USDA orders dairy cows to be tested for bird flu if moved across state lines
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday issued a federal order that any dairy cows being transported from one farm to another across state lines should be tested for bird flu.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday issued a federal order that any dairy cows being transported from one farm to another across state lines should be tested for bird flu.
The new order comes one day after the Food and Drug Administration said that fragments of the bird flu virus were found in samples of pasteurized milk on store shelves. On Wednesday, the FDA said that, in order to identify where the contaminated milk was found, it was conducting a nationwide survey of commercially sold milk and would release its results in the coming days.
When the outbreak was first detected at the end of March, in an effort to keep the milk supply safe, farmers were instructed to discard the milk of sick cows, Don Prater, acting director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said during a joint media briefing Wednesday.
Farmers were also told by the USDA to test symptomatic cows.
The discovery of the virus in the commercial milk supply, however, indicates those approaches weren't enough.
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