Update 8/8/2024: The Farm To Consumer Legal Defense Fund is following this situation more closely. Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Texas have started voluntary testing. Find their updates at farmtoconsumer.org
Bird flu rundown
The FDA wrote, on June 12, that state and local departments should restrict the sale of raw milk from herds who test positive for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI or bird flu). There have been no bird flu related suspensions to date. Suspensions would be conducted by state-level departments, not federal, if they occur at all.
Since issuing this advisory, The FDA has mostly focused on determining if pasteurization effectively eliminates HPAI in milk as the most widespread method in the US (15 seconds at 72ºC or 161.6ºF) showed ineffective in some studies. The FDA maintains that it is not known if humans can contract HPAI from raw milk, nor is it known how likely this is to happen or how bad the effects could be.
HPAI is the subject of controversial gain-of-function research. Its presence in mammals, including humans, may rapidly increase if they fail to keep their experiments contained. No leak has been reported, but HPAI’s jump from birds to cows is interesting.
While there is skepticism towards testing and surveillance, no doubt justified by anti raw milk bias and attempts to politicize the issue, I wouldn’t totally write off the fact that bird flu might become an issue for farmers working to keep their herds healthy. Fortunately, the actual non-hypothetical ramifications of this disease are not too scary.
Bird flu has already jumped to humans. All three instances of HPAI related human illness have been farm workers employed by large-scale industrial farms. Their symptoms were primarily conjunctivitis (pink eye) and all healed up quickly. Dairy cows may show relatively mild clinical signs when infected including “decreased lactation, abnormal appearance in milk, low appetite, and other symptoms” and recover after about 7-10 days.
Update: a fourth farm worker infected with bird flu has been reported by The CDC. He got pink eye and healed up quickly.
The highly pathogenic aspect of “Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza” only applies to birds, and birds get it the worst.
No cases of bird flu related illness contracted through raw milk produced for human consumption have been reported, nor have any raw milk shutdowns been attributed to HPAI. The FDA states that we do not know if bird flu can infect humans through raw milk, they are encouraging caution while they maintaining their low-risk assessment.
Michigan was the focus of alarms sympathetic to raw milk, however MDARD’s enforcement action was taken against Nourish Cooperative related to licensing – not Bird Flu. Michigan is a herdshare state, the farm was operating under a feed license (ie pet food labeling), so they are currently researching their path to providing raw milk while selling other foods.
Bird flu pandemic panic is a recurring media topic that never seems to materialize, despite the insistence that we adopt their sense of urgency, and the crying wolf effect has clearly contributed to the nihilism of public response toward health advisories.
Farmers near me don’t seem worried about bird flu, nor were they worried about the state trying to shut them down, I asked while making the rounds in mid June.
The FDA and its raw milk policy
The United States Food & Drug Administration (est 1906) governs interstate milk sales – not intrastate – and first began strongly recommending against the consumption of raw milk in 1987.
Raw milk bans in the USA go as far back as 1909, starting with Chicago’s citywide ban. The FDA remained neutral until faced by lobbying from a coalition of large dairy processors, manufacturers, and retailers who sought to ensure a uniform and pasteurized milk supply in interstate commerce.
The arguments made to ban interstate raw milk sales were related to public health and minimizing pathogenic illness. With near-distant memories of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and the Swill Milk Scandal, raw milk bans just made sense. All administrations of the FDA since the late 80s have maintained the interstate ban on raw milk sales, including the administrations under Bush, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, Trump, and Biden.
The FDA’s ban only applies to transactions where one the buyer is present in another state, and does not apply to consumers traveling across state lines to get raw milk in a state with greater access.
With respect to the interstate sale and distribution of raw milk, the FDA has never taken, nor does it intend to take, enforcement action against an individual who purchased and transported raw milk across state lines solely for his or her own personal consumption.
