Californis is the largest dairy producer in the United States. It is also the most anti-science state, distrustful of the modern world. That is why coastal cities had measles parties until the COVID-19 pandemic happened; they believed the MMR vaccine caused autism in children. They love raw milk because they believed pasteurization eliminates magical nutrition that scientists can't detect.

That made it the perfect breeding ground for the most recent H5N1 bird flu pandemic, which caused prices for chicken and eggs to spike in 2024, because 50% of raw milk contains the virus. There is a 100% way to prevent it, according to FDA. It's been around since the 19th century and is called pasteurization. Pasteurization will knock H5N1 out but raw milk farms and there customers don't believe in science, and since some H5N1 positive cows do not show clinical signs of infection, the federal government had to simply close entire raw dairy farms. Like RAW FARM of Fresno but they were not alone; 700 herds were spreading it.

Once it is on a dairy farm, H5N1 will spread locally. It will be in wastewater. If you pasteurize milk, or at least give animals medicine, that is where it ends but the last pandemic occurred because some California farms use a lack of science as a selling point.


RAW FARM knows its demographic. Wealthy progressives. They have to be thrilled that raw milk evangelist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. joined the Republican party because now they can poison twice as many people for profit.

In a new study, the authors found H5N1 in the air and wastewater. They observed high viral loads and H5 antibodies in the raw milk of cows, even those that were asymptomatic.

Anti-science progressives embraced vaccines when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They went from advertising measles parties in Whole Foods and supplement stores in February of 2020 to buying their way to the front of the line when the vaccine was produced. If Republicans take over belief in raw milk and Democrats turn on that, farmers will be fine - they just pasteurize the same milk they use as a disease vector now - but the public will be far safer.

Citation: Campbell AJ, Shephard M, Paulos AP, Pauly MD, Vu MN, Stenkamp-Strahm C, et al. (2026) Surveillance on California dairy farms reveals multiple possible sources of H5N1 influenza virus transmission. PLoS Biol 24(5): e3003761. https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.30...