FDA says commercial milk is safe despite avian flu virus By Reuters

Manas Mishra and Jasper Ward

April 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Tuesday it had detected avian influenza virus particles in some samples of pasteurized milk, but said commercial food supplies remained safe.

The FDA said pasteurized milk remains safe for human consumption because the process kills harmful bacteria and viruses by heating the food to a certain temperature.

“Based on the information available, pasteurization most likely inactivates the virus; however, this process is not expected to eliminate the presence of viral particles,” the FDA said.

The agency said it is testing milk from sick animals in the processing system and on shelves. It said it was finalizing a large, nationally representative sample to understand the scale of the results.

The FDA said it would further evaluate any positive results using egg inoculation testing, which it called the standard for determining viable virus.

The agency said it had seen nothing that would change its assessment of the safety of commercial milk supplies, adding that the results of multiple studies would be available in the coming days or weeks.

“Robust scientific evidence is needed to inform public health decisions like those made by the FDA regarding food safety, and we take the current situation and the safety of the milk supply very seriously,” he said.

Cases of avian influenza in dairy cattle have been confirmed in eight U.S. states, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the human case was linked to an outbreak in dairy cows. The case was reported in Texas on April 1.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru and Jasper Ward in Washington. Editing in Spanish by Marion Giraldo)