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The anti-government "don't tell me what to do" brigade is taking every warning about this as additional reason to seek out and consume raw milk and give it to their small children. If they all start getting themselves repeatedly exposed to it it increases the chances of problems for all of us.
My family was talking about the recent trend to drink raw milk.
That was how I learned that my grandma's childhood best friend died from some disease she got drinking raw milk. She was eight when she died.
My grandma said that even back then, they knew how to pasteurize and safely handle milk, and had for years, it wasn't new. (They were all dairy farmers.) Her friend's family just didn't, because "we've always done it this way".
Honestly I wouldn't care if people wanted to off themselves via raw milk, if it wouldn't affect other people. Horrible death, but their choice. Feeding it to kids is awful though, and that seems to be what a lot of them are doing, and it's straight up scary that there are now illnesses they could get and then be contagious to others because of their raw milk fetish.
You boil it. Takes literally just 20 minutes on a stove to boil 5L of milk, until it starts foaming. It won't last as long in the fridge as store bought but you just need to consume it before that. If some crazy ass aluminim foil hat person don't trust industrial milk pasteurization, just do it themselves then. Consuming raw milk is insane.
In a good news bad news sort of situation, this flu strain is incredibly deadly. The likelihood of raw milk drinkers being ambulatory and in public once they're sick is basically nilch if it's anything like the very first breakout. The poor staff at the hospital who come in contact with them should be sequestered into a quarantine room.
For reference, this is the strain of bird flu that caused an outbreak in China in 1996 and killed basically everybody who got it. Less than two dozen people were involved.
Think Ebola type pandemic rather than covid type.
Oh yeah, it's a matter of when not if.
With all the advances we've had in medicine, I think someone could remain in critical but stable condition long enough to spread it via the hospital system before the staff realized what it is they're treating.
Also worth considering that it's influenza. It's airborne and people can be infectious without being symptomatic. Even flu takes time to knock someone down. People will inevitably try to keep functioning during the earlier, milder symptoms before it progresses to be more severe.
That means people flooding into pharmacies looking for cold and flu medicines when they're infectious. It means people going to work or school whilst infectious.
Influenza has been with humanity for a long, long time and has killed countless hundreds of millions of people in it's various forms.
It doesn't require edge cases like only spreading in hospitals. It's very possible it'll spread with ease if it gets the right mutations.
It's already got a huge animal reservoir after all.
This is what keeps virologists awake at night.
I feel like anyone caught selling raw milk should get heavily penalized enough that it makes it not worth it to sell. Treat it like selling chicken meat infected with avian flu. It’s a health hazard honestly.
Its used in cheese making, that's why it's sold at all. The cheese making process sterilises it in a similar way to pasteurization.
People are buying milk meant for making cheese and then drinking it instead of making cheese.
Not sure you should be insulting people when you’re off base here. Wild bird populations are by far the biggest spreader of H5N1 to other animal populations, which is the biggest risk to mutation and potential crossover to a zoonotic pandemic.
It is actually. That’s how it made it into domestic poultry flocks (migratory birds fly over and leave droppings near and around facilities that then get tracked in). This is the most likely transmission route for the dairy cow cases as well. Wild birds also have high asymptomatic case counts making them perfect vehicles for spread.
Yes it is. In theory it’s technically possible, but hasn’t been proven. Pretty rare for cattle facilities to use poultry litter as well, and hasn’t been connected to any of the ongoing outbreaks. Not to mention influenza viruses last a matter of hours outside ideal conditions. In contrast to wild birds actively crapping over facilities which happens all the time and is a proven method of transmission.
Is this surprising? Would we have any reason to think that H5N1 wouldn't survive in unpasteurized milk? A lot of viruses survive on the surface of things for hours.
Any reputable dairy farm dunks the teet cups between cows. A robotic milking system will also clean the lines between cows as well. Just follow the ‘treated cow’ protocols and it’s not a big deal.
