(5MinNewsBreak.com) – Triggering a nationwide alert, inactive traces of the bird flu virus have been found in pasteurized milk from eight states.
Still, both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have assured the public that these remnants pose no health threat since they are not live viruses.
“To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the FDA affirmed.
The agency highlighted that the pasteurization process effectively neutralizes potential pathogens and that milk from affected cows is either discarded or destroyed.
Lee-Ann Jaykus, a retired food microbiologist and virologist from North Carolina State University, supported the FDA’s reassurance. “There is no evidence to date that this is infectious virus and the FDA is following up on that,” she noted.
The FDA has not specified the origins of the positive samples in their ongoing nationwide testing.
The bird flu, specifically Type A H5N1, has been detected in dairy cows across Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and South Dakota.
While this virus has caused widespread deaths among wild birds and even sea lions in South America, its impact on dairy cows mostly involves reduced milk production and appetite.
Only two human cases of bird flu have been recorded in the U.S. so far.
One was a Texas dairy worker who contracted a mild eye infection but has since recovered. The other was a prison inmate in Colorado who experienced fatigue after being exposed to infected birds in a work program. He too recovered fully.
Federal health officials are continuously trying to verify the safety of the pasteurization process by testing milk from different stages of production, including from store shelves.
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