What does the medical establishment have in common with the political establishment? Both have discovered that, in terms of self preservation, it’s preferable to sicken us slowly rather than quickly.
I am reminded of that reality by a new article about raw milk in the April issue of Harper’s Magazine by freelance writer Nathanael Johnson, “The Revolution Will Not Be Pasteurized: Inside the Raw-Milk Underground.” It’s not yet posted on the Harper’s site, but when it is, it will be available only to subscribers, or on newsstands. (In other words, you’ll have to buy it. Nathanael has distributed a draft to people he interviewed, but because of copyright issues, I am prohibited from posting it.) I strongly encourage you to read it, since it’s a well done, in-depth treatment of the debate, science, and a few of the personalities involved in the raw milk issue, focusing heavily on the experiences of Canadian raw-milk farmer Michael Schmidt, who went on a hunger strike last year in response to a government crackdown on his dairy.
While it’s overall a carefully researched and insightful assessment, I would call Nathanael to task over his treatment of the 2006 California illnesses some individuals attribute to Organic Pastures Dairy Co. He becomes one of those accusers when he states, “In the fall of 2006, for instance, California officials announced that raw milk tainted with E.coli was responsible for a rash of illnesses. It is legal to sell unpasteurized dairy in California, and the tainted milk came from Organic Pastures, in Fresno…” Even the state’s Department of Health Services, which is totally opposed to raw milk and whose report was full of errors, hedged its opinion by saying there was “likely” a connection between tainted milk and the dairy.
He then mentions later in his article that he interviewed Mark McAfee of OPDC a year ago this month, which was several months before the California Department of Food and Agriculture negotiated a settlement with OPDC to avoid any additional legal actions around the milk recall of September 2006. I can only assume Nathanael’s research on this particular aspect of the raw milk issue was incomplete, or that an editor foisted the accusation into the article.
In the course of his interview with Mark, in which Mark was his usual candid self in discussing the possibility of illness. (“If my milk gets someone sick, I deserve some blame, but not all of it. People have to take responsibility for maintaining their own immune systems.”) Nathanael observes: “A dying child will make people change their behavior. The diseases that might stem from a lack of bacteria are much more subtle. They come on slowly. It’s difficult to link cause and effect. Businesses that contribute to chronic disease often flourish while businesses that contribute to acute disease get shut down.”
Excellent point. The rates of chronic disease have skyrocketed over the last forty years, but the key is that it’s all happened over a period of forty years. It’s almost unnoticeable year to year. When people look around after many years, as they are doing now, and realize there are epidemic levels of autism, asthma, and allergies, it’s much more difficult to lay blame than when a few serious cases of food poisoning crop up within days of each other.
It’s a similar phenomenon with our economy. For the last forty years, our political leaders have encouraged ever-more borrowing to create an illusion of prosperity. Now that the edifice is showing signs of crumbling (via the sub-prime mortgage crisis, devaluation of the dollar, soaring energy costs, bailouts of investment banks, etc., etc., etc.), it’s similarly much more difficult for people to lay blame for a fraud of enormous proportions than if we had had a few years of serious financial pain somewhere along the way to squeeze excess out of the system.
Underlying all this is the real modus operandi–that large-scale pain and sacrifice have become huge no-nos in our culture, so much so that the apparatchik will go to extreme lengths to avoid such unpleasantness, and any hint of blame that might result. Blame is to be avoided at all costs, to be left for some other guy/gal in the future.
***
To those wondering if the request by OPDC and Claravale Farms for a temporary restraining order against AB 1735 exposes the questionable legislative process that led to creation of the ten-coliform-per-milliliter standard, the answer is yes. It’s contained in an affidavit by a lobbyist and former legislator, Rusty Areais, who has worked on behalf of the dairies to overturn the legislation. He says, “In all my years of working in the Capitol (nearly 30) I have never seen a department of the government (CDFA) sponsor legislation under false pretenses and actively misrepresent what that legislation enacts (AB 1735).”
