California Issues New Warning Over Bird Flu Detected in Raw Milk

Raw Farm milk under recall. CDPH

California health officials have issued a new warning after another batch of unpasteurized milk was found to have been contaminated with bird flu.

The bird flu virus was detected in a second retail sample of “cream top” whole raw milk from Raw Farm LLC, the California Department of Public Health said in a notice on Wednesday. The contaminated product comes from a lot with the code 20241119 and a best-by date of Dec. 7.

Raw Farm, based in Fresno County, has issued a recall of the affected lot at the state’s request. This follows a previous recall of raw milk products from the same lot code but with a different best-by date of Nov. 27.

This second instance of bird flu was detected in testing by the Santa Clara County Public Health Laboratory, which regularly examines raw milk from retail stores across the county “as a second line of consumer protection.”

So far, there have been no reported illnesses associated with Raw Farm’s products. However, the health department advised that people stop using the affected raw milk and return any remaining product to the store where it was bought.

“As the state continues to investigate the link between bird flu detections in retail raw milk and the ongoing spread of bird flu in dairy cows, poultry and sporadic human cases, consumers are strongly urged to not consume any of the affected raw milk,” the release states.

The department emphasized that pasteurized milk remains safe to drink. Pasteurization, or heat treatment, kills the bird flu virus as well as bacteria such as E. coli, listeria, and salmonella, which are known to make people sick.

The warning came five days after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that a child had tested positive for bird flu in California’s Alameda County. To date, California has reported 29 human cases of bird flu—more than half of the 55 cases confirmed nationwide this year.

Bird flu, or Type A H5N1 influenza, was first detected in U.S. dairy cattle in March and has since spread widely. California has been hit particularly hard, with more than 435 dairy herds reporting infections, far more than any other state. Testing has also revealed high levels of the virus in the milk of infected cows.

About 20 percent of samples of pasteurized milk sold in stores were found to contain viral remnants of the virus, according to surveys conducted in May by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, none of those 297 samples—which came from 132 processing sites in 38 states—contained live infectious viruses.

To date, there’s no evidence that people have been infected with the bird flu virus by drinking raw milk. At least 55 people in the United States are known to have been infected by the virus this year, but nearly all were dairy or poultry workers who developed mild illness after close contact with infected animals.

According to a 2022 study by the FDA, about 4.4 percent of U.S. adults—representing around 11 million people—reported consuming raw milk at least once a year, while about 1 percent said they drink it on a weekly basis.

Proponents of raw milk often cite health benefits, superior taste, and a desire to support local farmers as their primary reasons for choosing unpasteurized dairy, the study found.

Prominent raw milk advocates include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has said he exclusively drinks raw milk. Kennedy, who is slated to assume the nation’s top health post under the second Trump administration, has criticized existing regulations for restricting access to raw milk and pledged to expand its distribution across the country.