Here’s what the FDA’s saying.
Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration said that pasteurized milk from around the U.S. had tested positive for inactive particles of the H5N1 bird flu virus. So far, the highly pathogenic virus has been detected in chickens, dairy cows, and at least two people.
Here’s what we know about the outbreak.
Can you get the bird flu from infected milk?
The FDA tested milk from grocery store shelves and found remnants of the virus contained within some samples. However, the agency has stressed that “our commercial milk supply is safe” both because it’s working to eliminate milk produced by sick cows and because almost all of our milk is pasteurized — meaning that it’s heated in a manner that kills off harmful bacteria and viruses.
“Even if virus is detected in raw milk, pasteurization is generally expected to eliminate pathogens to a level that does not pose a risk to consumer health,” the FDA said in a statement.
David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, also told The New York Times that “the risk of getting infected from milk that has viral fragments in it should be nil.”
What to know about H5N1 bird flu
The H5N1 bird flu strain was first detected in North America back in 2021 among wild migratory birds. It then quickly spread to poultry farms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In March though, the virus was discovered in dairy cows in Texas and Kansas and it’s now been found in more than 30 dairy herds in eight states, NYT reports.
Earlier this month, the second human case of the H5N1 bird flu was reported by the CDC. That patient was exposed to cattle in Texas, which were presumed to be carrying the virus. According to the health agency, that person’s only symptom was eye redness, or conjunctivitis. They were instructed to isolate and are being treated with an antiviral drug.
Another person tested positive for the strain in 2022. They caught the bird flu while handling an infected chicken on a farm in Colorado.
How easily can the bird flu be transmitted to humans?
The CDC has said that it considers the human health risk of H5N1 “to be low.” Though the risk is higher for people with “close or prolonged exposures to infected birds or other animals (including livestock), or to environments contaminated by infected birds or other animals,” the agency says.
NPR reports that it’s rare for people to catch any type of bird flu and that transmission from human to human is even rarer. Though the two U.S. cases both resulted in mild illnesses, other recent infections like those in Cambodia and Ecuador have been more severe and in some cases were fatal.
This version of bird flu and its capacity to infect cattle has surprised the scientific community and challenged some of its assumptions about H5N1 and its ability to spread.
“We are in fairly unprecedented, uncharted territory, globally in relationship to avian influenza,” Peter Rabinowitz, M.D., director of the University of Washington Center for One Health Research, tells NPR.
Will the price of eggs go up?
Cal-Maine Foods — the country’s largest egg supplier — announced earlier this month that bird flu had been found within its flock at a plant in Parmer County, Texas. As a result, Cal-Maine has culled 1.6 million hens and 337,000 young chickens. The company, which controls about 20 percent of the egg market, said at the time that it’s temporarily ceased production.
If other suppliers are hit with bird flu too, that naturally could lead to more expensive eggs. The cost for a dozen Grade-A large eggs hit a record high of $4.80 in January 2023, which was linked to a spike in bird flu. Prices have stabilized since then, but they’re still at the highest level since April 2023, CNN reports.
Can you get avian flu from eggs?
Cal-Maine has said that there’s no known bird flu risk associated with any of its eggs that are already on grocery shelves. But experts have said that it may be a good idea to still exercise caution.
“While H5N1 primarily affects birds, the potential for transmission to humans exists, making it crucial to handle and cook eggs with care to minimize any risk of infection,” Darin Detwiler, a food safety expert and food policy professor at Northeastern University, tells USA Today.
Detwiler recommends immediately storing eggs in your refrigerator when you return from the grocery store, throwing out any cracked or dirty eggs, and washing down any surfaces that come into contact with raw eggs.
You may also want to nix sunnyside-up and over-easy eggs from you breakfast table — at least for now. Those dishes and other eggs with runny yolks aren’t considered “properly cooked” by the CDC’s standards. The agency recommends cooking eggs until they reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit, which would kill off most disease-causing germs.
