Raw milk sales are not legal in Canada, but all milk starts raw, so they’ve been testing milk for Bird Flu before pasteurization. This is part of the greater effort to monitor the spread of this array of potentially harmful bugs, which is now affecting cows and humans to a small but growing effect.
Bird flu in cows and humans
Avian Influenza, or Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), has found its way into cows. The “highly pathogenic” only applies to birds, symptoms in cows tend to be mild and last for about a week. Cows must be quarantined until their tests come up negative, culling the animal for this reason alone is a dumb ham-fisted solution.
Factory farms are the key driver of bird flu in agriculture, not raw milk. There’s no evidence humans can contract Bird Flu from raw milk. Human cases of Bird Flu have come from farm workers tasked with slaughtering animals. Effects appear to be conjunctivitis (pink eye) and heal up quickly. No cases of human-to-human transmission have been reported. Cats appear to contract the disease from milk, with sometimes fatal effects, though the biggest outbreaks in cats have not been caused by milk.
Raw milk is an easy scapegoat because raw milk production is distributed and not centralized. Going after big agricultural interests is risky, going after independent farmers is less risky, so it’s an easy to choice for journalists and influencers to assist big industry in punching down. This is all fun and games until the population starts voting for hollow populist promises, offered up by the same industry leaders who made their lives difficult to begin with, and now we’re at an impasse where public health may cease to exist altogether.
The valid concern of public health is that Bird Flu might mutate into something that causes more harm, and spreads among humans as rapidly as it spreads among birds, but this is only hypothetical at the moment.
Canadian bird flu testing brings good news
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency posted on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CFIACanada/posts/1053288983491498
Our research continues to protect Canada’s dairy cattle.
As of January 31, we tested 1,944 raw (unpasteurized) milk samples from processing plants across Canada for highly pathogenic avian influenza. Each one has returned a negative result.
From the official Canadian Inspections website:
This is another proactive surveillance measure to monitor Canadian dairy cattle for HPAI and helps ensure that HPAI is caught early if introduced in the national herd.
Results of the Canada-wide testing of raw (unpasteurized) milk samples collected at processing plants are listed below.
Area Samples tested HPAI detections Atlantic provinces 155 All negative Ontario 508 All negative Quebec 672 All negative Western provinces 609 All negative
Read more in the official article: Milk sampling and testing for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Canada (archive)
