{"id":6397,"date":"2024-04-23T19:36:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T00:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=6397"},"modified":"2024-04-23T19:36:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T00:36:40","slug":"bird-flu-virus-found-in-grocery-milk-as-officials-say-supply-still-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/04\/23\/bird-flu-virus-found-in-grocery-milk-as-officials-say-supply-still-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird flu virus found in grocery milk as officials say supply still safe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viral fragments of bird flu have been identified in samples of milk taken from grocery store shelves in the United States, a finding that does not necessarily suggest a threat to human health but indicates the avian flu virus is more widespread among dairy herds <\/a>than previously thought, according to two public health officials and a public health expert who was briefed on the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it had been testing milk samples throughout the dairy production process and confirmed the detection of viral particles \u201cin some of the samples,\u201d but it declined to provide details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The presence of genetic fragments of the virus in milk is not unexpected.\u00a0Pasteurization<\/a>\u00a0typically works to inactivate pathogens, said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. It generally does not remove genetic material, Nuzzo said, but typically renders pathogens unable to cause harm to people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greater concern, however, \u201cis that it\u2019s showing up in a lot more samples, meaning the infection is more widespread in dairy herds than we thought,\u201d said one public health official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share information not yet made public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a four-page statement<\/a>, the FDA said some of the samples collected have \u201cindicated the presence\u201d of the bird flu virus based on testing that detects viral particles but does not distinguish whether they are active or dead. The finding of virus \u201cdoes not mean that the sample contains an intact, infectious pathogen,\u201d the agency\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional laboratory testing is underway to grow the virus in cells and in fertilized eggs, the latter being the \u201cgold standard\u201d for sensitive detection of active, infectious virus, the FDA said. \u201cImportantly, additional testing is required to determine whether intact pathogen is still present and if it remains infectious, which determines whether there is any risk of illness associated with consuming the product,\u201d the FDA statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Post Viral fragments of bird flu have been identified in samples of milk taken from grocery store shelves in the United States, a finding that does not necessarily suggest a threat to human health but indicates the avian flu virus is more widespread among dairy herds than previously thought, according to two public health officials and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6398,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397\/revisions\/6398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}