Dairy Cow bird flu outbreak

[Smoove_B]

Didn't realize there was a news story about it! That's great.

There were allegedly three studies about Bird Flu that were scheduled to be released today in the new MMWR; none were.

[Max Peck]

One new, for me, bit of information in the NYT article is that some of the feline infections have been linked to raw milk. If cats can be infected by consuming raw milk, then so can people.

Also, the last I heard cats are generally lactose intolerant. Why do people insist on giving them milk, let alone raw milk, in the first place?

[Smoove_B]

I think it's just the intersection of having so-called "barn cats" around farms to deal with all the rodents. They end up just drinking raw milk that's spilled as part of the milking process.

That said, there are absolutely knuckleheads that feed their house pets a raw food diet, so we can't discount them completely. Add in the number of house cats that are allowed to roam freely outdoors and that come back indoors at night or whenever (presumably interacting with wildlife) and you have any number of scenarios where bird flu could jump from a cat to a person.

[Max Peck]

Ah, OK, I wasn't thinking in terms of cats on the dairy farms. Still, regardless of where the cat accessed the milk, if a cat can contract the virus by consuming infected raw milk, then I'd imagine that people can as well.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I think it's one of those "strongly suspected" but not yet confirmed situations yet for humans.

Just need the dice to roll the right combo:

raw milk w/ virus ---> human consumption ----> illness ----> ER visit ---> patient admits raw milk consumption ---> doctor orders genetic sequence