Washington Post Opinion Failure to shield farmworkers could allow the H5N1 virus to become a greater threat.
The discovery of bird flu virus particles in milk has moved the federal government to take more aggressive action to prevent the further spread of H5N1 on dairy farms. The Agriculture Department has rightly issued new testing recommendations meant to keep the virus from spreading across state lines. But this additional testing will do little to address the primary threat that H5N1 poses to humans: the infection of farmworkers. Our failure to protect them threatens their health andgives the virus an opportunity to evolve into a greater threat to people, including those who live far from dairy farms.
The discovery of viral material in milk sold in American stores is not in itself alarming. Pasteurization, though it doesn’t remove pathogens, destroys their ability to infect people. Follow-up testing has confirmed this: Researchers have not been able to isolate and grow the virus from pasteurized milk.
But H5N1 poses risks to dairy workers, who may be exposed to infected cows and to milk before it is pasteurized. So far, only one dairy worker in the United States is known to have been infected, and fortunately this person experienced only mild eye inflammation. But there are reports that other dairy workers have gotten sick at the same time that cows have. Veterinarian Barb Peterson told Bovine Veterinarian, “There’s been underreporting of the virus. Understandably, there’s been a lot of fear. But every dairy that I’ve worked with has — with the exception of one — had sick human beings at the same time they had sick cows.”
These reports are concerning, not because the infections are severe but because any rise in human infections boosts the chances that the virus will find its way to someone who has more medical conditions and may have a worse disease outcome if infected. And H5N1 has not historically been mild in humans. Of the almost 900known cases of H5N1 infection in humans worldwide, the virus has killed about half.
So it is crucial to protect from exposure farmworkers who are likely to be in contact with infected animals. The eye protection and masks recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be readily available to all dairy workers. All states have access to this protective equipment, but making sure dairy farms and operations provide it to their workers and normalize its use will take education.