By Sam Tupper | CNN
Uncooked milk has been linked to not less than 10 diseases in California, in response to the California Division of Public Well being. Not one of the diseases has been recognized as chicken flu, the company mentioned.
“Since announcing multiple recalls of raw milk due to contamination with bird flu, state and local public health experts have received reports of illnesses from 10 individuals who reported drinking raw milk. Initial county and state public health laboratory testing has not identified any positive bird flu infections in these individuals to date,” a spokesperson mentioned Thursday.
The division didn’t instantly present extra details about the ten diseases.
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Well being officers in Northern California are additionally investigating a attainable case of chicken flu in a toddler who turned sick after ingesting uncooked milk in November, Marin County Public Well being mentioned Tuesday. The kid went to an area emergency division with fever and vomiting after ingesting uncooked milk and examined constructive for influenza A, the county mentioned. Nevertheless, the US Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention mentioned Thursday that its exams of samples from the kid have been detrimental for influenza.
Curiosity in uncooked milk has surged amid help from some high-profile followers, together with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s alternative to guide the US Division of Well being and Human Providers.
Though some followers declare there are dietary advantages to ingesting uncooked milk, well being specialists say any purported advantages don’t outweigh the related dangers.
Uncooked milk and a few sorts of uncooked cheese generally is a supply of many sorts of germs, and lab exams present that chicken flu virus in uncooked milk will be infectious.
Uncooked milk and cream merchandise from Fresno-based Uncooked Farm have been recalled and distribution of the merchandise was final month halted after samples examined constructive for chicken flu. Two attainable circumstances of chicken flu have been reported in indoor cats who had consumed uncooked milk from Uncooked Farm, the Los Angeles County Division of Public Well being mentioned Thursday.
In response to the growing presence of the virus, the US Division of Agriculture has introduced that it’s going to start testing uncooked milk saved in dairy silos throughout the nation.
Right here’s what meals scientists and dairy professionals say concerning the myths surrounding uncooked milk and the pasteurization course of.
What’s uncooked milk?
Uncooked milk has not undergone pasteurization, the method that removes disease-causing germs, yeasts, molds and different dangerous microbes, in response to the CDC.
Uncooked milk can carry disease-causing micro organism from contaminated udder tissue, residue from milking gear or particles from the water, soil and cow manure, in response to the US Meals and Drug Administration. That’s why the CDC recommends consuming and ingesting pasteurized milk and dairy merchandise as a substitute.
Most milk within the US is pasteurized utilizing Excessive Temperature Quick Time Pasteurization, which entails heating it to not less than 161 levels Fahrenheit for at least 15 seconds, in response to the Worldwide Dairy Meals Affiliation.
The method was named after French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur, who refined the method to make use of in alcoholic drinks akin to beer and wine, later adapting the tactic to exploit as a technique to take away bovine tuberculosis within the US and Europe within the early 1900s. Roughly 65,000 individuals died of the illness after consuming and ingesting unpasteurized dairy merchandise between 1912 to 1937 in England and Wales alone.
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As an alternative of pasteurization, uncooked milk producers monitor the well being of the cow, in response to Uncooked Farm CEO Mark McAfee.
“We can isolate that cow immediately and make sure she’s OK, and we can treat her,” McAfee instructed CNN.
Uncooked Farm makes use of smaXtec boluses, capsule sensors swallowed by the cows to measure their physique temperature, water consumption, exercise and normal well being. The capsules keep in the identical place within the reticulum for the cow’s life, neither digested nor regurgitated.
The gadgets wirelessly transmit updates each 10 minutes. The information is then sorted by AI to offer info shortly, ought to a cow develop into sick, to make sure that the milk is secure to drink.
Why do individuals drink uncooked milk?
Regardless of the hype, the FDA estimates that lower than 1% of Individuals drink uncooked milk.
Many followers declare to decide on uncooked over pasteurized milk as a result of they like the style, in response to Dr. William Hallman, a professor and psychologist within the Division of Human Ecology at Rutgers College.
