I'm not sure why the abstract about the ranch deaths is called "failed" it simply says there were two organisms found in the animals. Either or both may have been the cause of deaths. Both organisms could have been killed by heat - cooking the dead turkeys. It's a quick step for avian flu viruses from the raw turkey meat and guts onto the nose of a mink and down into the lungs. BTW Baby (newborn) ferrets are very susceptible to flu viruses- see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7431374 Re raw versus cooked. This quote from the first concerns about bird flu in 2006 "Preparing for the arrival of bird flu, the government on Wednesday gave advice for making chicken safe to eat: Cook it to 165 degrees F." For getting rid of E. coli in a chicken you cook it to 160 degrees F. The farmed mink had two strikes - flu virus and Ecoli. Presumably it was difficult to tell which (or whether it was the combination) caused the deaths since both were present in the lungs. I would assume if the virus or bacteria came from the outside environment (the air, birds flying by, sewage plant) the humans in that area would have gotten sick as well - so it seems logical the mink got the infections from their contaminated uncooked food. Raw food can be risky. I rinse my vegetables/salads well. Meryl [Posted in FML 7360]