Pasteurization working to kill bird flu in milk, early FDA results find
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Preliminary results of tests run by the Food and Drug Administration show that pasteurization is working to kill off bird flu in milk, the agency said Friday. "This additional testing did not detect any live, infectious virus. These results reaffirm our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe," the FDA said in a statement . The FDA's findings come after the agency disclosed that around 1 in 5 samples of retail milk it had surveyed from around the country had tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI H5N1. The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week also ordered testing requirements on cows in response to the outbreak, which has affected growing numbers of poultry and dairy cows . Positive so-called PCR tests in milk can happen as the result of harmless fragments of the virus left over after pasteurization, officials and experts have said, prompting the additional experiments to verify wh...