Dairy cows on a farm in Crestwood, Kentucky, in 2021. Credit: Luke Sharrett / Bloomberg / Getty

Public health officials in California detected bird flu in a sample of raw milk this month. The virus first spread to dairy cattle in the US in March.

The discovery comes amid an increasingly heated public debate about the merits and drawbacks of raw milk. Robert F Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaccine activist and Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services (HHS), is a proponent of raw milk and has claimed that as HHS secretary, he will support farmers who sell it. At the same time, public health experts have continued to advise against drinking raw milk, which is more likely to contain an array of harmful bacteria.

Here’s what you need to know.

What is raw milk and why are people talking about it?

Raw milk comes straight from the cow (or sheep or goat) and has not been pasteurized. Developed by Louis Pasteur at the end of the 19th century to help kill harmful bacteria in wine, pasteurization is the process of heating liquids in order to eliminate harmful pathogens […]

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