Public health officials are warning of an outbreak of Campylobacter and E. coli-related complications linked to the consumption of raw milk from a Florida farm.
The raw milk outbreak has impacted 21 people, including six children under the age of 10, causing seven hospitalizations, according to the Florida Department of Health. Two people have faced “severe complications,” the department added.
“Sanitation practices in this farm are of particular concern due to the number of cases,” the department said in an announcement on Monday, though it did not name the particular facility.
The Independent has contacted the department for more information.
Raw milk can only be sold for non-human consumption in the state though some skirt the rule and buy milk meant for pets or animal feeds for their personal use.
The Department of Agriculture has banned the sale of raw milk for human consumption across state lines since 1987 and federal public health officials warn that consuming the unpasteurized milk puts people at risk of exposure to germs including Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, and Salmonella. The risk is especially high for children, the elderly, pregnant people, and those with compromised immune systems.
“Pasteurized milk offers the same nutritional benefits without the risks of raw milk consumption,” according to the CDC. “Since the early 1900s, pasteurization has greatly reduced milk-borne illnesses.”
“While the perceived nutritional and health benefits of raw milk consumption have not been scientifically substantiated, the health risks are clear,” the FDA notes on its website. “Since 1987, there have been 143 reported outbreaks of illness – some involving miscarriages, still births, kidney failure and deaths – associated with consumption of raw milk and raw milk products that were contaminated with pathogenic bacteria such as Listeria, Campylobacter, Salmonella, and E. coli.”
Last year, California regulators recalled batches of raw milk from a Fresno farm after bird flu was detected in samples.
Despite the scientific consensus on the risks of unpasteurized milks recent years have seen raw milk take on a countercultural status and become popular among some conservatives and independents.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he only drinks raw milk, and raw milk backers within his Make American Healthy Again push were initially encouraged as Kennedy put raw milk on a wish list of foods and health-related topics he hoped to tackle in office.
Since taking office, Kennedy’s FDA temporarily halted a quality control program for testing milk amid Trump administration staffing cuts at the health department, but the secretary hasn’t delivered the kind of changes to federal milk regulation they were hoping.
Mark McAfee of Raw Farm, a California dairy that counted Kennedy as a customer, has said he was initially encourage by Kennedy and his allies to assist federal officials with changing raw milk rules, but was later rebuffed when he sought a meeting with regulators.
“That’s a bait and switch and that is really quite sad,” he told the Fresno Bee last month.
