USDA to take ‘extra step’ to test dairy beef for bird flu • Pennsylvania Capital-Star

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to embark on a yearlong study beginning next month to test samples for evidence of highly pathogenic avian influenza from former dairy cattle transferred to beef production.

Emilio Esteban, USDA’s undersecretary for food safety, told reporters on a call Tuesday that the new testing program follows three studies conducted over the spring and summer that found beef in the nation’s food supply to be safe to eat.

“However, we want to go one step further,” Esteban said. “And this means that when these carcasses are analysed, they will be preserved and not marketed until we have the results.”

The virus, also known as avian flu or H5N1, has been detected in wild birds and domestic poultry in the United States for years. But the current outbreak in dairy cattle has forced animal and human health experts to establish testing for a new community of farmworkers and ranchers.

News of additional testing of the nation’s meat supply came alongside the results of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration study that reinforced the safety of pasteurized dairy products.

Steve Grube, medical director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said the most recent round of dairy product testing included 167 foods that were processed in 27 states in June and July.

“None of the product samples contained viable H5N1 virus, reinforcing that pasteurization is effective,” he said. “The second study was intended to address geographic and product deficiencies from the initial sampling of the commercial milk and dairy product supply that FDA conducted during April and May.”

Testing milk in bulk tanks

Federal officials have also launched a voluntary program for farmers to test milk in bulk tanks for H5N1, a move intended to make it easier for them to move their cows between states without having to test each one individually.

Eric Deeble, USDA’s deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said the department’s Farm Service Agency has approved 23 of the 35 applications it has received so far to help ease the financial burden on dairy producers who remove their herds from production after testing positive.

The program, known as Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farmed Fish, has approved more than $1 million in payments.

The price paid to farmers is based on a formula that includes the previous month’s milk price as well as the number of dairy cows that contract H5N1.

Deeble said on the call with reporters that of the approved applications, a dozen are from Colorado, which has seen a marked increase in the number of positive H5N1 tests within its dairy industry.

Deeble argued that the increase is due to certain factors within the state and cautioned people not to assume that if testing were increased in other areas of the country, the number of positive H5N1 tests for dairy cattle would increase.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily accurate to extrapolate the situation from Weld County, Colorado,” Deeble said. “Weld County and the Colorado dairy industry in particular are pretty unique in the degree to which dairies are closely associated with each other, both spatially and in the way that there’s a lot of movement between facilities.”

“It’s a very integrated dairy community that is isolated from much of the rest of the state, and there’s a lot of connectivity between facilities in the way they use vehicles, support services and milk trucks,” Deeble added.

Over the past 30 days, five states have had dairy cattle test positive for H5N1, including Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota and Texas.

Colorado has a disproportionate number of cases, with 26 dairy herds testing positive, while the other four states combined have a total of six herds.

Other mammals diagnosed with H5N1 over the past six weeks have been largely in Colorado, where the virus has been found in house mice, deer mice, domestic cats, a desert cottontail rabbit and a prairie vole.

Effect on cats

Public health officials said during Tuesday’s call that they are starting to take a closer look at when and why cats are affected by the spread of H5N1.

Barn cats, as well as those that hunt outdoors, and that regularly come into contact with wild birds that contain an H5N1 reservoir, have tested positive for the virus in the past.

But a report from the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association released earlier this month noted that two of the six cats diagnosed with H5N1 in that state this year “were cats that lived only indoors and had not been directly exposed to the virus.”

Public health officials on the call were unable to answer a question about how indoor-only cats might have come into contact with H5N1.

Experts on the call warned that as fall approaches, wild birds will begin to migrate and dairy producers will likely ship their cattle at an increased rate, which could lead to an increase in the number of positive H5N1 cases being reported in dairy cattle, as well as other animals.

Lia Chien contributed to this report.