public health

Federal researchers found drug residues in one of every five cattle marketed as “raised without antibiotics” in samples collected last fall, said the Agriculture Department on Wednesday. The findings “underscore the need for more rigorous substantiation of such claims,” it said, in “strongly” encouraging — but not requiring — meat processors to routinely test for residues if they put a “no antibiotics ever” label on their meat.

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.

Ten new outbreaks of bird flu were found in Colorado dairy herds as the result of mandatory testing of milk samples from bulk tanks on the farms, reported the state’s Agriculture Department. The state veterinarian ordered the weekly tests in an effort to curb the spread of the H5N1 avian flu virus in the dairy and poultry industries.

Nine farmworkers at two egg farms in Colorado have contracted mild cases of bird flu since mid-July while killing and disposing of millions of infected chickens, said public health officials on Thursday. “These preliminary results again underscore the risk of exposure to infected animals,” said the Centers for Disease Control, which added that the risk to the general population remains low.

On a voice vote Wednesday, minority-party Democrats deleted from the annual USDA-FDA funding bill a pilot project to block SNAP recipients from buying “unhealthy foods.” Democratic members of the House Appropriations Committee said the pilot project, authored by Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, was paternalistic and impractical.

The government will compensate farmers for 90 percent of the value of milk lost as a result of H5N1 avian flu infections in their dairy cows, announced Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday. “We want to assist our producers every way we can to help them as they combat this emerging animal health disease,” he said.

Only a handful of U.S. farms — 18 in all — are accepting federal funds to quash the outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu virus among dairy herds that began three months ago, according to the Agriculture Department. (No paywall)

After the H5N1 avian flu virus jumped from birds to dairy cattle in Texas last December, it was spread across the country by infected cows, contaminated machinery, and people who inadvertently carried the virus on their clothes and footwear from farm to farm, said USDA scientists on Thursday. Officials said the risk to the public was low because the virus has not shown signs of adapting to humans. “We should be, as we are, alert, not alarmed,” said Nirav Shah, the CDC’s principal deputy director.

To reduce the risk of bird flu infections, state health officials should bar the sale of raw milk to consumers if it contains the H5N1 avian flu virus, said the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday. Although the FDA has long warned that raw milk is a high-risk food that may carry disease-causing pathogens, more than 30 states allow the sale of unpasteurized milk from the farm, in retail stores, or through so-called cow shares.

A farmworker in Michigan is the first person to experience respiratory symptoms after contracting bird flu from dairy cows infected with the H5N1 virus, said Michigan officials on Thursday. It was the third U.S. case of cow-to-human transmission and the second in Michigan. The Centers for Disease Control said the risk to the general public remained low.

A worker on a Michigan dairy farm contracted a mild case of H5 bird flu from infected cattle — the second cow-to-human infection since bird flu was first identified in dairy cattle in late March — said the Centers for Disease Control on Wednesday. The risk to the public remains low, said Nirav Shah, the CDC’s principal deputy director.

House Agriculture Committee chair Glenn Thompson would funnel $10 billion in food stamp cuts into an expansion of trade promotion and horticulture programs as part of the new farm bill, said Republican staff workers on Thursday. One of them called opponents of SNAP cuts “hunger weirdos” who “use poor people as props.” (No paywall)

The Biden administration poured $199 million into the fight against the H5N1 bird flu virus, which was identified in cattle for the first time seven weeks ago, a worrisome step closer to people. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said dairy farmers are eligible for up to $28,000 in USDA aid in three months to help eradicate the virus from their herds, and Health Secretary Xavier Becerra announced new funding among public health agencies to "test, treat, prevent" the virus from spreading.