Erika Edwards is a health and medical news writer and reporter for NBC News and 'TODAY.'
Dr. Barb Petersen, a dairy veterinarian in Amarillo, Texas, had been caring for sick cows for several weeks in March when she and a colleague finally pinned down the cause of the illness among the herd: the H5N1 strain of the bird flu. It was the first time the virus had been detected in cattle. The sick cows, said Petersen, who owns Sunrise Veterinary Service, tended to produce milk that didn’t look quite right, and had mastitis, an inflammation of the udders.
Farming, especially in rural areas with fewer medical centers, is often a 24/7 job without the benefit of sick days. What’s more, false information circulating across farming communities is fueling a tremendous amount of fear that dairy farmers could lose their livelihood if they are tagged as harboring H5N1, Poulsen said. “The biggest concern that we hear our dairy farmers say is, ‘I don’t want to test because they’re going to depopulate my herd,’” he said.
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