Raw Milk Ecoli has sickened people who consumed milk, pasturized and unpasturized, plus vegetables, beef, bologna, hazelnuts, cookie dough, frozen pizza, and in fast food restaurants (Taco Bell). There are still many people who are diseased by pasteurized products. 25 to 50 percent in the years 2000 to 2006. It seems like the more serious problem is in the area of cheese made from raw milk rather than raw milk so it would be helpful to understand the infections from raw and pasteurized cheese separated from raw and pasteurized milk. In the United States,
the CDCP estimated there were 47.8 million foodborne
illnesses from 2000–2007. 3,037 people died. None from
unpasturied fluid milk. So, don't think pasteurized milk is
free of E-coli As far as I can tell, no one died from
unpasteurized milk during the study period 1993 to 2006.
The Oregon Dairy Farmers Association will gather legislators, producers and perhaps state agriculture officials this summer to discuss a possible crackdown on sales of unpasteurized milk in Oregon. Raw milk producers and consumers won't be invited. "We feel that something needs to be done," said Executive Director Jim Krahn. "We've been saying this for a long time." The outbreak was traced to raw milk from a Wilsonville farm that sold shares of its cows in exchange for milk. The milk tested positive for E. coli O157:H7, one of the worst foodborne pathogens. It sickened nearly 20 people, including four children who were hospitalized with acute kidney failure. At least two of them could face long-term complications. That outbreak came 13 years after Oregon first clamped down on raw milk, banning store sales but allowing small farms to sell on-site with no regulatory oversight. Krahn thinks that's
too loose. "I would hope that something would be done to
protect children," he said.
Matthew Caldwell fed his 2-year-old son, Owen, raw milk in the spring of 2010. The boy was hospitalized for 13 days, victim of an E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak traced to raw milk producer Mike Hartmann. The two parents' stories are bookends to a debate that is on high boil in Minnesota. One farmer accused of breaking state law barring the off-farm sale of raw milk, Alvin Schlangen, is slated for trial in July. Hartmann was hit with the same criminal milk charge last month, and also faces a civil suit from Caldwell. Raw milk isn't pasteurized -- heat-treated to kill pathogens. Advocates see it as integral to a superior diet, and decry what they see as heavy-handed attempts to limit its free flow and punish suppliers. "This is about the freedom to choose the foods we want for our families," said Olson of Richfield. But restrictions on raw milk are based on longstanding beliefs among public health authorities that non-pasteurized dairy products pose a special risk. This year alone, there have been five outbreaks of raw-milk related diseases spanning eight states. (Editor's note: And not one single case from pasturized milk??? I think not.) The debate surfaced in Minnesota two years ago when eight people got E. coli O157:H7, a bug that causes fever, vomiting, diarrhea -- often bloody -- and other nastiness. At its worst, it can lead to kidney failure and death. After state health and
farm inspectors linked the bug to Hartmann, the Minnesota
Agriculture Department ordered him to stop peddling
unpasteurized milk and cheese, as well as uninspected meat.
He didn't, the Agriculture Department says, so Hartmann was
charged in Sibley County with eight misdemeanors and one
gross misdemeanor for selling improperly labeled frozen
food.
Continuing with Dr. Oz-inspired themes of insufferability and sanctimony, a new study confirms what I’ve anecdotally observed for decades: preaching organic makes you a jerk – and not in the adorable Steve Martin way, more in the self-perceived moral superiority way. A paper published last week in the Journal of Social Psychological & Personality Science found that exposure to organic foods can “harshen moral judgments.” As cited by Time magazine, “There’s a line of research showing that when people can pat themselves on the back for their moral behavior, they can become self-righteous,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Kendall J. Eskine, assistant professor of the psychological sciences department at Loyola University in New Orleans, told NBC’s Today show. Eskine and his team showed research subjects photographs of food, ranging from überorganic fruits and vegetables to fattening brownies and baked goods. He then gauged the primed eaters’ moral fiber with stories that warranted judgment, like one about a lawyer who lurks in an ER to try to persuade patients to sue for their injuries. Reacting to the events on a numbered scale, the organic-food participants were more judgmental than those in the comfort-food category. They were also more reluctant when asked to volunteer time to help strangers, the study found, offering only 13 minutes vs. the brownie eaters’ 24 minutes. It’s like the group had already fulfilled its moral-justice quota by buying organic, so it felt all right slacking off in other ethics-based situations. Eskine labeled it “moral licensing.” “There’s something about being exposed to organic food that made them feel better about themselves,” he told the Today show. “And that made them kind of jerks a little bit, I guess.” The research doesn’t mean much, and I’m probably citing it only because it confirms my worldview, but still, there are a lot of preachers out there. I’ll stick to focusing on food that makes people barf: organic, sustainable, local, dolphin-friendly or otherwise. The abstract is below: Wholesome foods and
wholesome morals? Organic foods reduce prosocial behavior
and harshen moral judgments, Social Psychological and
Personality Science, Kendall J. Eskine Abstract Recent research has
revealed that specific tastes can influence moral
processing, with sweet tastes inducing prosocial behavior
and disgusting tastes harshening moral judgments. Do similar
effects apply to different food types (comfort foods,
organic foods, etc.)? Although organic foods are often
marketed with moral terms (e.g., Honest Tea, Purity Life,
and Smart Balance), no research to date has investigated the
extent to which exposure to organic foods influences moral
judgments or behavior. After viewing a few organic foods,
comfort foods, or control foods, participants who were
exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time
to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral
transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed
nonorganic foods. These results suggest that exposure to
organic foods may lead people to affirm their moral
identities, which attenuates their desire to be altruistic.