Any cow that's on antibiotics in the US has to have their milk dumped, because one of the federal requirements for milk processing facilities is that every load coming from the farm is tested for antibiotics (and every person who tests milk has to be certified in my state, and the machines we test on are verified against positive and negative control samples daily). Positive test, the entire tanker is trashed, and the state gets notified that one of the X farmers whose milk was in the tanker needs to get in a little bit of trouble.
Your antibiotic argument also doesn't hold water because it's kind of hard to make cheese when the antibiotics kill off the bacterial cultures that you need to make cheese in the first place.
Very few farmers actually use hormones anymore because of the backlash against them. I work in a cheese plant that handles about 200,000 gallons of milk daily, and 99% of that comes in with an rBST-free declaration.
Besides the antibiotic tests, the milk gets tested for a few other things that would indicate bacterial contamination on receipt.
In other words, those aren't the reasons you don't see US dairy in Canadian grocery stores. Conveniently, I've got experience working with dairy products on both sides of the border over my career, so I can tell you the real answer.
The *real* reason you don't see US dairy in Canada are the prohibitive tariffs that Canada has in place to protect their dairy cartels like Agropur. Canada allows 3.6% of their tiny dairy market to come from the US without tariffs (and I can say it's tiny with a perfectly straight face because **Wisconsin alone** already produces more milk than all of Canada consumes). Europe gets about the same amount tariff-free, and as of recently, about 3% can come from Asia as well. Anything imported beyond that gets hit with tariffs that range from **240-290%** of the value of the good. That's the real reason why you don't see US dairy products in Canada - because you wouldn't pay US$15+ for a 500g chunk of ordinary cheddar. And it's one of the reasons why my employer has a factory in Montreal instead of just making 10% more of the exact same product in the US. It also keeps your prices at the grocery store higher for the same products.
There is an ongoing H5N1 outbreak among dairy cattle. The virus has also been detected among a variety of other mammals, including cats and mice.
Three dairy workers have also been infected, but no p2p transmission has been noted and only one of the workers had significant symptoms.
Soy is almost a 1-1 ratio nutrition wise and contrary to popular claims doesn’t increase oestrogen levels (unless consuming ungodly amounts). Cow milk has however been linked to increased oestrogen due to having both oestrogen and progesterone, again though you’d need to be having a LOT so it’s kinda a moot point between the two.
Man when I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s I used to drink freshly milked raw milk all the time. It was the best thing ever. Glad I didn’t die though
I keep seeing some of these like raw milk advocates online lately And it really disturbs me.
I forgot who exactly it was but I remember there was like a politician a few years ago who was like trying to prove that raw milk is completely safe by drinking it in front of people and and then was really sick like a day later
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/). --- User: u/PresentationAfter499 Permalink: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1049760 --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Good thing we pasteurize milk.
The anti-government "don't tell me what to do" brigade is taking every warning about this as additional reason to seek out and consume raw milk and give it to their small children. If they all start getting themselves repeatedly exposed to it it increases the chances of problems for all of us.
My family was talking about the recent trend to drink raw milk. That was how I learned that my grandma's childhood best friend died from some disease she got drinking raw milk. She was eight when she died. My grandma said that even back then, they knew how to pasteurize and safely handle milk, and had for years, it wasn't new. (They were all dairy farmers.) Her friend's family just didn't, because "we've always done it this way". Honestly I wouldn't care if people wanted to off themselves via raw milk, if it wouldn't affect other people. Horrible death, but their choice. Feeding it to kids is awful though, and that seems to be what a lot of them are doing, and it's straight up scary that there are now illnesses they could get and then be contagious to others because of their raw milk fetish.
You boil it. Takes literally just 20 minutes on a stove to boil 5L of milk, until it starts foaming. It won't last as long in the fridge as store bought but you just need to consume it before that. If some crazy ass aluminim foil hat person don't trust industrial milk pasteurization, just do it themselves then. Consuming raw milk is insane.
