With the recent news about the multistate bird flu outbreak, the question of whether raw milk is safe to drink might have just gotten even more serious. According to the most recent data available from the CDC, as of June 28, more than 130 dairy herds in states across the country have been affected by the virus, raising the possibility that their milk could be contaminated as well.
While the CDC recommends you definitely do not drink raw milk (or eat products made from it), proponents continue to claim that its purported benefits—like “boosting” immunity or offering more nutrients than pasteurized milk—outweigh its potential risks. So what’s the real deal behind raw milk—and can you get bird flu from it? SELF connected with a few experts to get all of your questions answered.
Here’s how raw milk differs from the regular stuff.
Simply put, raw milk is unpasteurized; it hasn’t been heated for long enough to eliminate harmful pathogens that might be in it, Nicole Martin, PhD, an assistant research professor in dairy foods microbiology at Cornell University, tells SELF. That means the drink doesn’t undergo the processing necessary to help prevent foodborne illnesses.
In 1987, the FDA mandated that milk sold interstate in the US must be pasteurized, John Lucey, PhD, the director of the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells SELF. That means that raw milk can’t be sold across state lines. However, individual states can make their own decisions about sales within the state: According to the FDA, 20 states prohibit it in some form, while 30 allow it.
Despite what raw milk fans may believe, the pasteurization process doesn’t mess with the nutritional makeup of the beverage. For example, it doesn’t alter the concentration of minerals or significantly change the quality of protein in the drink, according to a 2015 review published in Nutrition Today. What’s more, evidence for immune-boosting effects just isn’t there, either. Raw milk doesn’t pack enough antibodies—proteins that help build up your body’s defenses against illness—to make a difference health-wise, according to the FDA. “Ultimately, we haven’t seen any [overall] proven benefit from consuming raw milk,” Dr. Lucey says.
What are the health risks of drinking raw milk?
Raw milk gets contaminated in two main ways. The first is internal: If the animals carry illness-causing pathogens, then the bugs can seep into their milk. Second, external factors like polluted water, dirt, manure (livestock can kick it into the milk supply), and contaminated equipment can introduce germs.
The bird flu virus might be your biggest concern at the moment, but raw milk can harbor plenty of other bugs, including E. coli, Campylobacter, and Salmonella bacteria. Symptoms of infection can include diarrhea, stomach pain or cramps, nausea, vomiting, or fever, Dr. Lucey explains, though they can vary depending on the bug causing it. The effects can be more severe for children, people 65 years or older, pregnant folks, or those with compromised immune systems, Dr. Martin says. But anyone can get really sick from downing raw milk products. In rare cases, the beverage can cause serious issues like hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can lead to kidney failure and stroke, or Guillain-Barré syndrome—a condition that can cause paralysis. Especially severe illness can even be deadly.
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According to a 2022 study conducted by the CDC, 202 foodborne illness outbreaks were linked to raw milk from 1998 to 2018 (the most recent data available). That may not seem like that high of a number, but if you compare the likelihood of getting sick from pasteurized milk compared to the raw stuff, a pretty clear discrepancy emerges, Dr. Martin says. Though unpasteurized products make up a minuscule percentage (less than an estimated 1%) of total dairy consumption in the US, they accounted for 60% of 121 dairy-associated outbreaks from 1993 to 2006, according to a 2012 review in the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. And raw milk products cause 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalizations than the pasteurized stuff, according to separate research published in the same journal in 2017.
What’s more, there’s no way to know whether your raw milk is in the clear. Testing doesn’t always pick up on low levels of bacteria, the CDC notes—so there’s no guarantee that you won’t get sick from drinking it.
What does all this mean with the latest bird flu concerns?
We already know that hanging out around infected cows can potentially transmit H5N1 to people, but more indirect methods can also be risky.
Cows can apparently secrete the virus into their milk, Scott Roberts, MD, an infectious diseases expert and assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, tells SELF. Investigators monitoring the outbreak have found traces of the bird flu virus in samples of commercial milk—as in, the stuff on the supermarket shelves. Crucially, however, the virus was dead, meaning it didn’t pose any bird flu risk, according to Dr. Roberts.
In all likelihood, Dr. Roberts says, the virus was killed during pasteurization, underscoring the importance of that process. “Even if a cow happened to be infected and that milk happened to get to your refrigerator, if your milk has been pasteurized, there should be no concern, from a bird flu perspective, of ingesting that milk,” Dr. Roberts says.
Raw milk, however, is another story. Starting in mid-March, more than half of the cats on a Texas dairy farm became sick and died after they were fed colostrum and milk from infected cows, researchers wrote in the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. And the science journal Nature reports that “astronomical numbers” of viral particles have been detected in raw milk, suggesting that the act of milking has probably contributed to the spread of the virus. While Dr. Roberts isn’t aware of any human bird flu cases linked to consuming unpasteurized dairy, and the CDC doesn’t know if transmission that way is even possible, both explicitly advise against it due to the potential risks.
“I would say we should not play with fire, especially with something that is as deadly as bird flu when it does get to humans,” Dr. Roberts says, though he does stress the risk to the general population is low. “I wouldn't recommend taking a chance.”
Is there a safe way to eat or drink any unpasteurized dairy products?
Sorry, cheese, ice cream, or yogurt made from raw milk isn’t any different from raw milk itself: All unpasteurized dairy products are risky, Dr. Martin says. The safest way to eat or drink the beverage (and any treats made with it) is to make sure it’s pasteurized, she says. So you might want to consider raw milk off the table—at least if you want to avoid bird flu, salmonella infection, or another nasty disease. Tempting as a glass might be, it’s not worth the spoiled stomach or other symptoms that might follow.
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