Raw milk giant stops sales as bird flu hits California dairy industry
Large-scale raw milk producer Raw Farm stops distribution after bird flu found in products Testing shows virus presence in Californiaʼs biggest raw dairy operation with weekly output of 70k gallons
Raw Farm‚ the nations biggest raw milk maker stopped selling its products after bird-flu showed up in testing samples. The company (which makes about 70000 gallons weekly) got hit with a state-ordered pause in early december
The spread of bird flu has become a real issue since last spring - hitting almost 500 dairy places in California. Health experts say dont drink raw milk because it might have bad stuff in it including this virus. Mark McAfee who owns Raw Farm with its 1700 cows; says the pause might last a month or two
Raw milk isnt very common in the US: its sold in 30 states and makes up less than 1% of milk sales. Interestingly Robert F Kennedy Jr whose name came up for a health job if Trump wins next time buys Raw Farms products. The companys owner McAfee says hes talking with Kennedys team about maybe working at FDA
Santa Clara county found the problem when they checked some samples: they test raw milk every week since summer. The farm got checked on nov 27th and the next day tests came back positive. Now theyre sending milk to be heated-up and sold under different names
This year bird flu got to:
* Almost 60 people in US
* 31 cases just in California
* Mostly farm workers
* Some cats that drank raw milk
The food-and-drug people say regular store milk is safe because the heating kills the virus. Even though no people got sick from drinking raw milk with bird flu yet cats did die from it