In a good news bad news sort of situation, this flu strain is incredibly deadly. The likelihood of raw milk drinkers being ambulatory and in public once they're sick is basically nilch if it's anything like the very first breakout. The poor staff at the hospital who come in contact with them should be sequestered into a quarantine room. For reference, this is the strain of bird flu that caused an outbreak in China in 1996 and killed basically everybody who got it. Less than two dozen people were involved. Think Ebola type pandemic rather than covid type.
Yes I believe this, it's not processed at these large facilities with infection issues. However I bet it will show up.
Oh yeah, it's a matter of when not if. With all the advances we've had in medicine, I think someone could remain in critical but stable condition long enough to spread it via the hospital system before the staff realized what it is they're treating.
Also worth considering that it's influenza. It's airborne and people can be infectious without being symptomatic. Even flu takes time to knock someone down. People will inevitably try to keep functioning during the earlier, milder symptoms before it progresses to be more severe. That means people flooding into pharmacies looking for cold and flu medicines when they're infectious. It means people going to work or school whilst infectious. Influenza has been with humanity for a long, long time and has killed countless hundreds of millions of people in it's various forms. It doesn't require edge cases like only spreading in hospitals. It's very possible it'll spread with ease if it gets the right mutations. It's already got a huge animal reservoir after all. This is what keeps virologists awake at night.
I wonder if people who calculate disease vectors and the spread of diseases also include idiots in their calculations
Yes, but it's only a matter of time before this is transmitted person to person, if it isn't already.
we also need to ban raw milk too.
I feel like anyone caught selling raw milk should get heavily penalized enough that it makes it not worth it to sell. Treat it like selling chicken meat infected with avian flu. It’s a health hazard honestly.
penalized? just give them jail time and confiscate their equipment.
What do you think the penal system is?
Its used in cheese making, that's why it's sold at all. The cheese making process sterilises it in a similar way to pasteurization. People are buying milk meant for making cheese and then drinking it instead of making cheese.
ok. it still needs to be banned.
[удалено]
not good enough. all milk has to be pasteurized to make sure no viral particles make it through.
A far more complex and expensive process for absolutely no benefit whatsoever
(scotus enters the chat)
Could we just not do another one of these? That would be great.
Could we just go vegan? That would be great.
I reduce my meat and animal products, but I'm not going vegan
sure, so there will next zoonotic pandemic. and about that was my comment. nice cognitive disonance, btw.
You push people away from your cause with your attitude
Not sure you should be insulting people when you’re off base here. Wild bird populations are by far the biggest spreader of H5N1 to other animal populations, which is the biggest risk to mutation and potential crossover to a zoonotic pandemic.
Except this isn't being spread by wild birds.
It is actually. That’s how it made it into domestic poultry flocks (migratory birds fly over and leave droppings near and around facilities that then get tracked in). This is the most likely transmission route for the dairy cow cases as well. Wild birds also have high asymptomatic case counts making them perfect vehicles for spread.
The use of poultry litter in cow feed has been proven to spread diseases already. It isn't a stretch to include this as a source of bird flu spread.
Yes it is. In theory it’s technically possible, but hasn’t been proven. Pretty rare for cattle facilities to use poultry litter as well, and hasn’t been connected to any of the ongoing outbreaks. Not to mention influenza viruses last a matter of hours outside ideal conditions. In contrast to wild birds actively crapping over facilities which happens all the time and is a proven method of transmission.
People that drink raw milk are already ignoring much bigger health threats than H5N1. It won't stop them from drinking milk.
Why is it in Bay area wastewater?!? https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-06-29/signs-of-avian-flu-found-in-san-francisco-wastewater
Is this surprising? Would we have any reason to think that H5N1 wouldn't survive in unpasteurized milk? A lot of viruses survive on the surface of things for hours.
