Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect most of them are. I'll bet that the process of becoming cheese treats the bugs. From what I hear, consuming raw milk is what's dangerous.
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Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
41–50 of 58 posts
Re: Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
#42Re: Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whut? Please explain. I’m afraid I’m too dense to understand that. I didn’t mean to insult anyone’s sacred cow. I just have some experience in this. However, unhomogenized milk can be pretty cool. When we lived in London, we used to get daily deliveries of bottled, unhomogenized milk, and I always loved taking the cream off the top.
"MilaM" asked "I wonder if it is reasonably safe to consume [the raw milk, aged cheese I just bought]". You answered "I would suggest not". "bartonfink" (reasonably but rudely) took this to mean you were saying that cheese made from raw milk was "not" "reasonably safe to consume". What did you actually mean by "I would suggest not"?
Then my apologies. I assumed that it was raw milk and cheese; not cheese, made from raw milk.
Carry on, then. My bad.
See how easy that was?
It was my mistake, and I have absolutely no problem, admitting it, but it did not require any name-calling.
Re: Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
#44Well we know what will be the next pandemic if we don’t get this handled.
I’m sure there are plenty of people paid handsomely by the meat and dairy industry to make this go away quietly, so we’re plenty safe. /s
Re: Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
#45Just yesterday, I bought a raw milk, aged cheese. Now I wonder if it is reasonably safe to consume them in light of this development.
Cheese is a little different because the aging process kills some pathogens. But I'd check with your local food safety authorities. Edit: SciAm says a qualified "mostly safe": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-raw-milk-chees...
So avoid the creme fraiche, dive into the parmigiana?
Re: Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I can tell, it's in the same weird "purity" deal as anti-vax, anti-mask, and various other kinds of orthorexia. As well as being aligned with anti-helmet and anti-seatbelt campaigners: seemingly they want it because it's dangerous. It makes them feel good to reject objective standards of safety and substitute their own specialness. After all, they're the protagonist, they can't die in the middle of the show…
Raw milk isn't anywhere near as dangerous as the other choices you mention except during a cow pandemic. Still, I agree, the risk/reward seems like it could throw an exception. I would like to controversially throw preservatives in bread into the same category. When we started adding preservatives to bread, the incidence of colon cancer dropped significantly. Bread mold isn't good for you, preservatives have a very l…
The tendency for HN comments to focus on a relatively less important detail and completely ignore the larger implications never ceases to amaze.
Certainly the safety of raw milk is important for the 2% of the population that drinks it, and we should add H5N1 to the existing pile of pathogens they should worry about like E. coli, salmonella, listeria and campylobacter.
The far more significant fact that we're not discussing for some reason is that H5N1 has not only jumped from birds to mammals, but it's spreading rapidly between different species of mammals. And not just cattle from coast to coast in the US, but also bears, foxes, skunks, minks, raccoons, otters, seals, sea lions, domestic cats and even at least one dolphin. And for many of these mammals, not only does it spread fast, it also has a very high fatality rate.
If the virus has mutated to spread rapidly from mammal to mammal, and it also spreads to many different species of mammal, that's a very new thing that's never been seen before with this virus.
I don't know what the probability is for this to turn in to a high-mortality human pandemic, but that probability is certainly orders of magnitude greater now than before the virus achieved mammal-to-mammal transmission.
Re: Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cheese is a little different because the aging process kills some pathogens. But I'd check with your local food safety authorities. Edit: SciAm says a qualified "mostly safe": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-raw-milk-chees...
I am aware, that ageing has a positive effects with regard to food safety. What I'm less certain of is if this is also true for viruses.
I'm no expert so don't treat my comments as health advice, but viruses are large complex molecules and they don't tend to survive intact very long outside of living cells, do they?
Re: Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am aware, that ageing has a positive effects with regard to food safety. What I'm less certain of is if this is also true for viruses.
I'm no expert so don't treat my comments as health advice, but viruses are large complex molecules and they don't tend to survive intact very long outside of living cells, do they?
When smallpox was eradicated, the WHO organized teams to collect and destroy samples of smallpox used in remote places for variolation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation#Decline IIRC the samples they found were too old and did not contain viable virus, but they were afraid they could start a new smallpox epidemic. So ... I guess they think virus can survive for a long time.
Re: Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
#49The whole raw milk thing boggles my mind. It’s hardly a secret that it’s dangerous yet people do it anyway
You need to comprehend the complete loss of trust in authority. This has gone so far as to be inverted: if the government, academia, media, etc enthusiastically endorse something then it is assumed to be harmful until proven otherwise. I say this as someone who shares this mindset. It is as shocking to me that you would queue up for a dangerous vaccine, support mass 3rd world immigration, consume slop full of soy and…
A healthy scepticism for gov and media seems good to me but inverting what they’re saying seems less than sound. At that point what’s left as a sound basis? Fringe blogs? Facebook lunatics?
Do your own research isn’t viable either given that I can’t be an expert in everything. Especially with the rise of misinformation. At some point you’ve got to trust something
Steak and eggs from the farm seems quite reasonable to me. ;)
Re: Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I can tell, it's in the same weird "purity" deal as anti-vax, anti-mask, and various other kinds of orthorexia. As well as being aligned with anti-helmet and anti-seatbelt campaigners: seemingly they want it because it's dangerous. It makes them feel good to reject objective standards of safety and substitute their own specialness. After all, they're the protagonist, they can't die in the middle of the show…
Not sure why this is downvoted. Probably because of the agressive wording, but imo you are right. They just want the pure milk, because it's pure. Not because it's better in any way. I do wonder every now and then if there is a way to stop this trend. I do believe that most people know that they'd have all the information available to prove themselves wrong. But that's just uncomfortable. Being the one who "knows bet…
I do not drink raw milk. However, I have once or twice on a farm, and it does taste better. More creamy and full bodied. Like the difference between pasturised orange juice and fresh orange juice. So there is a reason other than purity and ego.
The French can access raw milk and cheeses made from raw milk. As I understand it, one or two people a year in France die from this.