Despite H5N1 bird flu outbreaks in dairy cattle, raw milk enthusiasts are uncowed

Government scientists are warning customers to avoid raw milk, citing analysis displaying “high viral load” of avian influenza in samples collected from contaminated cows — in addition to a disturbing cluster of lifeless barn cats who’d consumed contaminated raw milk.

“We continue to strongly advise against the consumption of raw milk,” mentioned Donald Prater, performing director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition on the Food and Drug Administration.

But raw milk enthusiasts are doubling down on the claimed advantages and security of their favourite elixir, and say the federal government warnings are nothing greater than “fearmongering.”

Mark McAfee, founding father of Fresno’s Raw Farm and the Raw Milk Institute, mentioned his cellphone has been ringing off the hook with “customers asking for H5N1 milk because they want immunity from it.” (Bird flu has not been detected in California’s dairy herds.)

Other raw milk drinkers, comparable to Peg Coleman, a medical microbiologist who runs Coleman Scientific Consulting, a Groton, N.Y.-based meals security consulting firm, claimed the federal government’s warnings haven’t any foundation in actuality.

Coleman, who’s an advisor to the Raw Milk Institute, has supplied professional testimony on the advantages of the unpasteurized dairy product in courtrooms throughout the nation.

“It’s a fear factor. It’s an opinion factor. It’s based on 19th century evidence. It’s absolutely ridiculous,” she mentioned, citing analysis that reveals wholesome intestine biomes and breast milk present immune system advantages.

The strategy of heating milk to a selected temperature for a selected time period after which permitting it to quickly chill is called for the French chemist and germ principle pioneer Louis Pasteur. Recently, the FDA reaffirmed the effectiveness of pasteurization in destroying Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) and different viruses, in addition to dangerous pathogenic micro organism and different microorganisms.

Coleman, nevertheless, says the chance of sickness are overblown.

“This is all people’s opinions, their gut feelings, their ignorance,” she mentioned. “I think that if there were a study done, and the microbiota of raw milk drinkers was tested, you might very well find a healthier gut microbiota that’s better able to withstand occasional challenges.”

It’s a message that well being officers and meals security consultants say is harmful and foolhardy, particularly at a time when authorities investigators are scrambling to understand the extent of dairy herd outbreaks, and the potential for hurt.

“Deliberating consuming raw milk in the hope of becoming immune to avian influenza is playing Russian roulette with your health,” mentioned Michael Payne, a researcher and outreach coordinator on the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at UC Davis. “Deliberately trying to infect yourself with a known pathogen flies in the face of all medical knowledge and common sense.”

He and different meals security consultants say the most secure solution to devour dairy is to ingest solely pasteurized milk merchandise.

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

The extremely pathogenic avian influenza virus has been discovered in 36 herds in 9 states, and detected in samples of commercially offered, pasteurized milk. Testing has proven these viral fragments to be inactive — neutralized by the pasteurization course of.

The stay virus, then again, has been detected in raw cow’s milk and colostrum — the nutrient wealthy milk expressed by mammals in the primary days after giving start — and a research that examined lifeless barn cats at bird-flu-infected dairies in Texas and Kansas suggests contaminated raw milk may very well be harmful for different mammals, together with people.

However, the researchers have been unable to definitively present the cats acquired the virus by way of raw milk; it’s attainable they consumed diseased birds.

It’s a degree that Coleman has seized on — highlighting it as proof that the federal government’s warning relating to consuming raw milk is specious.

“Show me that it infected the cats through the GI tract,” she mentioned. “Otherwise, you are just … crying wolf trying to blame raw milk or saying … that raw milk is inherently dangerous, even when the scientific evidence does not support that opinion.”

She famous that the cats’ signs weren’t gastrointestinal in nature. Instead, they developed depressed psychological states, their our bodies confirmed stiff actions, they misplaced coordination, produced discharge from their eyes and noses, and suffered blindness. More than half of the farms’ cats died. She mentioned even when the cats had contracted the virus by way of the milk, it was doubtless a results of respiration in milk droplets fairly than from consuming it.

“Have you ever seen a cat eat?” requested Coleman. “It’s messy. If they got the disease from the milk, it’s probably because they breathed it in.”

Eric Burrough, a professor and veterinary diagnostic pathologist at Iowa State University who led the cat study, acknowledged that there have been issues they have been unable to regulate for and different issues “we do not know”; the evaluation was “diagnostic.”

But he and his crew have been capable of present that the cats ate up contaminated raw milk with excessive concentrations of the virus and that the sample of an infection and demise “does not align with random exposure to wild birds,” he mentioned.

As for Coleman and McAfee’s perception that abdomen acid and a wholesome intestine biome would supply safety, he famous earlier research that confirmed cats consuming wild birds did get the virus, suggesting these safeguards are not ample to guard mammals in opposition to bird flu.

He mentioned “there is also the possibility that virus could enter via the tonsils in the pharynx of the cats prior to ingestion in both the bird consumption and milk consumption scenarios.”

In any case, mentioned Payne, there’s sufficient concern on the market proper now that ought to give individuals pause about consuming dairy merchandise that haven’t been pasteurized.

Even Coleman acknowledged that toddlers and younger youngsters — who’ve been recognized to be messy eaters — may devour milk otherwise than adults. And if her messy consuming principle has weight with the cats, “it’s something to think about” with youngsters.

So far, the virus doesn’t appear to have developed any genetic diversifications that might make it extra amenable to go between individuals.

Only one individual — a Texas dairy employee contaminated in March — has to this point been reported to have acquired the illness from cattle. His signs have been gentle — only a reasonable case of conjunctivitis, or pink eye, in response to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Local and state well being departments have examined about 25 different individuals for the virus and monitored greater than 100 for signs.

This particular bird flu virus originated in China in 1996, however the clade — or subvariant, often known as 2.3.4.4b — discovered in U.S. dairy cattle grew to become dominant in 2020. It has since killed tons of of hundreds of thousands of home and wild birds — and has been detected on each continent besides Australia. It has additionally jumped to mammals, and is answerable for killing no less than 48 totally different species, together with elephant seals, dolphins and sea lions.

Researchers now consider this clade of H5N1 virus was launched by birds to cattle at one web site in the Texas Panhandle, after which unfold by cattle-to-cattle transmission as cows have been moved between totally different farms. Evidence additionally reveals that infections have unfold from cattle to home poultry. And samples have been discovered in wastewater.

There have been 887 confirmed instances of H5N1 human an infection throughout 23 international locations since 2003. Of these, 462 have been deadly. It is unclear if there have been extra gentle instances that went undetected, one thing that might doubtlessly cut back the 52% fatality price.

However, epidemiologists say HPAI is harmful — and doubtlessly deadly. Considering the worldwide, cross-species unfold of sickness, they are urging individuals to be cautious and keep away from raw milk.