FDA Says No Infectious Bird Flu Virus Found In Powdered Infant Formula, Cottage Cheese, Sour Cream

The agency is testing retail dairy products amid an outbreak of bird flu among dairy cow herds.

A customer picks up a dairy product at a store in New York City on March 13, 2020. Jeenah Moon/Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that hundreds of retail dairy samples checked for the presence of a highly pathogenic avian flu strain have all come back negative, reaffirming the agency’s assessment that America’s pasteurized milk supply is safe.

The FDA said on May 1 that it had carried out tests on 297 retail dairy samples, including fluid milk, cottage cheese, sour cream, and powdered infant formula, in an effort to check for the presence of live, infectious bird flu virus.

The agency found that none of the samples had any active fragments of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus, commonly known as the bird flu.

“These results reaffirm our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the FDA said in the statement, adding that the sampling study proves that pasteurization (a type of heat-treatment) is effective at inactivating the bird flu virus.

To date, dairy cattle herds across nine states—Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas—have tested positive for the H5N1 virus, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Testing Dairy Products For Bird Flu

Last week, the FDA started testing various samples of pasteurized retail milk products to determine whether they contain any live bird flu virus after announcing that quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) checks on milk from grocery stores tested positive for HPAI viral fragments.

Since qPCR-positive results don’t necessarily represent live virus that may be a risk to consumers, the FDA decided to carry out a follow-up round of tests through egg inoculation checks, which it calls the “gold-standard” for either confirming or ruling out the presence of infectious virus.

The first round of egg inoculation tests on 96 retail milk samples found no live virus, the agency said on April 25. The remaining 201 samples—which include infant formula, cottage cheese, and sour cream—have now also tested negative for infectious bird flu, per the FDA’s May 1 announcement.

The agency said it’s continuing to identify additional products for testing, while saying that the testing carried out so far validates pasteurization as effective in killing the virus. At the same time, the FDA cautioned against the consumption of raw milk.

“The FDA continues to advise strongly against the consumption of raw milk and recommends that industry does not manufacture or sell raw milk or raw milk products,” the agency said in the May 1 announcement.

The warning comes after researchers found that half of the 24 cats at a Texas dairy farm that consumed raw milk and colostrum from cows with the bird flu had died.

Bird flu has now been detected in 36 dairy herds in nine states, with all appearing to have originated among herds in Texas.

Infections spread as cattle were moved across state lines to other farms, which prompted federal authorities to impose a bird flu testing requirement on dairy cows transported between states.

Dairy Cow Testing

The USDA and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) have begun requiring lactating dairy cows to test negative for bird flu before being moved across state lines in a bid to stem the spread of the virus.

The federal order, which was first announced on April 24, took effect on April 29.

The agency issued an update to the requirement on April 27, clarifying that testing would not be required for cows that are shipped over state lines directly to slaughter facilities from barns where they are sold. Such cows only need documentation showing they were inspected by a veterinarian.

Positive flu tests will prohibit cows from being moved for 30 days and until they test negative, USDA officials said in a more detailed “requirements and recommendations” document.

Owners of herds containing cows that test positive are encouraged to work with local and state health agencies, including by allowing public health officials to access on-farm activities.

Farm workers who are exposed to bird flu-infected cattle should be monitored daily for signs and symptoms of acute respiratory illness.

“While it is still unclear exactly how virus is spreading, the virus is shed in milk at high concentrations; therefore, anything that comes in contact with unpasteurized raw milk, spilled milk, etc. may spread the virus including other animals, vehicles, and other objects or materials,” the USDA cautioned in the guidance document. “Therefore, both dairy and poultry producers should redouble biosecurity efforts and be vigilant about monitoring for and controlling disease in their herds and flocks.”

To date, Colombia is the only country that has restricted the import of beef and beef products coming from U.S. states where dairy cows have tested positive for bird flu.

The only known human infection in the current outbreak was in a Texas farm worker who suffered conjunctivitis at the end of March following exposure to presumably infected dairy cattle, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“The patient reported conjunctivitis with no other symptoms, was not hospitalized, and is recovering,” the CDC said. “The patient was recommended to isolate and received antiviral treatment with oseltamivir.”

The Texas farm worker is only the second case ever of the H5N1 virus to be detected in humans.

The first case was reported in 2022 in Colorado, in a person who came into contact with poultry presumably infected with the virus.

“The current risk these viruses pose to the public remains low,” the CDC says.

Ground Beef Testing

In a further effort to track the spread of bird flu, federal food safety inspectors have begun testing ground beef from grocery stores for the presence of the avian influenza in states where dairy cows have tested positive for the virus.

A USDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the agency’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is carrying out three separate beef safety studies, including one that involves sampling ground beef from grocery stores in the nine states where dairy cattle have tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu.

The second study involves testing beef muscle from dairy cows that were condemned for “systemic pathologies” at selected slaughterhouses for the presence of bird flu.

The third study is a ground beef cooking study, which involves using a “virus surrogate” in ground beef and cooking it at different temperatures to “determine log-reduction” of the H5N1 virus, the spokesperson said.

So far, no beef cattle have tested positive for the H5N1 virus. Last week, the USDA said it found bird flu in a lung tissue sample from an asymptomatic dairy cow that was sent to slaughter from an infected herd. The agency said that the animal did not enter the food supply.

The USDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the results of the three beef safety studies are forthcoming and would be released to the public. He said the USDA has a “rigorous” meat inspection process and the agency “is confident that the meat supply is safe.”

“While we have multiple safeguards in place to protect consumers, we recommend consumers properly handle raw meats and cook to a safe internal temperature,” the spokesperson said. “Cooking to a safe internal temperature kills bacteria and viruses in meat.”