What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: Bird Flu and Raw Milk
On April 1 , the World Health Organization was informed of the first case of avian influenza (H5N1) transmission from a mammal to humans: a Texas cattleman contracted avian influenza from a cow infected with the disease. His symptoms were mild, such as conjunctivitis, but any “jumping” type of virus, especially in humans, is cause for concern.
Health authorities have begun routinely monitoring people who come into contact with cattle and poultry, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised anyone at risk to use protective equipment and report any illnesses. The virus has also been found in milk, but pasteurization kills it, and, of course, health authorities strongly advise against drinking unpasteurized milk. So guess what more and more people are doing.
Sales of unpasteurized “raw” milk have skyrocketed since the discovery of milk contaminated with avian flu, according to NielsenIQ, increasing 21% to 65% over last year’s sales. Here’s how Mark McAfee, owner of Raw Farm USA in Fresno, California, explained it to the Associated Press: “Everything the FDA tells our customers to do, they do the opposite.” It’s just great.
Some raw milk advocates claim that raw milk is perfectly safe, but some consume potentially contaminated milk because it can make them sick. No one has contracted the disease from drinking milk, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying: McAfee told the LA Times (dude walking around) that “his phone rings nonstop with “customers asking for H5N1 milk because they want immunity from the virus H5N1″. This.'”
Wait, people are trying to catch bird flu?
It’s hard to follow the logic here, but trying to get avian flu to avoid getting avian flu in the future suggests that they want to expose themselves to a milder form of the disease in order to develop immunity to it. Like a vaccine , except unregulated, untested and potentially harmful.
Matthew Motta, who studies health misinformation at Boston University, explained the phenomenon this way : “It’s not that people are stupid or ignorant or that they don’t know what science is… they’re motivated to reject it based on partisanship. , their political ideology, their religion, their cultural values.”
I don’t know, Matthew Motta, who studies health misinformation at Boston University, dismissing pasteurization based on party affiliation seems pretty stupid to me.
Let’s talk about pasteurization, shall we?
I like pasteurization because I never have to think about it. The milk is pasteurized by heating it to 161 F for 15 seconds. This kills the vast majority of bacteria, yeast, mold and viruses present. We’ve been pasteurizing milk since the late 19th century, and it works very well: In the 1920s, milk-borne pathogens accounted for about a quarter of illnesses in the United States. In 2024, almost no one has heard of them . Here’s a guy in a tie explaining it on TikTok.
However, some people believe that the benefits of raw milk outweigh the benefits of pasteurization and that it is actually safer than pasteurized milk. According to advocacy organization The Raw Milk Institute , raw milk is more nutritious and helps with lactose intolerance, asthma, eczema, allergies and more. The Raw Milk Institute’s evidence consists of “numerous first-hand accounts” rather than scientific research , as no reliable evidence exists to support any of the claims made by raw milk advocates. Here are people in T-shirts explaining it on TikTok.
Raw milk and the law
Whether you can legally sell raw milk varies from state to state. Here in freedom-loving California, it is completely legal to buy and sell raw milk. However, totalitarian socialists in Alabama outlawed its consumption by humans.
Over the past month, state governments in Iowa, Louisiana and Delaware have either passed or are attempting to pass laws legalizing the sale of raw milk for human consumption. Lawmakers cite potential benefits for dairy farmers and the concept of “food freedom,” allowing people to eat and drink whatever they want.
Well, why can’t people drink whatever milk they want?
I like freedom, and I usually encourage raw milk fans, people in the “health community”, doomsday people, anti-FDA activists, this guy , basically anyone I don’t approve of, to drink as much raw milk as they want. . Go crazy. Feed this to your children. Be infected with bovine tuberculosis . Improve your gut biome with a raw milk enema . Let’s see if I care.
But the recent emergence of bird flu in milk is changing that. Although there have been no documented cases of avian influenza contracted through drinking milk, and no cases of human-to-human transmission of the virus, both are possible, and each transmission of the virus to a new host (human, animal or otherwise) increases the likelihood that it mutates into something worse. Something more contagious, transmitted from person to person.
The positive side of bird flu transmission from cows
Given the hysteria over masks in the age of COVID, I don’t expect members of the raw milk community to weigh the competing values of freedom and responsibility and decide to inconvenience themselves even a little bit because it might help someone else not die. But it is encouraging that so many government agencies responded so quickly to the threat. Civil order did not collapse completely: the Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Office of Strategic Preparedness and Response (to name just the federal agencies) mobilized seemingly quickly, taking reasonable precautions such as such as testing cattle and the people who work with them, providing personal protective equipment and developing rules for transporting infected livestock. All of this makes it less likely that anyone will have to repeatedly explain why drinking contaminated milk is actually bad for people who respond, “I have rights .”