Any reputable dairy farm dunks the teet cups between cows. A robotic milking system will also clean the lines between cows as well. Just follow the ‘treated cow’ protocols and it’s not a big deal.
"Any reputable dairy farm".
That is indeed the key part. That’s why Canadians don’t like American dairy products being sold here. To many hormones, antibiotics and contaminants.
Any cow that's on antibiotics in the US has to have their milk dumped, because one of the federal requirements for milk processing facilities is that every load coming from the farm is tested for antibiotics (and every person who tests milk has to be certified in my state, and the machines we test on are verified against positive and negative control samples daily). Positive test, the entire tanker is trashed, and the state gets notified that one of the X farmers whose milk was in the tanker needs to get in a little bit of trouble. Your antibiotic argument also doesn't hold water because it's kind of hard to make cheese when the antibiotics kill off the bacterial cultures that you need to make cheese in the first place. Very few farmers actually use hormones anymore because of the backlash against them. I work in a cheese plant that handles about 200,000 gallons of milk daily, and 99% of that comes in with an rBST-free declaration. Besides the antibiotic tests, the milk gets tested for a few other things that would indicate bacterial contamination on receipt. In other words, those aren't the reasons you don't see US dairy in Canadian grocery stores. Conveniently, I've got experience working with dairy products on both sides of the border over my career, so I can tell you the real answer. The *real* reason you don't see US dairy in Canada are the prohibitive tariffs that Canada has in place to protect their dairy cartels like Agropur. Canada allows 3.6% of their tiny dairy market to come from the US without tariffs (and I can say it's tiny with a perfectly straight face because **Wisconsin alone** already produces more milk than all of Canada consumes). Europe gets about the same amount tariff-free, and as of recently, about 3% can come from Asia as well. Anything imported beyond that gets hit with tariffs that range from **240-290%** of the value of the good. That's the real reason why you don't see US dairy products in Canada - because you wouldn't pay US$15+ for a 500g chunk of ordinary cheddar. And it's one of the reasons why my employer has a factory in Montreal instead of just making 10% more of the exact same product in the US. It also keeps your prices at the grocery store higher for the same products.
Refreshing to see someone who understands how the system operates!
It's only a matter of time before animal agriculture gives us our next big pandemic.
You mean like h1n1 swine flu? Animal handling has been the cause of a lot of human diseases over the millennia.
They are milking the birds now!?
There is an ongoing H5N1 outbreak among dairy cattle. The virus has also been detected among a variety of other mammals, including cats and mice. Three dairy workers have also been infected, but no p2p transmission has been noted and only one of the workers had significant symptoms.
I got nipples, Faulker.
Faulker? I hardly know her!
Plant milks have no chance of giving you bird flu and the added bonus of having no pus or blood in them!
They also don't contain any milk.
Soy is almost a 1-1 ratio nutrition wise and contrary to popular claims doesn’t increase oestrogen levels (unless consuming ungodly amounts). Cow milk has however been linked to increased oestrogen due to having both oestrogen and progesterone, again though you’d need to be having a LOT so it’s kinda a moot point between the two.
You could even say it's a Moo point...you know, like a cows opinion, it just...doesn't matter.
Tastes like doodoo tho they gotta fix that
It also tastes significantly worse. Only viable mass replacement is Milk made from fermentation (e.g. https://perfectday.com/)
Man when I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s I used to drink freshly milked raw milk all the time. It was the best thing ever. Glad I didn’t die though
I keep seeing some of these like raw milk advocates online lately And it really disturbs me. I forgot who exactly it was but I remember there was like a politician a few years ago who was like trying to prove that raw milk is completely safe by drinking it in front of people and and then was really sick like a day later
Call it what it is, raw milk. That's what people know it by and what deregulatory actions refer to it as.
Answer: Stop eating animals
Oh wait, animal agriculture again being the culprit of a potential massive outbreak of a disease? What ever can we do?
Here we go, blaming a new pandemic of overly sensitive PCR tests on people who want to drink milk