Beef tissue from diseased cows Test positive Federal officials said Friday that the country is conducting research for the bird flu virus.
The USDA said the cow was slaughtered because of its illness and its meat did not enter the food supply. The department continued to emphasize that the commercial food supply remains safe.
But the positive test result, part of an ongoing federal government study into beef safety, has raised concerns about whether the virus could enter the commercial beef supply and pose a risk to human health.
So far, the virus, called H5N1, has only been found in dairy cows and not in cattle raised for meat. But experts believe the outbreak is more serious than Official statistics Fifty-eight dairy herds in nine states were affected.
“Clearly, this phenomenon is widespread and requires continued vigilance,” said Brian Roholm, food policy director for the advocacy group Consumer Reports.
Overall, he said, he believes the risk to consumers remains low. But he added, “Consumers must ensure meat is cooked to the proper temperature for added protection.”
Officials and experts say thorough cooking likely kills any viruses that might have entered the meat; preliminary lab tests on ground beef support that idea.
But Dr. Gail Hansen, an independent food safety and veterinary health expert who has been critical of the federal government’s response to the outbreak in dairy cows, said officials were overconfident about the safety of beef.
“People do eat undercooked meat or even raw meat,” she said. “So until science confirms or disproves these assumptions, reassurances from government agencies again undermine public confidence.”
The USDA says inspectors identifying sick cows and keeping their meat out of the food supply is proof its measures are working. But some infected cows don’t have symptoms and may not be caught by such inspection systems. The agency has not found the virus in ground beef samples collected from retail stores in states where cows have tested positive.
So far, the agency’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has tested tissue samples from 96 dairy cows that were culled for signs of the disease. Only one sample from a cow tested positive for the H5N1 virus, and more muscle samples are being tested, according to the agency.
Dr. David Acheson, former chief medical officer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said the findings released Friday are further evidence that people should be careful when cooking and preparing meat. Food safety experts recommend that meat be cooked thoroughly to prevent infection with more common pathogens such as salmonella, listeria and E. coli.
“These food safety recommendations were developed long before H5N1 became a problem, and they should always be our baseline standard,” said Dr. Keith Paulson, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Announce results From an experimental study, researchers added high concentrations of the virus to beef patties and found that when the hamburgers were grilled to 160 degrees Fahrenheit (the internal temperature of a well-done burger) or 145 degrees Fahrenheit (the temperature of a medium-rare burger), the meat was free of the virus.
However, the virus was still present in rare burgers cooked at 120 degrees, a temperature that the agency said “essentially inactivates the virus.”
“All signs point to this: If you cook food, even if there’s a virus in it, you’re going to kill it,” said Stacey Schultz-Cherry, a virologist and flu expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Matthew Moore, a food science expert at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said experts want to learn more about the positive samples, including the levels of the virus they contained. It is not yet clear whether the virus was live or inactivated. Whether people can get bird flu by eating contaminated food remains an open question. A study published Friday found that unpasteurized milk was contaminated with the virus and caused illness in mice, adding to experts’ concerns that drinking raw milk could harm humans. A few cats Some people have also died from drinking contaminated raw milk.
