RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina lawmakers agreed Tuesday to reverse course and undo their plans to ban raw milk — a move that goes against public health warnings made by state agricultural leaders and others.
Just last week, the state Senate’s agriculture committee gave its approval to the annual Farm Act, including a provision to ban raw milk. That piece of the bill was requested by N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. He said that alongside diseases like salmonella and E. coli that raw milk can spread, new research has shown raw milk also transmits bird flu.
In addition to posing a threat to North Carolina’s multibillion-dollar poultry industry, Troxler said, scientists also worry that bird flu will evolve to infect humans more easily if people keep putting it in their bodies, whether from raw milk or other sources.