It’s also worth noting The FDA takes little, if any, action against herdshare agreements distributing across state lines. Amos Miller’s case is being pursued by the USDA regarding his meat distribution, not The FDA, and that case has been complicated by many factors but Amos continues raw milk distribution to this private membership association to this day.
Raw milk pandemics never seem to materialize, despite growth in intrastate direct-to-consumer sales, due to food safety initiatives and farmers generally becoming aware of the importance of sanitation. The numbers we have now, and didn’t have at the time, make raw milk bans look unjustified and exclusionary. While it’s understandable The FDA would drive toward complete eradication of disease, endorsing the near-zero risk option over the very-low risk option, we are currently in a situation where raw milk is causing less harm per consumer than leafy greens.
It will take many years of good clean numbers for large institutions to lighten up, eventually they will, today isn’t the day.
The FDA’s interstate raw milk sales ban is not the subject of uniform opposition, as some farmers have voiced to me that the federal restriction protects intrastate sales. Just as the dairy industry is consolidating, for example one farmer has bought up 5 conventional dairy farms just in Washington and still has to depend on mortgages to stay afloat, a lift of the ban might cause a large portion of raw milk production to consolidate in the states cheapest to produce and export unpasteurized milk.
Since raw milk sales allow for a lower barrier to entry for independent farmers, I don’t see this is a major issue as many consumers will seek out local producers, a heap of raw milk sales would undoubtably consolidate towards California and Pennsylvania. Antifederalist positions tend to be more antifederalist than pro raw milk on this subject, which is ironic because raw milk is already a states issue. In any case, there are farmers who prefer the current interstate blockade and some who do not.
FDA’s advisory re raw milk and Bird Flu
HPAI = Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, ie Bird Flu. The highly pathogenic aspect is among birds, it is not known to be highly pathogenic among humans. H5N1 is a variant of HPAI.
Read the FDA’s full statement from June 12, 2024. Excerpts below:
Based on the limited research and information available, we do not know at this time if the HPAI H5N1 virus can be transmitted to humans through consumption of raw milk and products made from raw milk from infected cows. However, exposures on affected farms are associated with three documented cases of H5N1 illness in dairy workers.
There have been three cases of human affected HPAI in the US since 2022. The first one was an incarcerated worker who was involved in the dispatching of animals. The second and third cases were also working on large scale industrial farms. All three primarily showed signs of conjunctivitis and healed up quickly.
Given the current and potential future risks that HPAI H5N1 virus poses to our nation’s public health, as well as the health of our nation’s food-producing animals and wildlife, it is important to work together to minimize additional exposure of humans and other animal species to the HPAI H5N1 virus to reduce the potential for additional HPAI H5N1 infections and reduce the virus’s opportunity to adapt to new hosts.
Fair enough. We know HPAI is the subject of gain-of-function research and its presence in mammals, including humans, may rapidly increase if they fail to keep their experiments contained. While we’d like to think that these labs would inform the public about any leaks, that’s not guaranteed – a lot of money is tied up in bioengineering. We might find out by surprise, so be on the lookout for that.
Because raw milk has the potential to contain viable (live) HPAI H5N1 virus, it represents a potential route of consumer exposure to the virus. Based on the limited research and information available, we do not know at this time if the HPAI H5N1 virus can be transmitted to humans through consumption of raw milk and products made from raw milk from infected cows. However, exposures on affected farms are associated with three documented cases of H5N1 illness in dairy workers.
Per FDA, there is no reliable test for HPAI in milk, so surveillance efforts are conducted by testing for HPAI in cows. Here are some key elements of their latest advisory on June 12.
- Monitor dairy cattle herds for signs of illness that would indicate infection with the HPAI H5N1 virus.
- Producers should continue to discard milk, with suitable protocols, from symptomatic cows.
- Any raw milk or raw milk products from exposed cattle that are fed to calves or any other animals should be heat-treated or pasteurized. Exposed cattle are those located on a premises with cattle with suspected or confirmed infections with HPAI H5N1 viruses. Many State Cooperative Extension Service programs have published detailed information on how to pasteurize or otherwise effectively treat waste milk before using it to feed calves (for example, Penn State – Pasteurization of Non-Saleable Milk).
