Got Milk With Bird Flu In It?

Whatever happened to common sense? Read this STAT headline and then explain to me what Delaware is thinking:

Bird flu snapshot: Live H5N1 virus grown from raw milk samples as Delaware moves to legalize its sale

"Last week, following an unusually udder pun-laden discussion, lawmakers in Delaware voted to become the latest state to legalize the sale of raw milk. Not part of the discussion was the fact that an ongoing outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in U.S. dairy cattle has scientists increasingly concerned that the virus could be transmitted to humans through raw milk.

"While there have not yet been any confirmed human cases of bird flu transmission as a result of raw milk consumption, with the number of affected herds continuing to rise — the figure hit 141 in 12 states at the end of last week — public health officials worry it’s just a matter of time. (The USDA’s count was 140 on Friday, which did not include the latest detection in Iowa.)

"Results of a recently released study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture show that commercial pasteurization techniques effectively reduce virus in milk to undetectable levels. But the study — which was released as a preprint, meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed — also found an alarming amount of infectious virus is getting off of farms in contaminated milk.

"Over two weeks in late April, officials from four states with infected herds collected 275 raw milk samples from bulk tanks — large storage tanks used to cool and store milk until it can be picked up and pooled for processing. Scientists from the FDA and the USDA were able to grow live virus from 14% of raw milk samples.

"Don Prater, the FDA’s acting director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told journalists Tuesday that the study’s results “provide broad assurance that pasteurized milk and dairy products made from pasteurized milk are safe.”

"But they also underline shortfalls in the dairy industry’s ability to identify contaminated milk and divert it from the food supply. Those lapses are not necessarily due to negligence; researchers suspect that cows may be able to shed virus into milk before showing clinical signs of illness, and studies evaluating this possibility are currently underway.

"Raw milk also remains a concern because people who are exposed to it on the job continue to fall ill."

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If you know that pasteurized milk is safe, then why don't you just drink pasteurized milk rather than tempting fate with raw milk? I just don't get it.