Doctor Explains What Kind of Egg You Should Buy to Avoid Getting Bird Flu: 'The Bad News...'

As if the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t enough, America these days is going through hellfire. No matter how much they might love birds, people nowadays in America are terrified of approaching their bird feeders, especially if the bird seems to be sick. They’re afraid to eat eggs, drink milk, or cook animal-based food. The reason is a horrific outbreak of “bird flu,” as announced by the Louisiana Department of Health in January this year. One doctor has a solution to this persisting problem. In a TikTok video, Doctor Terry Simpson (@drterrysimpson) explained the best kind of eggs one should buy to avoid getting infected by bird flu. Can you get the bird flu from eating eggs?” He captioned the video.

According to the US Center for Prevention & Disease Control, Bird flu is essentially “Avian influenza,” a virus that seeps into healthy bird bodies via sick waterfowls like sandpipers, plovers, gulls, swans, ducks, or geese. Every day in the country, countless birds restlessly fluff their feathers, stoop their necks, stop soaring, draw their last breath, and ultimately drift into an otherworldly realm, where there’d probably be relatively purer air. But the story doesn’t end here. When an unlucky human comes in contact with any surface that the sick or dying bird had touched, they end up catching the illness, too.

Not just birds or humans, but other animals like cats, dogs, and cows are vulnerable to getting infected by bird flu. Since 2003, the WHO has reported more than 900 deaths caused by bird flu and also the death of 20 million egg-laying chickens, according to the University of Nebraska. In such a scenario, picking up a tray of eggs at the grocery store is akin to a horror story whose ending is hauntingly unpredictable. “How do you know if the egg that you have could have bird flu, and should you eat runny yolks in the eggs?” the doctor asked his viewers in the video. He went on to reveal the bad news that influenza, or bird flu, does leave its mark on the eggs laid by the birds.

“The bad news is that we use eggs to grow influenza viruses. Influenza grows great in eggs, and the temperature for your runny yolk or your oven, easy or your oven medium, isn't enough to denature that virus. So it's not a problem for you, and yes, you could get a virus from an infected egg,” he explained. But there’s good news as well. Most of the time, Doctor Simpson said, “Chickens show that they have symptoms before they even lay an egg. They get sick, they don't lay eggs, and they are called from the herd immediately.” He revealed that more than “80 million chickens” have been killed in the last five-plus years. The solution to this lingering horror is to select an egg “made over hard” or “you can buy pasteurized eggs.”

Pasteurization, he said, works on both milk and eggs and also when one cooks them. “If you're looking for a good egg and you're worried about this pasteurization,” he concluded. The doctor’s explanation resonated with thousands of people. “Been buying pasteurized eggs for years now because of this and many other reasons,” commented @lxbb. Some people expressed confusion and asked the TikTok doctor if all the eggs sold in the market were already pasteurized. “Aren't all our eggs pasteurized here? That's why they're in the fridge,” asked @jacqui. The doctor replied that the eggs are usually “washed but not pasteurized.”

Others related the horrors of experiencing bird flu in their locality and how it has influenced their grocery shopping choices. @quartz said, “I stopped eating eggs for breakfast until this season of BF is over. I do use them in my bread machine, but they’re cooked & scrambled in the machine.” @heynonnynonnyhey wrote, “’ll skip the eggs. Tofu or an easy mung bean egg recipe will work fine for me. Thanks!” 

You can follow Doctor Terry Simpson (@drterrysimpson) on TikTok for health and wellness tips.