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/fs/food-disease/news/mar1308oversight-jw.html
I’ve excerpted a portion here: On eight occasions, facilities barred FDA inspections from fully reviewing their food safety practices. Current laws don’t empower the FDA to compel firms to produce records. "On one occasion, inspectors were denied access to written records by the facility that was the site of the 2006 outbreak," the authors wrote."
I know this is a bit off-topic, but I thought it was relevant enough to post in comments and thought some of you might find it interesting.
This is a true statement, but can you imagine public acceptance of this? And by way of explanation, that the protective bacteria we need in our gut is physiological strains of e.coli?
Natasha Campbell McBride writes in her book "Gut and Psychology Syndrome":
"…If we are not meant to digest Lactose, then why do some people seem to manage it perfectly well? The answer is that these people have the right bacteria in their gut. One of the major Lactose digesting bacteria in the human gut is E.coli. It comes as a surprise to many people that physiological strains of E. coli are essential inhabitants of a healthy digestive tract. They appear in the gut of a healthy baby from the first days after birth in huge numbers: 10 x7 – 10 x9 CFU/g.and stay in these same numbers throughout life, providing that they do not get destroyed by antibiotics and other environmental influences. Apart from digesting Lactose, physiological strains of E.coli produce vitamin K and vitamins B1, B2, B6, B12, produce anti-biotic-like substances called colicins, and control other members of their own family which can cause disease. In fact having your gut populated by the physiological strains of E. coli is the best way to protect yourself from pathogenic species of E.coli. They also take a huge and complex part in appropriate functioning of the immune system, which we will talk about later…."
Where can you get these physiological strains of e.coli? You guessed it – from mom’s raw milk, or other raw milk.
"When FDA investigators found objectionable conditions, investigators found they took no "meaningful" enforcement action and overlooked repeat violations, even at multiple facilities operated by Natural Selection Foods, the firm that was linked to the 2006 E coli O157:H7 outbreak. "
Just think, had the FDA done their job, perhaps the spinach E-Coli episode may have been adverted.
Blair, I’ve found that many don’t want to take ownership of personal responsibility. I’d bet the farm that there are and were "warning labels" on OP and Claravale raw dairy. As stated before, most who consume raw foods, research first and then make their choices.
Would that more politicians should stand up and speak the truth, and we might not have the 40-year lag between cause and effect which David and Nathaneal Johnson describe.
That "likely" issue may well be a mistake. And if so I apologize, but it seems to me a matter of semantics in the big picture. (I suppose in the smaller view that’s an issue that is critical in terms of whether McAfee gets sued – but I’m really interested in the larger question: Is this stuff good for you or not?) Regardless, the state agencies acted as if they had presumed guilt. I think I make it clear that there are plenty of reasons people raised to take issue with the cdfa ect. I was beginning to wonder what was going on with the CDHS myself. They took months to comply with my public records request, then sent a bare ghost of what I’d asked for. I followed up but the next time they omitted lab documents. Finally, I got a lab tech on the line explained again what I wanted and got it (though in the process they said ‘you want to see the pfge patterns?’ ‘Yeah, that’s what my original request said’ – ‘Well, you know you won’t be able to tell anything from that, they’re just lines.’ As if I wouldn’t be able to compare the patterns for myself). The patterns from the DNA analysis do match for the five samples they have – in both restriction enzymes. In the end you can count on bureaucrats to be slow and difficult to deal with – but they aren’t going to break the law and falsify lab results.
So we know that five kids got sick right around the same time. We know that they all drank dairy from OP. Could they all have had some other contaminated food that was the actual vector? I suppose it’s possible – but in my interviews with the families of the kids there was no overlap in the other putative foods (sushi for one, under cooked hamburger for another, ect). Occam’s razor points to raw milk.
One other point, we know that just before that Labor Day cows had died all up and down the Central Valley from heat stress. It was a period when McAfee’s ecosystem would have been vulnerable.
In the end though – it’s much less interesting for me to dive into the rabbit hole of trying to track down the movements of every microbe than it is to consider the implications: Suspend your disbelief for a moment and just consider what it means that so many people didn’t get sick. That of the children that drank from the same ostensibly contaminated jugs, only those who hadn’t been drinking raw milk for a while got sick.
Of course there could have been. Since it appears the "powers that be" stopped testing/investigating when raw dairy was mentioned, we’ll never know. I believe "inconclusive" is the term.
Yes indeedy, if raw milk was the cause of those 5 kids becoming sick, I would find that truely amazing;that only they got sick when so many consume the raw dairy from OP. I just hppen to have a jug during that time and I am a sporatic milk drinker, I didn’t get sick.
As for being "good for you". Any food in it’s natural state (no added chemical,pollutants,
unadulterated, etc) is good for you (should I tack on, in moderation?)
The spinach contamination corralates with and includes many dairies (pasturized and unpasturized)and other food processors. Poor sanitation, unhealthy workers (Hepatitis contamination, etc), incorrect transportation/storage, etc. appear to be the main reasons for any outbreak.
Simple sanitation, healthy cows/employees, correct delivery of products,correct environment, etc. are the keyes for keeping foods as risk free as possible.
If your employees and/or cows are unhealthy, you increase your risks of contamination, if your area of business is unsanitary, again you increase your risks of contamination, just as transporting items, if done incorrectly will increase the risk of contamination. It’s not rocket science.
How do you know they stopped investigating when raw dairy was mentioned? Were you there in the rooms with any of these sick children when the interviews took place? Have you ever been a part of an investigation involving pathogen contamination?
What information are you operating from to even make the above statement?
Sylvia, you state that it could have been other items, do you have any information on what other items the children ate that was exactly the same to have a matching PFGE pattern?
We had this very discussion (regarding which foods were tested by the State of California) just last week. It lasted 65 comments long. As a regular reader of this blog, I really don’t think it is necessary to rehash old topics, especially one that has no clear resolution like this one. It is a waste of everyone’s time.
If you would like to know how the regular and not-so-regular respondents of this blog replied to your above query, please see the ‘comments’ section of ‘How Do You Fight Defamation by Innuendo? Mark McAfee May Have the Best Formula, for Now’. The link to the article is at the left of this column.
The key word I used was "appeared". I’ll counter your question with another; How do you know they didn’t stop investigating?
"Have you ever been a part of an investigation involving pathogen contamination?"
Yes, I have. Have you?
"Sylvia seems to have all the answers here with no back up for her claims."
You percieve that I have all the answers? Wow. Thank you Cheryl.
I read all 65 comments. The conversations seem to revolve around the Martin kid and the facts of his case. In this case, it seems that for some reason the milk and spinach was not tested. There were 5 children with matching blueprints of E-coli 0157:H7 in this outbreak. What do we know about the other children?
My question was not answered in the 65 comments you referred me to. How do we know they stopped investigating other sources of e-coli contamination just because raw milk was found to have been consumed? Is this a statement of fact (please refer me to these facts) or someones opinion of what they think happened?
Does anyone know the protocol used in hospitals when a person is suspected of having a food borne illness? Are there particular questions asked? Maybe a list of food and non-food sources?
Im just asking questions. Its not a personal attack on you. So this is your personal opinion that they stopped investigating other sources once they discovered raw milk was consumed. How did you come to have this opinion? What facts in this outbreak is it based on?
When you were involved in an investigation involving a food borne illness, what questions did they ask you? Were they random verbal questions or did they use a form of some sort? In your situation, did they follow a particular protocol? What pathogen was discovered that made you ill? Or was it someone in your family?
When I was in a norovirus outbreak at a conference, our questionnaire was tailored to the food served at the event but allowed us to offer extra-curricular meals on the form as well.
I will have to venture into civilization for Harper’s. Thanks for what I am sure is an interesting read, Nathanael Johnson.
Amanda
The above mannual is pretty generic for most facilities. If you have a reportable disease/illness, depending on what it is, the facility usually has a set amount of time for reporting it to the state dept of health and/or the CDC et al. Forms? Yes, there can be numerous forms to fill out.
http://www.in.gov/isdh/form/pdfs/49689_E_Coli.pdf
http://www.in.gov/isdh/form/pdfs/49693_Salmonellosis.pdf
The above are basic forms used.I was not in Indiana when I had Salmonella,from store bought ice-cream. The protocol was the form questions and numerous stool samples.
There are many questions unanswered that the State of Ca neglected to answer in their final report. Of course the only reports I’ve seen are what’s in the paper and available on line.I’ve also read what was posted on this and other blogs by the mothers of some of those children. So, yes, in my opinion, from the information put forth to the public, it shows that the state did not do a comprehensive investigation. As Elizabeth pointed out;"The state had both spinach and raw milk from the Martin home in their possession and, rather than test either, threw them out." Sloppy? Incomplete? you betcha. The state’s investigation in regards to the E-Coli appears to be done as well as the slaughter house inspectors. Just think, had the state examined the spinach and raw milk from the Martin home, there may have been some proof and there would be no speculation nor the use of the term "likely".
Court sides with state against raw milk producer
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=8149
Below the article is the link to the 5th District Court of Appeal opinion in Kawamura v. Organic Pastures Dairy Company, case No. F051733 (Super. Ct. No. 04CECG03713), authored by Acting Presiding Justice Rebecca A. Wiseman, with whom Justices Betty L. Dawson and Brad R. Hill both concurred.
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/links/F051733.PDF
Whats all this business about A.G. Kawamura trying to force Organic Pastures to make several years worth of payments to the Big Dairy Processors pricing pool?
The [trial] court ordered Organic Pastures to pay the following amounts, which included penalties and prejudgment interest: $313,481.47 in pool obligations under the Pooling Act; $5,493.41 in fees under the Pooling Act; $1,182.84 in fees and assessments under the Stabilization Act; $906.67 in security charges under the Security Act; and $174.27 in fees under the safety law.
The California Department of Food & Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura, Mark W. Snauffer, Rebecca A. Wiseman, Betty L. Dawson, and Brad R. Hill have some serious explaining to do.
The forms you posted are very informative. When a person becomes ill from a pathogen, there is a standard protocol of questions asked pertaining to that particular pathogen and a system that is set up for reporting this information to the state health departments and CDC.
In the case that were discussing on this blog, a similar investigation was conducted on the 5 children. Does anyone believe that got to the question about raw dairy and then stopped asking the remaining questions on the form? Thats what would have had to happen in all 5 cases to make the statement [Since it appears the "powers that be" stopped testing/investigating when raw dairy was mentioned].
The Martin case is perplexing. Why didnt they test the milk and spinach? Many people on this blog know detailed information about this case. Does anyone know why it wasnt tested? It doesnt make sense. There must be some logical explanation.
Again, this is only one of the five children that became ill in 2006 after drinking OP dairy products. What is known about the other children?
Sylvia’s supposition may not be based on pure fact, but a lot of folks who read/contribute to this blog have had bad experiences with regards to bureaucrats and raw milk; enough to know that it IS possible that happened in these cases.
We tend to get a little passionate (ok a LOT passionate) about this issue when it could affect our rights to obtain something we see as a basic human need. This is a battle all raw milk lovers are involved in on one level or another. We tend to defend our own against bureaucrats.
I saw that article too, an am very curious. I thought the only thing Mark sold to anyone other than his "customers" was the skim milk left over from cream? Perhaps the gov’t is saying if he sells that to other producers or such is what makes him have to "pay to play"?
Anyone have any info to share on this? We sure would appreciate reading.
One strange thing is that OP does bring in outside milk and yet the ruling says something to the effect that he processes only his own milk and that fact is not in dispute. There are distinctions in milk law here about "milk" and other classes of products. OP does apparently outsource milk for non-grade A milk products, so perhaps those don’t apply here. I have only given the ruling a cursory skim, so perhaps the answers are there.
Amanda
A couple quick things:
1. I checked, and I was wrong to say the state explicitly said that the disease came from OP milk, though the agencies certainly acted as if it did.
2. I think that Sylvia is right in that there is a bias among health workers doing food consumption surveys. Put yourself in the shoes of a doctor with a sick kid in front of you. The patient is in distress, the parents are a nervous wreck. There’s no way you are going to get them to list every single thing they ate for the last week. If you hear a known risk factor like raw milk or beef tartar, a big part of your analytic brain is going to start forming a hypothesis around that. I read patient histories the doctors took for these kids (anyone can get them with names redacted thru a public records request) and it looks like doctors did cover the basics – when patients mentioned spinach too, they checked that box.
The thing that makes me think the milk is responsible is that when I talked to the families and did my own food surveys, there was no other common thread. As Curious points out, if there was some other vector they would have noticed. My ears would certainly have pricked up it one family after another had mentioned that they’d gone to McDonalds or something.
Finally, I don’t think there should be cognitive dissonance in, on the one hand leaning toward the conclusion that OP milk might have caused these sicknesses – and, on the other, still supporting McAfee’s right to sell raw milk and wanting to have a better understanding of this neglected area of human health.
The state did find O157 on McAfee’s dairy, but it wasn’t in the milk – it was in cows that were not in the milking herd. And it wasn’t the same strain as the bacteria that made people sick. This can mean: A. There was never O157 in the milk B. That the samples they picked didn’t contain the bug or C. That the thriving biodiversity in OP milk did what it’s supposed to do and overwhelmed the invaders before the state tested.
C seems the most likely, the most interesting, and – in the long run – the most fruitful explanation for people interested in seeing more study and attention placed on how our internal ecosystems are linked to the external environments providing our food. But no matter how much evidence is compiled to link sickness to raw milk, there is always someone out there denying it – there’s always a way to come up with a more intricate theory and an alternate explanation. I’ve found this to be true in one case I looked at where microbes of the same strain as those causing the outbreak actually were found in the milk. The explanation? The regulators must be lying. The problem with this is that people who refuse to admit any guilt in the face of overwhelming evidence start to sound like Holocaust deniers.
In my piece, though I did make the mistake of saying the state had announced a link between OP and the sickness, I was careful never to make a statement of fact about the link – because we will never know for certain. The evidence, in sum, seems to point in that direction – but it’s evidence, not proof.
I’m always willing to be convinced by new data.
Im sure all the raw milk drinkers want to believe it was something other than contaminated raw milk that caused the 5 children to become ill in 2006. Raw milk is believed by many to be quite safe, as well as healthy, to drink. No one would ever give their children raw milk to drink if they did hold this belief.
In the 2006 outbreak involving these 5 children, like it or not, they all consumed a raw milk product and they all had a matching blueprint of Ecoli 0157:H7. There is a protocol that has been established for collecting information when a foodborne illness is suspected or confirmed. The forms have many questions about food and other sources of contamination. The five children went through this process and, although many on this blog may not like the findings, it was discovered that the item they all had in common was purchased from Organic Pastures.
The matching blueprints and the common food consumed by all 5 children are facts that cant be disputed.
On the milk pool issue — I just looked at the milk pool ruling a little more closely and it’s an education for anyone interested in the issue. The best comparison I can think of is exempting organic dairies from paying into the Dairy Check Off program, a marketing tax for milk. I recall that organic dairies are exempt; conventional dairies pay a specific tax per hundred weight of milk. Check Off dollars are used to expand the market for milk. Organic milk is marketed differently and does not pay into the Check Off program.
In the OP milk pool case, it’s not clear how the outsourcing factors in, but I can see why Mark would not want to spend money on a price stabilization plan when he is in an entirely different market.
Amanda
Courious, I don’t recall anyone saying that raw milk doesn’t come without risks. As others have said, there is risk in everything. The common denominator is the unjust treatment and outright denial of human rights to choose what one wants to consume.
Accusing someone on speculation is wrong. Where is the hard evidence? "Likely" link? Did OP milk have the "matching blueprint of Ecoli 0157:H7" that was found in some of those children? If so, do post the link so that we can read it. I’d bet those kids drank tap water, brushed thier teeth, bathed, etc. so there is one other potential common link.
On the milk pool issue; yes, this is an education. I didn’t know this was done.
You respond so defensively. We are trying to have a conversation about the facts presented in this case. 6 children became ill. 5 children had matching blueprints. 5 children consumed OP raw milk products and the matching blue print of ecoli 0157:H7 was not found at the dairy when they checked the cows. If I remember correctly from the state report that was posted, the cows were checked in late October and early November of 2006; two months after the outbreak.
Many people have posted different opinions about these facts. Some believe there is enough evidence based on the matching blue prints in all 5 children and others believe there is not enough evidence because this blueprint was not found in the cows or at the dairy. What you may view as speculation another person may view as confirmation. I think each of us is allowed to have our own opinion based on the facts presented.
The topic at hand is the 2006 outbreak involving 5 victims of ecoli 0157:H7 poisoning. Were not discussing the right to drink raw milk or the risks of raw milk. They are both irrelevant in this discussion.
According to the media reports, many of the children were new to drinking raw milk. So heres the scenario:
It is a family new to drinking raw milk. A friend of the family buys raw milk for her family and she encourages them to try it. She claims it helps her sons asthma. Their daughter also has asthma and they are tired of all the mediation she has to take. They do their research. They read information on the realmilk website and then they go to Organic Pastures website and read all of the information presented there on the safety of his milk. They decide to try raw milk. They drink it for two weeks and then their child becomes sick and ends up in the hospital with e.coli 0157:H7 poisoning which then develops into HUS. They are in the hospital for 1 months. They endure suffering they never could imagine: kidney dialysis, seizures, multiple surgeries and the partial removal of their childs colon. Their daughter leaves the hospital with permanent kidney and colon damage. She may require more surgeries on her colon.
While in the hospital, they discover other children became ill and they also drank raw milk. They decided to file a lawsuit against the dairy. Do they have the right to sue the dairy since they knew there could be a possible risk of pathogens when drinking raw milk? Or is there? Can anyone find this information on either website? What are the risks of drinking raw milk? What illnesses can you develop?
Perhaps you should re-read David’s original post to this thread. The topic is indeed about our rights to drink raw milk and the interference of the government to prohibit that. "(CDFA) sponsor legislation under false pretenses and actively misrepresent what that legislation enacts (AB 1735).
You appear to be trying to make the discussion about the law suit and the E-Coli of 2006. Even the title speaks volumes of what this thread is about.
Are you alluding that I am inhibiting others from having their own opinions? If so, I cannot see how that is possible for me to do on this blog. Too bad you assume my opinions are defensive, that is your choice.
Elizabeth, I had used the water shed as an example, common denominators can be more than just spinach, or any other food. I don’t know all the counties the kids were in. Houston, Tx had contaminated tap water, I think it was last year. (not from a hurricane). Tampa, Fl has boil water alerts often. I have no idea where all the water that northern Ca sends south goes.
By tossing what could have been evidence (spinach and raw dairy) from the Martin home, the state screwed up. People are creatures of habit, if they are sloppy with one issue, what is to prevent them from staying the course and being sloppy the majority of the time? I doubt we’ll ever know for sure where the kids illness came from. Accusing anyone without definitive evidence is no different than finding someone guilty of murder and sentencing them to life in prison and 20 yrs later finding out it wasn’t that person.
http://www.ocwatersheds.com/watersheds/introduction.asp
http://www.wrpinfo.scc.ca.gov/
S-Did someone say they did not have a right to sue?
C-Or is there?
S-I am not understanding this question.
C-Can anyone find this information on either website? What are the risks of drinking raw milk? What illnesses can you develop?
S-I am not understanding your point with these last questions? What are you trying to say? Any food has the potential for contamination from many pathogens, parasites; Listeria, Salmonella, etc
There are people who choose to take risks which some of us would consider foolish. Mountain climbers routinely get into trouble and require expensive interventions which may or may not save them and cost taxpayers lots of money. This is no different. Those kids are lucky to be alive and whoever chose to incur the risk on their behalf is culpable. Read the label.
All of us "want to believe it was something other than contaminated milk"? Some maybe, but not all. I don’t "want" to believe anything either way. I review what is known to me and decide based on that. I reserve the right to change my mind based on new info. My understanding of food, health, risks, etc. is constantly evolving as I learn more.
Our family continues to use raw dairy (actually my 9 yo son is the primary drinker). If a good source of raw dairy wasn’t an option, we would probably just drop milk from our diet (my son didnt’ dislike pasteurized milk, but he never really "went for it" until we changed to raw milk).
We were using OPDC raw milk during the same time frame as the children who became sick. Given the unusually harsh heat conditions that summer that negatively affected many herds in the Central Valley and the nature of bacterial competition, I am not 100% convinced that raw milk wasn’t the culprit. What data and evidence there is, does "suggest" it was the milk, but not enough evidence seems to have been collected or preserved to unequivocally prove a connection.
I guess what sticks out in my mind as I have ponder what that means for me and my family since 2006, is that it is very significant to me that *so many didn’t get sick*, including my child and family. The sick children were scattered geographically and new to raw milk, and perhaps had especially weak immune systems, perhaps in different ways. While it has never been explicitly stated by the two mothers that have commented many times here, what those mothers have said has given me the strong impression that one child had a somewhat chaotic, probably stressful life, living in two different households, and regularly consumed the typical Standard America Diet of fast food and processed food, which is enough to make anyone more frail and susceptible, in my opinion. The other child has been described as an extremely picky eater, having some special needs and behavioral issues, and consuming a very limited diet. Some think those sorts of behaviors result from undiagnosed gut disorders (perhaps from gluten intolerance) that could predispose to reduced resistance. Who knows. But neither situation sounds like robust health conditions. I haven’t read any other pre-illness details about the other children so I don’t know how they might have come to be susceptible, when so many others weren’t.
But to me it sort of sounds like the arguments for and against seat belt use. Most of the time seat belts are a benefit, but in certain circumstances, and certainly less often and in unpredictable events, they can be a hazard. Yet, I continue to use my seatbelt because the odd are in my favor if I do. Same goes for my family. I have been a seatbelt user since long before it was "the law", and in fact, my dad bolted in seat belts before cars even came with them (and later they saved his life not once, but twice).
I continue to get raw dairy for my family, because having consumed raw milk during a suspected contamination period, I especially think the odds are in our favor more with raw dairy than they are not (of course, assuming that prudent standards are met and that the milk is produced cleanly and a safely as possible).
The other side of the coin is that I have less and less faith in the conventional sources for dairy and food in general. Say what you will about OPDC and the owner, the fact that I was able to visit and tour the facilities assures me far more than the lack of info forth coming when I have made inquiries about my former dairy sources. Whether we realize it or not, all food is somewhat of a gamble. Most people just don’t realize it, nor do they have a good sense of the odds. And there are acute and latent, chronic risk factors, too. My sense is that the risk from any food is far less if I know how my food is produced; have a more direct farm-to-fork route; and with less processing, less adulteration, and less contamination entry points. Currently, raw dairy still meets that criteria for me and conventional milk doesn’t.
