United States: A conservative advocacy group led by scam artist Charlie Kirk is urging Americans to consume raw milk now when a widespread flu outbreak makes this potentially fatal.
This is one among several acts of right-wing groups and media pundits after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned against raw milk due to the rampant spread of H5N1 bird flu among the cattle population.
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Turning Point USA, this group is in fact, encouraging the wearing of T-shirts that read ‘Got raw milk?’
FDA has clearly pointed out that there are no benefits at all of consuming raw milk over pasteurized milk. It explained that raw milk wasn’t safe for consumption even before the flu and is linked to the spread of several diseases like tuberculosis, as dailykos.com reported.
Experiments showed that raw milk has the potential to pass on the H5N1 flu virus to lab animals. In one instance, cats died after consuming milk produced from infected cows. Drinking raw milk is never safe, and it’s worse now because of the spread of diseases.
Widespread infection cases in the US
Avian flu, or H5N1 flu, has affected at least 12 states, with dairy cattle being infected by the flu because it is easily transmittable among both domestic and wild birds.
This is not only affecting its cattle population, but the flu is also decimating millions of poultry across the country. Currently, it is documented that at least one dairy worker in the state of Texas got infected by handling diseased cattle.
Lethal substrains of H5N1
Previous subtypes of H5N1 have demonstrated evidence of lethality in people, and it has a 56 percent mortality rate in those affected, as dailykos.com reported.
Thus, it can be concluded that this type of flu is one of the deadliest diseases that people can come across on the planet. In comparison, the fatality rate of COVID-19 was just greater than 1 percent, where many deaths occurred during the first phase of the pandemic when there was no vaccine and little understanding regarding treatment for the disease.
H5N1 is even more lethal than smallpox and has the potential to mutate and cause more harm to humans.
CDC is making efforts to limit infection spread
Given the seriousness of the disease, the CDC is looking for ways to prevent this virus from getting from one person to another.
Milk from the first infected grocery store was tested positive to the flu in April and the H5N1 has went round in the commercial milk production, however the pasteurisation of the milk makes it safe for drinking.
Thus, raw milk is still one of the few transmission roads that exist beside having contact with infected cows or poultry.
Raw milk promotion by Republicans
The Republicans are now apparently great fans of raw milk, even if they had little use for it before. The far-right media have been pushing raw milk, and the FDA, which has been warning against drinking raw milk amid the flu outbreak, is being called a conspiracy between the government and “big milk.”