BIRD FLU UPDATE — Federal agriculture and health officials have increased communication with the public in recent days about an outbreak of avian influenza in cows across multiple states. But public health experts want the government to be more transparent about its efforts to expand testing and research. The FDA said Thursday that about 1 in 5 retail milk samples tested positive for viral fragments, suggesting the virus might have spread beyond symptomatic dairy herds. And the pathogen has been found in at least 33 dairy herds across eight states since first being detected among Texas cattle in late March, and virologists say it could be much more widespread than that data suggests. To date, however, just one person has been confirmed to have contracted the virus — a dairy worker in Texas who developed a case of conjunctivitis, or pinkeye. Federal officials and industry executives maintain the discovery of inactive fragments of the virus strain, known as H5N1, in milk sold to consumers is not worrisome in itself — instead, it’s evidence that the pasteurization process is working to neutralize the virus. What is the Biden administration telling consumers about drinking milk? The USDA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a statement Tuesday reiterating that “the commercial milk supply is safe.” That said, they did acknowledge that “the process is not expected to remove the presence of viral particles” and added that some milk samples the government has tested have contained the inactivated virus fragments. Government officials have been pretty clear that drinking raw — or unpasteurized — milk is a bad idea. Are there any other safety caveats? Yes. The administration has been careful to say that pasteurization is “likely” to inactivate the Avian Flu virus in milk, but they also acknowledge that the detection of the virus in dairy cows “is a novel and evolving situation” and “no studies on the effects of pasteurization on HPAI viruses (such as H5N1) in bovine milk have previously been completed.” Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, questioned why the FDA did not immediately say it would test milk products and expeditiously culture any potential virus fragments found. “Just from a government credibility standpoint, being transparent about what you’re doing, it’s important,” Nuzzo said. In an April 24 letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) urged the USDA to “quickly deploy additional resources in states that have the opportunity to prevent the disease from entering herds within their borders by working directly with farmers on improving their biosecurity options.” The World Health Organization has also noted that while the risk from the avian flu outbreak to the general public is “low,” there is a “low-to-moderate” risk of infection for farmworkers and others regularly exposed to dairy cows. IT’S FRIDAY. WELCOME BACK TO PRESCRIPTION PULSE. Are you Kimberlee Trzeciak, FDA deputy commissioner for policy, legislation and international affairs? We want to hear from you. Send news and tips to David Lim ([email protected] or @davidalim) and Lauren Gardner ([email protected] or @Gardner_LM).
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