“One of the reasons is that some raw milk is not homogenized, which means that cream floats to the top, for example, so some of the first sips may be full of cream,” he mentioned.
There are additionally a wide range of psychological causes, Hallman mentioned. Some individuals imagine it’s more healthy than pasteurized milk, whereas others may wish to help native agriculture or select it as a result of household, buddies or neighbors take pleasure in it. It’s additionally costlier, with some gallons of uncooked milk costing virtually twice as a lot as common milk on the grocery retailer.
“Psychologically, it reinforces the idea that it’s a premium product because otherwise they couldn’t charge so much for it,” he mentioned. “There’s kind of this group effect that becomes normalized.”
In response to the FDA, most of the claims about uncooked milk’s well being advantages aren’t true. For instance, it doesn’t remedy or deal with bronchial asthma, allergy or lactose intolerance, and it doesn’t have the great intestine micro organism that would enhance your microbiome.
“Pasteurization is meant to ensure the bad bacteria that can be harmful to people and make them ill are killed,” mentioned Dr. Rabia de Latour, a gastroenterologist at NYU’s Grossman Faculty of Drugs. “There’s been a lot of recent attention being paid to the concept of ‘processed’ foods being bad for your health. [Pasteurization] still provides some protein and aids in bone health by providing calcium and vitamin D to the drinker, but if you’re very concerned about your microbiome, I believe there are safer ways to enhance it.”
Some methods to enhance your intestine microbiome embrace consuming high-fiber and fermented meals, fruits, greens and additional virgin olive oil.
What are the dangers of ingesting uncooked milk?
Uncooked milk has a impartial pH and substantial dietary and water content material, making it a great surroundings for micro organism and different dangerous pathogens to develop., analysis reveals.
“Milk has around 87% moisture, and microbes love more moisture,” mentioned Alex O’Brien, the meals security and high quality coordinator on the Middle for Dairy Analysis. “The more available water, the easier it is for them to grow.”
The CDC says that ingesting or consuming merchandise constituted of uncooked milk opens the door to a number of dangerous germs, together with E. coli, listeria, salmonella and brucella. One other, Cryptosporidium, can result in very harmful diarrhea in individuals who have HIV or AIDS, de Latour says.
These foodborne diseases may cause signs akin to diarrhea, abdomen cramping and vomiting. In uncommon circumstances, they might result in critical circumstances like Guillain-Barré or hemolytic uremic syndrome. The germs usually tend to trigger well being issues in kids beneath 5, adults over 65, pregnant individuals and the immunocompromised.
What about uncooked cheese?
Uncooked milk can be utilized to make uncooked cheese, and followers say it has a greater, extra advanced taste than pasteurized cheese. Dr. Don Schaffner, a meals science professor at Rutgers College, mentioned the well being danger from uncooked milk cheeses could also be considerably decrease, relying on the kind of cheese.
Onerous aged uncooked milk cheeses like cheddar, Asiago, Parmesan or Swiss are a lot much less dangerous than gentle uncooked milk cheese like queso fresco, feta, Camembert or Brie, Schaffner mentioned.
“Soft raw milk cheeses are not aged … and probably pose about the same level of risk as raw milk itself,” he mentioned.
The CDC says that gentle cheeses with a excessive moisture content material usually tend to be contaminated with listeria micro organism.
“There’s salt that’s added to cheeses, and there is rennet and other additives that make the cheese curdle the milk,” Hallman mentioned. “That aging process and the addition of salt can basically reduce the risk of pathogens. It doesn’t mean it’s risk-free, which is why if you are pregnant or immunocompromised or an older individual, consuming raw milk cheeses can be somewhat risky.”
Why we pasteurize milk
The US Public Well being Service created the Customary Milk Ordinance in 1924 to advertise pasteurization practices and take away dangerous micro organism that would trigger typhoid and scarlet fevers in addition to tuberculosis.
The ordinance, now often known as the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, outlines the necessities for lab testing of milk and dairy merchandise for high quality and security.
