For weeks, the dairy industry has been gripped by a highly contagious virus that is threatening to only get worse. Federal regulators announced this week that samples of pasteurized milk tested positive for H5N1, the strain of bird flu that has jumped from poultry to cows with one recent infection in an American.
At the moment, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that the country’s milk supply is safe thanks to the pasteurization process, which works by heating milk to kill bacteria and viruses, and “the diversion or destruction of milk from sick cows.”
However, infectious disease experts warn this these positive tests are a sign that the outbreak is much bigger than previously thought, and indicate that the government doesn’t have a good grasp on the situation. And the problem only seems to be worsening. According to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), H5N1 has been identified in 33 herds in eight states. On Thursday, a senior FDA official said 1 in 5 milk samples have tested positive for H5N1.
paul_neri 0 points 2 weeks ago
Apparently it will be much worse than the Covid.