The detection of the avian influenza virus in milk has led U.S. health officials to warn the public to avoid potential sources of infection, such as drinking raw or unpasteurized milk, and reiterated general warnings that eating raw or undercooked chicken and beef products can make people sick.
Relatively few people drink raw milk: Just 3% of American adults said they had drunk raw milk in the past 12 months, and 4% weren’t sure whether they had, according to a July Annenberg Public Policy Center national health survey of about 1,500 U.S. adults.
But many more say they don’t use a thermometer to check if food is cooked to a high enough temperature to kill bacteria and viruses, including avian influenza A viruses like H5N1 currently found in U.S. cattle. And the survey found that most people don’t know what internal temperature food needs to be to kill bacteria and viruses.
Using a food thermometer
Just one in four U.S. adults (27%) say they “often” or “always” use a thermometer to check if the internal temperature of the meat, poultry or fish they consume has reached a safe eating temperature. 29% say they “never” use a thermometer to check food temperatures, 20% say they “rarely” use one and 20% “sometimes” use one.
Use a food thermometer to determine if meat, poultry, fish, and eggs are cooked to a safe internal temperature — a temperature that kills bacteria. E. coli and Salmonellais the way to protect yourself from food poisoning. Every cook should keep a food thermometer within easy reach in the kitchen or near the grill.”
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) at the University of Pennsylvania
The data is 20Number The survey was conducted by independent market research firm SSRS for the Annenberg Public Policy Center and is a nationally representative panel of 1,496 U.S. adults. The Annenberg Science in Public Health (ASAPH) Knowledge Survey was conducted July 11-18, 2024, and has a margin of error (MOE) of ± 3.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. See topline and methodology for more information.
Most people don’t know the proper food temperature to kill viruses such as bird flu.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “There is no evidence that people in the United States have been infected with avian influenza A virus after eating properly handled and cooked chicken products; however, the small number of cases of people in Southeast Asia becoming infected with avian influenza A virus may have been caused by uncooked chicken or chicken products, such as blood.” The USDA reported in May that as part of testing of 96 dairy cows, the virus was detected in the meat of one “cull” cow, but that it had not entered the food chain and they were confident that the meat supply was safe. “While we have taken multiple safeguards to protect consumers, we continue to encourage consumers to properly handle raw meat and cook it to a safe internal temperature.”
The APPC survey found that the majority of U.S. adults do not know the correct temperature to heat food to in order to kill the H5N1 virus, or avian flu. Thinking about viruses, survey respondents were asked to indicate which of the following measures would “kill the H5N1 virus,” selecting all that apply. More than half of those surveyed (51%) answered “I don’t know” about this item, and 4% incorrectly answered “none of them would kill it.”
- Poultry cooking At least 165 degrees Fahrenheit (correct): Fewer than 4 in 10 people (38%) selected this option as the correct answer. According to the CDC, cooking chicken and eggs to an internal temperature of 165 degrees kills bacteria and viruses, including H5N1.
- Cooking ground beef At least 165 degrees Fahrenheit (correct): While this is true, less than one in three people surveyed (29%) chose this option. (In fact, the CDC recommends cooking ground beef to at least 160 degrees.)
- Heating up the steak At least 145 degrees (correct): Just over one in five people (21%) chose this as the correct answer. According to the CDC, whole cuts of beef should be cooked to 145 degrees and then allowed to rest for three minutes.
- Beef freezing At least 20 degrees Fahrenheit (Incorrect): Only 7% of people chose this because they thought it was correct (it’s wrong). According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, avian influenza can survive and remain infectious indefinitely when frozen.
- Cooking the beef At least 120 degrees (Incorrect): Only 10% of people choose this, but this is incorrect.
Bird flu outbreak
Unpasteurized or raw milk comes from animals such as cows, sheep, and goats and is not pasteurized to kill harmful bacteria. It is estimated that unpasteurized dairy products “cause 840 times more illness and 45 times more hospitalizations than pasteurized dairy products.” The CDC states that consuming unpasteurized milk or products made from it “can expose people to bacteria such as: Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, Salmonella.“
In fact, according to The New York Times, a Salmonella outbreak linked to unpasteurized milk from a Law Farm in Fresno, California, sickened 171 people and hospitalized 22 between September 2023 and March 2024. The paper said this was the largest raw milk-related outbreak recorded in the past 20 years.
