Traces of bird flu virus have been found in milk. What's going on? Is dairy safe?

Fragments of the virus that causes bird flu have been found in samples of pasteurized milk, the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday, but officials aren't concerned about danger to humans from drinking store-bought milk at this time.

Officials told reporters on Wednesday that the milk tested positive for presence of the virus, but the results do not indicate that the virus is currently infectious, as the pasteurization process works to inactivate viruses.

The initial positive samples came from a limited number of tests done by researchers on milk at grocery stores. Federal agencies are now doing their own, more robust tests. The FDA said it is conducting further analysis on the positive samples, and is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state partners to investigate.

"To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe," Donald Prater, the acting director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the FDA, told reporters.

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