With three dairy herds in California now testing positive for high path avian influenza, bringing the total number of states infected to 14, now is not the time to drop our food security guard. Dr. Robert Califf is the Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, and he says his agency’s mission is to protect our food today and into the future.

“So surveillance of the milk will be an ongoing issue that we’ll need to deal with, because this virus is all around the world in multiple species of birds. Infection of cattle, this is a new thing that we’re all just learning about, and it’s going to be critical that as we deal with the virus, we try to keep the amount of viruses circulating around to the lowest level possible.”

He says FDA will continue to work with all partners to mitigate risk.

“This is a virus that’s been on the top of the list globally for pandemics for some years now, so we have to contain that risk, but also to assure the farming community that no one will be penalized because their herds get infected. And there, we’re not the primary player, but we all work together, particularly with the USDA, which has a really major role to play there.”

Dr. Califf is particularly concerned with the H5N1 virus mutating into something even more dangerous to human health.

“Why does the virus attached to the mammary tissue in the cow of all things? It’s because a particular mutation of this strain of the virus enables it to do that. Right now in humans, the mutation has led it to attach to the conjunctiva, the lining of the eye, and so people get pink eye. It’s not attaching to the lining of the lung. But if a mutation occurred that enabled that to happen, we’d have a big problem. The less virus there is, the less chance there is that a random mutation will lead to this kind of arrest to the human population.”

He’s also watching out for mutations on the farm.

“Right now, the pigs have been spared, but if the pigs become infected, there’s a lot of reason to believe, from what veterinarians have learned, that when influenza virus get into pigs, the mutations are favored, which tend to cause worse infections in human beings. And so containing this on the farm, it’s going to be critical for a whole lot of reasons.”