an Iowa State University professor and veterinary diagnostic pathologist who led the cat study, acknowledged that there are things they can’t control and things “we don’t know”; the analysis is “diagnostic.”

But he and his team were able to show that the cats were eating contaminated raw milk that contained high concentrations of the virus, and that the pattern of infection and death was “not consistent with random exposure to wild birds,” he said.

As for Coleman and McPhee’s belief that stomach acid and a healthy gut biome will provide protection, he points to previous research showing that cats that eat wild birds do become infected with the virus, suggesting that these protective measures are not enough to protect mammals from Invasion of avian influenza.

“In the case of consumption of birds and milk, it is also possible that the virus may enter through the tonsils of the pharynx before ingestion into the cat,” he said.

Regardless, Payne said there are enough concerns to warrant a moratorium on eating unpasteurized dairy products.

Even Coleman acknowledges that toddlers and young children—who are known to have messy eating habits—may drink milk differently than adults. If her messy eating theories have an impact on cats, then “it’s something worth considering” for children, too.

So far, the virus does not appear to have evolved any genetic adaptations that would make it easier to spread from person to person.

So far, only one person — a dairy farm worker in Texas who became infected in March — has been reported to have contracted the disease from cattle. His symptoms were mild, with only moderate conjunctivitis or pink eye, according to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Local and state health departments have tested about 25 additional people for the virus and are monitoring more than 100 people for symptoms.

This particular avian influenza virus originated in China in 1996, but a clade (or subvariant known as 2.3.4.4b) found in dairy cows in the United States became the dominant virus in 2020. Hundreds of millions of poultry and wild birds, and has resulted in the death of hundreds of millions of poultry and wild birds. It has also spread to mammals, killing at least 48 different species, including seals, dolphins and sea lions.

Researchers now believe this branch of the H5N1 virus was jumped from birds to cattle at one site in the Texas Panhandle and then spread through cattle-to-cow transmission as cows moved between farms. spread. There is also evidence that infection has spread from cattle to poultry. Samples were also found in wastewater.

Since 2003, 887 cases of H5N1 human infection have been confirmed in 23 countries. It’s unclear whether more mild cases are going undetected, which could reduce the death rate by 52%.

However, epidemiologists say highly pathogenic avian influenza is dangerous and potentially fatal. They urge people to be cautious and avoid drinking raw milk given the global cross-species spread of the disease.