The USDA is testing raw milk for the avian flu. Is raw milk safe?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced that it would begin bulk testing batches of raw milk across the country for the avian flu, which began rapidly spreading across cattle in California earlier this year.

In a press conference on May 1, the CDC, FDA and USDA revealed that recent testing on commercial dairy products detected remnants of the H5N1 bird flu virus in one in five samples. However, none contained the live virus that could sicken people and officials said testing reaffirmed that pasteurization kills the bird flu virus, making milk safe to consume.

A continued insistence on consuming raw dairy, which was already a growing trend and concern prior to the avian flu outbreak, led the CDC to issue additional warnings in May, saying "high levels of A(H5N1) virus have been found in unpasteurized (“raw”) milk" and advising that the CDC and FDA "recommend against the consumption of raw milk or raw milk products."

Raw milk is milk that has not gone through the pasteurization process, which is a key food safety step that applies heat in order to kill microorganisms that can cause disease, including H5N1, says Meghan Davis, DVM, MPH, PhD, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Diet and food safety experts say the potential risks and equal nutritional values between raw and pasteurized milk make choosing pasteurization a no-brainer. Here's what they want you to know about the safety issues that arise with raw milk.

Is raw milk safe?

Several leading health organizations — including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatricians — all warn against the consumption of raw milk, citing serious health issues that can put both the person consuming it as well as people around them at risk.

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That's right — by consuming raw milk, you can actually threaten the health and safety of those around you, even if they didn't consume the milk, Davis notes. And those with compromised immune systems, including "toddlers, children, pregnant women or the elderly" are especially susceptible to getting sick.

"It's shared by pro-raw milk drinkers that pasteurization makes cow’s milk less nutritious, but that isn’t true at all," registered dietitian Jamie Nadeau tells USA TODAY. "When you’re weighing the pros and cons, it just doesn’t make sense to choose raw milk."

The major con with raw milk: It contains harmful pathogens that can cause "serious, life-threatening diseases" including Guillain-Barré syndrome and hemolytic uremic syndrome, Nadeau notes. Even if you've had raw milk in the past walked away without getting sick, it's impossible to guarantee that you won't be as lucky the next time.

"Unfortunately there’s no way to guarantee raw milk is safe, even if you get it from a farm that you trust," Nadeau says. "You can get sick from raw milk that’s from the same brand and same source that you previously drank from. Regardless of how healthy the animals are or how well-maintained the farm is, you can still get sick."

Is raw milk actually healthier?

Some people believe that raw milk is healthier than pasteurized milk because it's "less processed." That's just not true, Nadeau says.

"The nutrition changes that happen after pasteurization is extremely minimal," she says. "Pasteurized milk is just as nutritious as raw milk, and it's much safer."

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If it's a less-processed milk that you're after, Davis recommends buying commercially pasteurized but non-homogenized milk, which is also known as cream top. "This has undergone the food safety step: temperature and pressure, but not the additional processing steps," she says.

There are also misconceptions that the bacteria content in raw milk is good for your gut, but those ideas are "far-fetched," Nadeau adds. She recommends foods like yogurt, kefir, kombucha or a probiotic supplement if you're trying to incorporate more gut-heathy items to your diet.

Contributing: Mary Walrath-Holdridge