Dairy cows with avian influenza, what?

Written for the High Plains Journal

All hands on deck. I smell a serious rat in the situation that is unfolding in the dairy cattle world. Earlier today, I had a tremendous conversation with Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Sid Miller about the dairy females that are testing positive for H5N1, otherwise known as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. Sid told me that, for the longest time, they were testing these sick cows for bovine diseases when someone suggested there were a large number of dead birds in the area. They tested the cows for H5N1 and got positive test results. Clearly, it was originally called a “mystery disease” and I would say that name still fits.

So right off, let’s describe what the “sick cow” means. As Sid Miller indicated, the cows affected are all in lactation. They are the older cows within in each herd. The young cows seem to be resistant to any symptoms that the older infected cows are experiencing. Now I have had dairy folks tell me that 5-10% of the positive cows will actually dry up and quit milking. For the most part, the cows experience very typical flu-like symptoms. They lose their appetite and have a fever for a few days and then come back into milk and move forward with no issues. In the realm of animal diseases. the situation could be significantly worse.

At the time of this writing, Sid Miller also reported that, for only the second time in recorded US history, a human has contracted H5N1 from interacting with animals. The symptom experienced by the worker on one of the dairies was simple pink eye. As always, there is zero reason to be careless around animals but certainly not a reason to have an elevated fear about contamination.

Honestly, I find the whole think strange. I mean migratory birds cover more than just this path in Texas where the outbreak originated. Yet the animals infected in all states, with the exception of Kansas thus far, have a direct tie to animals from Texas. Capturing many headlines in the past couple of days is the fact that the state of Nebraska announced that it will now require a permit for breeding dairy females with a Health Certificate from the state of origin in order to come into the state. To me, the news in that is the fact that a permit was not already required. As a person who routinely delivers animals to dozens of states, it is rare that permits are not already commonplace.

It needs to be said that this is an animal disease and no way should be confused as a human health issue. The milk from sick cows is discarded and not sent into the normal fluid milk channels. If that were to happen, the pasteurization process would remove any health risk for human consumption. I am concerned that I see quite a few negative sentiments about the consumption of raw milk surfacing through this situation, at a time when raw milk consumption was making a comeback.

Already the fear mongering fools out there are trying to work the consuming public into a frenzy about mass injections of mRNA H5N1 vaccines being given to these cows. That is a blatant lie.

It has not and will not happen. In fact, I attended a USDA meeting last week in Omaha where the poultry producers in the room asked Secretary of Ag Tom Vilsack why the USDA could not champion an Avian Influenza vaccine for birds. His answer was horrible but nothing short of “it will not happen anytime soon.”

At the end of the day, I am going to quote Sid Miller from our broadcast when he said, “This is not a good thing, but certainly it isn’t a real bad thing either.” I am going to predict that if we do not get armed with the truth and become louder than we have been in the past, the collateral damage to dairy and beef production will be severe.

There are plenty of folks in the world today looking to bring the cow business crashing down. Let’s not let them even start crowing about all the problems these cows are suffering. Hey, but then again, we are a week ahead of a solar eclipse that will last less than 4 minutes in any one spot and we have state governors already declaring a state of emergency. That is proof that it doesn’t take much darkness to spook some folks.