In June, the FDA reported in an open letter that avian influenza, or H5N1 avian influenza virus, had been detected in milk. The presence of H5N1 avian influenza was confirmed in U.S. cattle in mid-March 2024. As of July 25, 2024, there have been 13 cases of avian influenza infection in the U.S. since April 2024, of which four cases were after contact with cattle and nine after contact with poultry in Colorado. As of mid-July, 168 cattle herds in 13 states and more than 100 million poultry birds in 48 states have been affected.
Raw milk and avian flu
As of mid-June 2024, the FDA has stated that “the totality of the evidence indicates that commercial milk supplies [which is pasteurized] The FDA says it is currently unknown whether the H5N1 virus can be transmitted to humans through consuming raw dairy products from infected cows, but a study in mice concluded that “the virus in untreated milk can be infectious to susceptible animals that ingest it,” and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has said that drinking raw milk “may pose a risk of human infection.”
According to the Annenberg survey, 15% of respondents believe that drinking raw milk makes you more likely to catch bird flu, while 33% believe that drinking raw milk has no effect on your chances of catching bird flu. Nearly half (49%) of those surveyed were not sure.
What people know about pasteurization and the risks of raw milk
According to the CDC, pasteurization is “critical to the safety of milk, killing harmful bacteria that can cause illness,” and the NIH says that “dairy products purchased at the grocery store are pasteurized, meaning they are heated to a high temperature and long enough to kill most viruses and bacteria found in milk.”
However, the survey found that just over half (54%) of people surveyed know that unpasteurized milk is less safe to drink than pasteurized milk: 6% believe raw milk is safer to drink, 13% believe raw and pasteurized milk are equally safe, while 27% don’t know which is safer.
The survey also found that:
- Bacteria and viruses62% believe it’s likely that raw milk contains bacteria or viruses that can make you sick, 16% say it’s unlikely and 22% say they’re not sure.
- The effectiveness of pasteurization77% know that pasteurization is effective in killing bacteria and viruses in raw milk, 4% say it is not effective, and 20% say they don’t know.
- NutrientsMore than a quarter (26%) of those surveyed said raw milk contains more nutrients than pasteurized milk, 30% thought it contained “about the same amount of nutrients as pasteurized milk,” and 40% said they weren’t sure.
Advocates of drinking raw milk argue that pasteurization destroys valuable nutrients, but the FDA says raw milk is “not nutritionally superior” to pasteurized milk.
Avian flu and seasonal flu vaccines
Nearly two-thirds of people surveyed did not know that seasonal flu vaccines do not help prevent bird flu. 21% believe it helps prevent people exposed to H5N1 bird flu from becoming seriously ill, and 44% were not sure if it would work. Just over one-third (35%) of people surveyed know that seasonal flu vaccines do not help prevent people exposed to bird flu from becoming seriously ill.
APPC ASAPH Survey
The survey data is from 20Number The first wave of a nationally representative panel of 1,496 U.S. adults first selected in April 2021 was conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center by independent market research firm SSRS. The Annenberg Science in Public Health Knowledge (ASAPH) survey was conducted July 11-18, 2024, with a margin of error (MOE) of ±3.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number and may not sum to 100%. Due to rounding, combining subcategories may not add up to topline and text totals.
See our topline and methodology for more details.
Through its Annenberg Science in Public Health (ASAPH) Survey Panel, the Policy Center has been tracking the American public’s knowledge, beliefs and behaviors regarding vaccinations, COVID-19, influenza, maternal health, climate change and other critical health issues for more than three years. In addition to Jamieson, the APPC team includes Senior Data Analyst Laura Gibson, Research Analyst Shawn Patterson Jr., Annenberg Institute for Health and Risk Communication Director Patrick E. Jamieson who developed the questions, and Managing Director of Survey Research Ken Wineg.
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Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania
