TITLE: USDA to test ground beef in US states with outbreaks of bird flu in dairy cows
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/usda-test-ground-beef-us-states-with-outbreaks-bird-flu-dairy-cows-2024-04-29/
EXCERPT: The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Monday it is collecting samples of ground beef in states with outbreaks of bird flu in dairy cows for testing but remains confident the meat supply is safe.
The USDA will analyze the ground beef to determine "whether any viral particles are present," according to a statement.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday that tests of milk showed pasteurization killed the bird flu virus, as Colorado became the ninth U.S. state to report an infected dairy herd.
There are no known cases of bird flu in beef cattle so far.
The USDA is collecting muscle samples at slaughter facilities of dairy cattle that have been condemned to determine the presence of viral particles. It will also use "a virus surrogate" in ground beef and cook it at different temperatures to determine how the virus is affected, the statement said.
TITLE: There’s never a good time to drink raw milk. But now’s a really bad time as bird flu infects cows
https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/29/bird-flu-raw-milk-h5n1-risk-us-cattle/
EXCERPT: Thijs Kuiken, a pathologist in the department of viroscience at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said his concern about the risk that infected raw milk poses is not so much that the practice might somehow help the virus to mutate in ways that would allow it to spread easily to and among people — in other words, trigger a pandemic. But he believes it would likely seriously sicken people who drink raw milk from an H5N1-infected cow. Reports of the amount of virus present in infected udders is higher than anything he’s seen in studies where he’s experimentally infected animals with H5N1 to chart the illness the virus wreaked, Kuiken said.
Jürgen Richt, a veterinarian and director of the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases at Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, spoke with a note of disbelief in his voice about the amount of dead viruses or viral particles being found in commercial milk that tested positive for the virus.
“From [results] I have seen, I wouldn’t want to drink raw milk,” Richt said. “And I wouldn’t feed it to my cats, nor my dogs, nor my calves, if I’m on a farm.”
The FDA is urging consumers not to drink raw milk or eat raw milk cheeses. That is a position the agency has long held, because of the other health risks these products hold, but it has re-emphasized it in the current context.
It has also recommended the dairy industry not “manufacture or sell raw milk or raw milk products, including raw milk cheese, made with milk from cows showing symptoms of illness, including those infected with avian influenza viruses or exposed to those infected with avian influenza viruses.”
Kuiken said he is less concerned about raw milk cheeses, saying the various processes involved in cheesemaking are “not conducive to survival of infectious virus.” He did suggest, though, that raw milk cheesemakers could be at risk, if they were inadvertently using milk laced with H5N1 virus.
Whether herds owned by farmers who sell raw milk have been infected by the virus isn’t publicly known. While authorities and scientists believe outbreaks are occurring over a much broader swathe of the country than has been detected, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has only confirmed infections of 33 herds in nine states — Texas, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Idaho, Ohio, South Dakota, North Carolina, and Colorado. It has not given any details about the operations on which infected animals were found.
But the USDA has admitted some farmers have been refusing to test their animals. And analysis of the genetic sequences of viruses retrieved from cows combined with evidence of H5N1 RNA in commercial milk found in a number of U.S. markets — the FDA said Thursday that about 1 in 5 samples tested for H5N1 from across the country have been positive — bolster the argument that this has been going on for longer than has been recognized and likely involves far more herds than have tested positive.
TITLE: We need a rethink of Big Poultry to stop avian flu
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/04/29/opinion/beyond-biosecurity-alternative-solutions-bird-flu
EXCERPT: Poultry companies point fingers at migrating ducks and geese, which carry avian flu viruses and can shed microbes as they fly overhead. It's true that wild birds have long carried flu viruses — but mostly in innocuous strains. However, the lethal version of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has arisen primarily among farmed birds. It's documented in scientific journals that are often overlooked because they're dense or paywalled.
One study by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization scientist Madhur Dhingra and her colleagues identified all reported cases over 55 years in which bird flu viruses mutated from low-pathogenic to high-pathogenic, showing that more than 94 per cent were in commercial poultry, mostly in high-income countries. Bird flu experts, like Ron Fouchier, say it has increased with intensive poultry production. Researchers say avian flu is one of the livestock diseases resulting from the exploding worldwide production and trade of farmed animals. The UN's Scientific Task Force on Avian Influenza and Wild Birds says: “Wild birds are both victims and vectors of a virus originating from within a poultry setting.”
Paying out poultry companies is one response by the Canadian government to HPAI. When Canadian farmers detect infections, they must report them, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) orders “de-populations” of flocks. Farmers get federal compensation for the market value of the poultry, plus slaughter expenses. The federal payouts have amounted to $202 million across Canada in the past few years, I was told by the CFIA's media office. However, poultry companies that got money were not required to strengthen biosecurity against potential pathogens. The CFIA works with industry and provinces on biosecurity and disease response, the spokesperson said, “but the payment of compensation is not linked to specific biosecurity measures.”
Maybe a lack of rigorous requirements is one reason some poultry regions have had multiple disease culls — and the multiple compensations that go along with that. CFIA’s website shows regions that have been through this wringer repeatedly. Critics have said taxpayers' money is funding bird slaughters that are inhumane. I'll add that we're egging on a method of food production that scientists say fuels HPAI.
Of 11 million birds slaughtered in Canada in the past few years for avian-flu infections, a full six million — more than half — were in B.C., even though the province produces only 14 per cent of Canadian chicken and 12 per cent of the eggs. Most domestic poultry products come from Ontario and Quebec. Amanda Brittain of the B.C. Poultry Emergency Operations Centre said Metro Vancouver's Fraser Valley is on migratory flyways, and mild winters draw wild birds to over-winter there. As well, she said, mountainous geography means poultry farms are concentrated in close proximity. While barns on the Prairies might be 10 kilometres apart, she said, “here in the Fraser Valley, within 10 kilometres, we could have 25 farms.”
Density is key — the density of barns and the density of animals inside. Almost all poultry today is raised in factory farms — 75 per cent globally, 99 per cent in the U.S., and most in Canada. It reflects the 800 per cent increase in global poultry meat production in 50 years, and the tens of billions (yes, billions) of farmed birds on the planet at any one time. Chicken is such a go-to meal that poultry now outweighs wild birds by more than 2 to 1. Packed into barns such as those in B.C. that hold 50,000 chickens, the animals are already less resilient than normal. Bred for maximum meat and egg production, they’re less genetically diverse. And though viruses are on the prowl from wild bird habitats nearby, those chickens are not social-distancing!
SEE ALSO:
USDA Links Bird Flu To Cats
https://easttexasradio.com/usda-links-bird-flu-to-cats/
Florida dolphin dies of 'mutated' bird flu that is 18 TIMES more resistant to drug treatment
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13362489/Dolphin-Florida-common-bottlenose-die-bird-flu.html
Walrus dies from bird flu on Arctic island: researcher
https://www.elpasoinc.com/news/national/walrus-dies-from-bird-flu-on-arctic-island-researcher/article_c0681dcd-fa5c-5bc2-8e25-38ab0bba153d.html