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Keeping H5N1 testing voluntary
Ohio’s Agriculture Director Brian Baldridge says keeping H5N1 testing voluntary is important.
“Early on we were a state that had a positive test in a dairy herd, now we’re a non-affected state.”
The USDA says herds that have tested negative for three weeks in a row are considered a non-affected H5N1 state.
He says the department is collaborating with USDA, but communications withing the industry is key.
“We’re monitoring. We’re listening. We’re communicating. We just recently had four states, our neighbors to the east from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, they were all at Ohio Department of Ag and we were just collaborating and talking about best practices (with) those biosecurity issues that we need to be doing.”
Baldridge says communicating to consumers that milk is safe.
“The key is making sure that security aspects are out there and making sure that consumer is comfortable and feels comfortable buying a product.”
Stangler recently interviewed Director Baldridge at the Midwestern Association of State Departments of Agriculture regional meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.
Testing should be mandatory, dairy farmers are milking sick cows and refuse to test for H5N1.
The FDA is finding H5N1 in one fifth of the retail sample they have tested.
I love dairy products, but if dairy farmers milk cows and demand voluntary testing I do not fell comfortable or safe consuming dairy.
I would feel much better if the testing was mandatory and dairy farmers should stop hiding the fact that they are milking sick cows.