At the same time that the FDA said a second round of tests showed pasteurization kills the bird flu virus in dairy products, the USDA said it would test beef from culled dairy cows for the H5N1 avian flu virus for the coming year. Nearly $2 million has been paid to dairy farmers since July 1 as compensation for milk production lost to bird flu.
Some 800 samples will be collected nationwide beginning in mid-September from milk cows sent to slaughter from dairy farms, said José Esteban, the USDA’s undersecretary for food safety. The yearlong testing program, which would average 15 samples a week, would help determine if the H5N1 virus is present in cows that show no symptoms of the disease. The USDA would hold the carcasses until the test results are available. Esteban said the initiative would allow the agency to trace any infections it discovers back to the source.
USDA meat inspectors routinely check slaughter cattle and their carcasses for signs of disease.
Bird flu was identified in dairy cattle for the first time in late March in Texas. Since then, 13 farmworkers — 10 of them in Colorado — have contracted the disease from contact with sick cows and poultry. To date, bird flu has been confirmed in 190 dairy herds in 13 states; one-third of the herds are in Colorado. Highly pathogenic avian influenza has killed nearly 101 million birds in domestic flocks since February 2022, mostly egg-laying chickens and turkeys being raised for meat.
The latest tests found no active virus in 167 dairy products, including milk, cheese, and ice cream, purchased from stores in 27 states, said Steve Grube of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). “We are confirming pasteurization is effective,” he said. Seventeen percent of the samples contained viral fragments. A previous round of FDA tests also showed that dairy products are safe. The new round of tests covered a larger geographic area.
The USDA was “just about past the $2 million mark” in payments from a disaster relief fund to dairy farmers with infected milk cows, said Eric Deeble, USDA bird flu adviser. Some 35 herds have applied for aid, and payments were approved for 23 of them, he said. Colorado dairy farms submitted 12 applications in the past week. The payments, from the Emergency Livestock Assistance Program, are calculated at 90 percent of the value of reduced milk production for each infected cow for 28 days. The USDA opened the application window on July 1.
Postcards were sent to 20,000 dairy producers to alert them to the payments and to other financial aid that is available for improving biosecurity, buying protective gear for workers, and paying bills for veterinary treatment and testing of herds, said Deeble. A Spanish-language version will be mailed to farmers in Puerto Rico next week, he said.
“We are actively working on it” with state regulators, replied Grube, CFSAN’s chief medical officer, when asked if H5N1 testing would be implemented nationwide on milk in each dairy farm’s bulk milk tank. Colorado is the only state to mandate weekly bulk tank tests. The tests have found 10 infected herds, all in the same week, since they were ordered on July 22.