Source:
spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/05/14/1948550612447114.abstract
My journalism friends have long complained that the flow of information about public health – public anything – is a tinkle in Canada compared to other places. According to a report in The Province, British Columbia.'s Liberal government is poised to further choke off the flow of public information, this time with respect to disease outbreaks. The Animal Health Act, expected to be passed into law by month's end, expressly over-rides B.C.'s Freedom of Information Act, duct-taping shut the mouths of any citizens - or journalists - who would publicly identify the location of an outbreak of agriculture-related disease such as bird flu. "A person must refuse, despite the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, to disclose . . . information that would reveal that a notifiable or reportable disease is or may be present in a specific place or on or in a specific vehicle," Section 16 of the Act reads. It is quite conceivable that the provincial government, in the event of a disease outbreak at a farm, would delay releasing a warning in order to protect the farm in question or the industry it's part of. In that event, should you as a citizen hear about the outbreak, or if you were an employee at an affected farm, you would be breaking the law by speaking publicly about it or bringing concerns to the media. Will the law also apply to farms identified as sources of foodborne illness, like tomatoes from a B.C. greenhouse, or BSE traced to a B.C. farm, or stupidity traced to a government bureaucrat who lives on a farm? The proposed law will probably have no practical effect because there is no animal disease or foodborne illness traced to B.C. farms; it’s all imported. Canada, where
complacency rules. Raw
milk recalled for E. coli O157:H7 in New York -
6/12/12 Castle Farms, located at 1051 Route 249 in Irving, New York, holds a Department permit to legally sell raw milk at the farm. Samples of the milk are routinely tested by the New York State Food Laboratory to determine if the raw milk is free of pathogenic bacteria. A routine sample of the milk was taken on June 4, 2012 by an inspector from the Department's Division of Milk Control and Dairy Services and subsequently tested and discovered to be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. On June 7, 2012, the producer was notified of a preliminary positive test result and who volunteered to suspend raw milk sales until the sample results were confirmed. Test results were confirmed on June 12, 2012 and the producer is now prohibited from selling raw milk until subsequent sampling indicates that the product is free of harmful pathogens. To date, no illnesses
are known by the Department to be associated with product
from Castle Farms. My
E-Mail to Adam J. Langer Ecoli has sickened
people who consumed vegetables, beef, Bologna, hazelnuts,
cookie dough, frozen pizza, and in fast food restaurants
(Taco Bell)It seems like the problem is more in the area of
raw cheese than raw milk. There are still many people who
are diseased by pasteurized products. 25 to 50 percent in
the years 2000 to 2006. (See Figure 1 of your report.) And
while, granted, more people drink pasteurized milk, it would
be more helpful to understand the infections from raw and
pasteurized cheese separated from raw and pasteurized milk.
As far as I can tell, no one has died from unpasteurized
milk during the study period 1993 to 2006. -
Gordon Clay Reply - In a
message dated 5/24/2012 12:41:58 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
akl7@cdc.gov writes: Thank you for your message about our recent article published in Emerging Infectious Diseases: “Nonpasteurized Dairy Products, Disease Outbreaks, and State Laws—United States, 1993–2006.” Regarding your comment about Figure 1 of our article, please note that this figure refers to the total number of outbreaks caused by nonpasteurized and pasteurized dairy products, not the number of illnesses. You are correct that outbreaks caused by pasteurized dairy products continue to occur in the United States; however, as discussed in our article, outbreaks caused by nonpasteurized dairy products caused a disproportionately high number of hospitalizations (13% for nonpasteurized outbreaks vs. 1% for pasteurized outbreaks). This is probably attributable to the high proportion of serious bacterial infections that caused the nonpasteurized outbreaks, as compared to relatively mild infections and intoxications that caused most of the pasteurized outbreaks. In addition, nonpasteurized outbreaks disproportionately impacted persons younger than 20 years of age, including children. Finally, it is important to consider the number of outbreaks caused by nonpasteurized and pasteurized dairy products in the context of the relative consumption of each product in the United States: when weighted by the amount of dairy products consumed in each category, the incidence of nonpasteurized outbreaks is approximately 150 times higher than outbreaks caused by pasteurized dairy products. Regarding your comment about understanding the infections from nonpasteurized and pasteurized cheese separated from both categories of fluid milk, most of this data is available in our article, particularly in the Table on page 387 and in the last paragraph of the Results section on page 388. Regarding the etiologic agents of the outbreaks, all nonpasteurized outbreaks (fluid milk and cheese) were caused by enteric bacterial infections. For pasteurized outbreaks, all of the fluid milk-associated outbreaks with known causes were caused by enteric bacterial infections, while the cheese-associated outbreaks with known causes were mostly caused by viral infections (56%), with smaller contributions from intoxications (20%), and enteric bacterial infections (24%). Regarding your statement about deaths from nonpasteurized milk during the study period, this is correct with regard to outbreak-associated cases reported to CDC, and if by “milk” you intend to refer only to fluid milk. There were two deaths among outbreak-associated cases reported to CDC caused by nonpasteurized cheese. Our data do not include data on illnesses or deaths caused by nonpasteurized dairy products that were either not associated with an outbreak or that were not reported to CDC by state and local health departments, so our data do not indicate that no deaths at all were caused by nonpasteurized fluid milk during 1993–2006. The Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) publishes data on the proportion of enteric infections that are associated with outbreaks; outbreaks represent only the tip of the iceberg for enteric infections (e.g., in 2006 only 4% of Salmonella infections and 1% of Campylobacter infections were associated with an outbreak). We appreciate your interest in this topic and thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on our article. Sincerely, Adam J. Langer, DVM, MPH, DACVPM |
