Bird Flu in Milk: Pasteurization Strong Enough To Kill Virus, FDA Says

Last Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed that a pasteurization method widely used in the dairy industry is effective in killing bird flu.

Moreover, new results also show that pasteurized milk in grocery outlets remains safe for consumption.

Pasteurization Can Kill Bird Flu in Milk

The latest announcement from the FDA comes after a federal lab study that questioned the pasteurization approach.

Moreover, the new results regarding the safety of pasteurized milk also come amidst a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPA1 H5N1) outbreak among dairy farms in at least eight states.

According to Dr. Don Prater, the acting director of the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, there is significant anecdotal evidence. However, they wanted to garner clear evidence regarding bovine milk and HPAI.

Hence, they started working on a custom instrument that works on a pilot-scale replication of commercial processing.

This comes weeks after researchers from the National Institutes of Health discovered that some bird flu virus infections still survived the pasteurization process across some lab tests.

These researchers, as well as the FDA, examined a novel approach known as flash pasteurization, which involves processing milk at high temperatures for a short period. It involves milk heating at 161 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 15 seconds.

Unlike the study with the NIH, the other study took longer to finish. It was more accurately designed to simulate steps to process milk in the commercial dairy industry.

The FDA's tests revealed that pasteurization killed the virus even before it reached the final stages, where milk was held at the right temperatures.

ALSO READ: Bird Flu Infects, Kills Cats That Drank Milk From H5N1-Stricken Cows, Raising Concerns as Virus Might Be Evolving

Raw Milk Not Safe

Dr. Prater also explains that raw milk could be a potential exposure route.

For a long time, the FDA has advised against drinking raw milk due to possible contamination. This month, it has urged states to be more thorough in warning the public about raw milk dangers and testing herds that produce it for sale.

The agency also advised that states use regulatory authorities to stop sales of raw milk in the state or in areas where herds were found to test positive for bird flu.

According to an FDA survey, around 1.6% of US adults drink milk that has never undergone pasteurization to kill present germs.

Moreover, over the past two decades, raw milk has been implicated in over 2,500 individuals' food poisoning. However, whether unpasteurized milk could infect individuals with bird flu remains unclear.

At present, no cases of raw-milk-to-human transmission have been confirmed. However, two dairy workers got sick with the bird flu virus after closely working with infected cows. They both exhibited eye infections in these two cases and have recovered since then.