- Implement a surveillance testing program in your state to identify the presence of HPAI H5N1 virus in dairy herds that might be engaged in producing raw milk for intrastate sale.
The actual recommendation: if you’ve got a sick cow on the farm, quarantine the cow, cook or toss their milk. This isn’t a new process, cows get sick for a variety of reasons, this is just a new thing to watch out for.
Dairy cows may show relatively mild clinical signs when infected including “decreased lactation, abnormal appearance in milk, low appetite, and other symptoms” and recover in 7-10 days.
There’s not much carrot in this situation, but there isn’t much stick either.
For states that permit the sale of raw milk within their state, use regulatory authorities or implement other measures, as appropriate, to stop the sale of raw milk that may present a risk to consumers. This may include restricting the introduction of raw milk that may contain viable HPAI H5N1, for human or animal consumption, within a defined geographic area, or within your state. If HPAI H5N1 virus is identified within a herd, there is a risk that viable HPAI H5N1 virus could be present in raw milk from the herd, even when clinically ill cows are segregated.
The FDA’s jurisdiction is limited to interstate commerce, this is advice presented to state and local regulators. So if the raw milk in question may contain HPAI, they’re recommending the state prevents the distribution of that milk. Enforcement is solely in the hands of those state-level agencies.
Not a pandemic, not a crackdown
There are two extreme ends. One side appears to want The FDA to commit acts of overreach, outside their jurisdiction, based purely on hypotheticals and of course your obligation to be scared when they are scared. The other side would like to pretend The FDA is overreaching its jurisdiction right now, and uses this to promote their preexisting agenda to dissolve the federal agencies altogether. Thankfully, none of this is happening.
NBC ran the text “Bird Flu Death” behind reporting on The WHO’s alert which said a 59-year-old man died with bird flu in Mexico City. This made a lot of noise, much less noise was made when Mexican officials clarified that he died of chronic disease and not bird flu. Raw milk wasn’t involved either way.
CBS: FDA urges crackdown on bird flu in raw milk, but some states say hands tied
FDA officials said in a letter last week that cracking down on sales within states was out of their jurisdiction.
No urged crackdown is found in the letter. Restricting raw milk sales are only recommended when a herd is found to be infected with bird flu.
Daily Kos: Conservatives are pushing people to drink raw milk despite fatal flu threat
Remember, the fatal aspect of this flu is basically a lie at this point. Thankfully, all cases of HPAI in humans and cows have been mild.
Pointing out that conservatives are promoting raw milk might seem petty, and a primer for chud-jacketing, but it’s true. As soon as the advisories came out and as soon as the media began pretending we are in a pandemic, so came an inverse media panic response. Many voices who are genuinely sympathetic to raw milk, sprang up to use this media panic to promote their own pre-existing antifederalist tendencies – despite The FDA not actually doing anything besides research.
Raw milk is a bipartisan issue.
National Review then chimes in to post an article titled Raw Milk Isn’t Right-Wing. They’re not like those hippies. Remember the part where Reagan’s administration oversaw the banning of interstate raw milk sales? Who do you think owns the pasteurization plants, anyway?
Industrial agriculture is a Republican-held sector, has been for decades, and they are the ones who made it illegal to sell raw milk across state lines. This dynamic is breaking down as industrial ag businesses are consolidated and offshored – it is not the money or regional king maker it used to be, so there’s less of a fight to keep it going. With fewer safe Republican voters coming from agricultural backgrounds, and more of them investing in nutrition and fitness, younger conservatives are venturing into better food systems.
In any case, this media panic gives the various voices of the right fuel for their own expressions of safetyism. Biden is said to be on his way to take your raw milk. Disregard the fact that The FDA is not shutting anyone down. All enforcement is state-level. While the federal government is very criticizable, they’re about as clean as they could be here.
