Limited testing of raw milk for bird flu leaves safety questions unanswered (www.npr.org)

submitted 4 months ago by chicory@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

2 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The USDA-approved lab authorized to test the milk for the H5N1 bird flu virus called the farms to seek their permission to examine the milk, then also declined to test the milk for bird flu when the farmers did not grant it.

“[The farms] are aware of what a nonnegative test would do to their business,” said Brandon Dominguez, the Veterinary Services Section Head at the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic laboratory in College Station, Texas. “They asked that we do not run the test.”

After NPR reported that the USDA had confirmed the agency does not require labs to have permission from farms to test milk samples for bird flu, Amy Swinford, the director of the Texas A&M lab, added that another reason the lab could not perform the test is that reporters did not provide the premise identification numbers for each of the farms. Those numbers are not publicly available; reporters did include the license numbers of each of the farms when they submitted samples for testing.

The lab and the farms’ refusal to test samples of raw milk comes as scientists have criticized the federal government for being slow to collect and report information about the virus. There has been no widespread testing of dairy workers to understand how many may be infected, no mandate that dairy farms test their herds if they aren’t moving cattle between states, and no clear testing data to support federal authorities’ warnings of a potential threat of bird flu in raw milk that people drink.

Head in the sand: what could go wrong?

top 2 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] FnordPrefect@hexbear.net 10 points 4 months ago

biden-point "There is NO EVIDENCE that drinking the plague juice, or working around the animals that produce it, will harm you or create another global pandemic that will make COVID look like a blip on the radar!"

biden-troll "And we've been well payed so that it'll stay that way!"

[-] coeliacmccarthy@hexbear.net 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

we fed cattle chicken feces on an industrial scale for decades

this post was submitted on 25 May 2024

28 points (100.0% liked)

news

23454 readers

604 users here now

Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.

Rules:

-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --

-- Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed. --

-- All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. --

-- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also nitter.net (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --

-- Mass tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken markov chain bot will result in a comm ban--

-- Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.--

-- Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned. --

-- Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society. --

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

FidelCastro@hexbear.net

Alaskaball@hexbear.net

SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net

ZoomeristLeninist@hexbear.net

carpoftruth@hexbear.net

GinAndJuche@hexbear.net

Breath_Of_The_Snake@hexbear.net

InsidiousTrackers@hexbear.net