Consultants estimate that, earlier than the broader adoption of this method, roughly 25% of all illness outbreaks within the US have been milk-borne.
In response to the FDA, for each 2 billion servings of pasteurized dairy merchandise consumed within the US, about one particular person turns into sick.
Pasteurization “has been incredibly effective at reducing the incidents of milk-borne disease,” Schaffner mentioned. “Any biological organism has optimal conditions that it prefers, and if those deviate, organisms are inactivated. Heat is a very straightforward technology that is easy to apply with precision, and its effect on pathogenic microorganisms is well known.”
Some well being specialists imagine that individuals might proceed to eat uncooked milk regardless of the well being dangers as a result of they imagine that the general likelihood of sickness is low.
“Some people are extremely optimistic, and they believe that if there are risks, they are more likely to be much more likely to apply to other people,” Hallman mentioned. “In this case, they may be focusing primarily on the health benefits and ignoring the risks because it’s more convenient to do that. They underplay the risks by overemphasizing the benefits to justify the choice they’ve made.”
The uncooked milk controversy
Uncooked milk has develop into a very scorching subject due to Kennedy’s vocal help in addition to endorsements from social media influencers and the “Gwyneth Paltrows of the world,” Hallman mentioned. Paltrow has mentioned she drinks uncooked cream in her espresso.
“The evidence for these health benefits is certainly not definitive, whereas the risks certainly are definitive,” he mentioned. “Having worked on a farm and been around cattle, I can pretty much assure you that everything is not sterile around those animals. There’s this romanticized view of this, which is not entirely realistic.”
The credibility and place of these endorsing the product, like Kennedy, who mentioned in a social media publish in October that uncooked milk was amongst an extended record of things that confronted “aggressive suppression,” additionally appears to play a job in uncooked milk’s latest consideration.
Sid Miller, the Texas agriculture commissioner, lately argued in an opinion piece on the division’s web site that customers within the state ought to keep the fitting to buy uncooked dairy merchandise.
“There’s nothing more American than the freedom to choose what kind of food you eat,” he wrote. “Raw milk isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be available. Just as we shouldn’t force people to consume something they don’t want, the government should allow people the right to choose what is best for their personal nutrition.”
Hallman mentioned that some individuals don’t wish to be restricted of their choices and instructed what they will or can’t buy.
“Kind of perversely, some people drink raw milk because they don’t want the government telling them what they should do,” he mentioned. “They support drinking raw milk because they want to maintain their ability, their freedom of choice.”
The dangers of chicken flu
The FDA notes that one more and more frequent pathogen faraway from uncooked milk in the course of the pasteurization course of is H5N1.
This chicken flu virus has precipitated “widespread” sickness in a multistate outbreak amongst US poultry and cows, in response to the CDC.
When cows are contaminated with this pressure of chicken flu, Schaffner mentioned, the focus of the virus shed in milk will be fairly excessive. “Eventually, cows become sick and either stop producing milk or produce poor-quality milk,” he mentioned.
The CDC has reported 58 human circumstances of chicken flu this 12 months, 32 of them in California, the place uncooked milk is authorized to drink and promote. A lot of the circumstances are linked to farm employees who’ve been involved with sick animals.
California additionally reported final month the primary US case recognized in a toddler; the CDC that the virus from that case resembled these beforehand detected in people, cattle and poultry within the state however that it’s not clear how the kid was uncovered.
Chicken flu signs in people embrace flu-like signs like eye redness, sore throat, runny nostril, cough, diarrhea, vomiting, physique aches, fatigue, hassle swallowing or fever. Well being specialists encourage anybody who has consumed uncooked milk and notices signs to alert their health-care suppliers or native well being departments.
“We’ve seen the flu move from birds to cow,” de Latour mentioned. “If you were to drink raw milk of a sick animal shedding this virus, theoretically, yes, maybe you could potentially contract bird flu, but we haven’t seen that happen yet. … The ultimate big fear here is human-to-human transmission, which we have not yet seen.”
CNN’s Meg Tirrell and Jamie Gumbrecht contributed to this report.
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