The one thing that has changed since late 2006 is that I only serve raw dairy to my family members, not even to those kids whose parents have said they are ok with it (but don’t serve it in their homes). Hopefully the So Cal water is still safe (though I have my doubts about that sometimes)! I do encourage people to consider raw dairy and to look into it for themselves, but that is their decision for their own home and family.
It isn’t a matter of "not wanting" raw milk to be the culprit.
I suppose since your children already had been drinking the milk, they probably would not have gotten sick from it. If I remember correctly some of the children that got sick were first-time drinkers! They probably did not have the immunities built up to fight the bacteria.
While I see your points, it still looks like the OPDC milk got those children sick. A matching pattern is a matching pattern and there is no way to change that fact. Unless, some other items was consumed by all six children. I dont see any reports of that.
Just reading all the posts here Ill have to agree that it does appear that some just do not want it to be the milk no matter what. Dont take that personally, its just what it looks like here.
This careless group of raw milk drinkers probably chooses fresh squeezed orange juice for their children also.
This is the warning label that is on fresh squeezed orange juice sold in stores.
WARNING: This product has not been pasteurized and therefore, may contain harmful bacteria that can cause serious illness in children, the elderly, and persons with weakened immune systems.
These warning labels do not negate the responsibility of the dairy or juice companies to prevent E-coli 0157:H7 from being in their products. E-coli 0157:H7 is classified as an adulterant if found in food.
I’m simply saying that if you take a known risk and something goes wrong, you should be willing to accept the consequences. You should not be looking for omeone to blame if a predictable adverse event happens. There is nothing now known about e. coli in raw milk that wasn’t knowable in 2006. In fact, there was a similar e. coli outbreak in a raw milk dairy in nearby Washington state in Dec. 2005. All of us take risks in life. If the risk was a conscious choice, take responsibility for making it and move on.
You make a very good point. Only a few children became illWhy? I think the same statements could be made for the 2006 spinach outbreak. 200 became ill, but more than 200 people ate Dole packaged spinach during the timeframe of the outbreak. In 1993, 700 people became ill from Jack-in-the-box hamburgers, but more than 700 people at hamburgers during the timeframe of that outbreak. I would guess that each Jack-in-the-box restaurant sells hundreds of hamburgers a day.
The million dollar questionWhy do some people become ill when exposed to a pathogen and some dont? Regardless of the answer, dangerous pathogens should not be in our food.
Crucial difference – in the spinach and JITB incidents, they actually found e. coli in both the food and in the people affected. In the spinach case, science had advanced enough so they could actually match the offending strain to the food product. That is not the case with OPDC or Chris Martin. Internal OP testing during the time is open for public perusal and specifically tests for pathogens. this fact is supported by extensive and repeated testing by state authorities which failed to show e. coli in any of their products.
No evidence of e. coli infection was ever found in Chris either.
Don’t mix apples with oranges.
Please re-read my comment. I was making a statement about people becoming ill after being exposed to a pathogen, or specifically e.coli 0157:H7. Im not talking about a specific case. In outbreaks, there are people who also were exposed to the same food source, but for whatever reason, they do not become ill.
Why didnt 1000 or 2000 people become ill after eating contaminated spinach? There were around 26 states involved in this outbreak. Think how many packages of Dole spinach were consumed in these states during the timeframe of the outbreak. Why did only 200 become ill? Its a baffling dynamic.
The 5 children in 2006 all had matching PFGE patterns. Thats what defines it as an outbreak. You dont need to prove the source to validate an outbreak. Other people were probably exposed to the source (whatever it was) but did not become ill.
The ability of an organism to infect a person has to do with the virulence of the organism and the susceptibility of the host. Obviously, the pathogen must be present in the environment.
Amanda