The fall 2008 outbreak of listeria in cheese in Quebec led to 38 hospitalizations, of which 13 were pregnant and gave birth prematurely. Two adults died and there were 13 perinatal deaths.
But, the discussion in Montreal over the past two days is about the fate of small cheese producers, who are apparently giving up.
Ever since last year’s listeriosis outbreak, when provincial inspectors seized tonnes of Quebec cheeses believed to have been cross-contaminated by the listeria bacterium, Fromagerie Lehmann and other raw-milk cheese producers were visited constantly by officials on the lookout for the listeria bacterium.
Like 20 or so others, Lehmann finally gave up on raw-milk cheese altogether.
By some estimates, only 10 Quebec raw-milk cheeses remain. The others now are made with milk that’s been heated to kill unwanted bacteria – and, some say, the flavours of the meadow and the changing seasons.
On Monday, the provincial ombudsman concluded the Quebec government was ill-prepared to handle the outbreak of listeria contamination in some cheese products last summer, but it was right to order a mass recall of the cheeses.
The trial of Ontario raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt has garnered media coverage far beyond its importance.
Oh, and the outcome is largely irrelevant.
It seems somewhat absurd to jail a man for selling a product that clients desperately want and which, on the surface at least, seems harmless. But, hey, it happens to pot dealers every day.
What is not harmless is Mr. Schmidt’s attack on pasteurization and on food-safety regulations more generally.
Under the guise of civil liberties and freedom, he and his supporters have uttered all kinds of nonsense and portrayed themselves as martyrs for pure food. …
Farmer Schmidt and his acolytes can suckle the milk from the teat of a cow, a goat, a cat, or any other lactating mammal to their hearts’ content.
Their rights and freedoms are in no way compromised.
What the law restricts is the commercial sale of raw milk.
Mr. Schmidt tried to circumvent this fact by selling "cow shares" and arguing that his clients were actually proprietors and free to consume raw milk from their own cows.
Whether that little manoeuvre exempts him from the law is up to the courts to decide. But it seems unlikely. After all, bar owners tried this technique to sidestep anti-smoking laws, selling "shares" in their establishment and arguing that patrons were smoking in a private club. Judges saw through the subterfuge. …
Another argument is that meat – which can also contain pathogens – is sold raw, so why not milk? The practical reason for this is obvious. It is easy and efficient to pasteurize milk; it is not practical to cook meat before selling it, but its refrigeration (designed to minimize the growth of bacteria) is mandatory and regulated.
I try and take baby Sorenne and the dogs out every day for a three-mile walk. The dogs get to run off-leash on the trail, and I get to work on burning off that baby weight.
Sorenne usually conks out after 15 minutes of walking, and then I catch up on phone calls. It’s my kind of multi-tasking.
A reporter called a few days ago while out on one of these walks. She asked me about raw milk, I said I don’t care, it gets far too much attention and that public health folks have better things to do.
I also told her I had baby brain and was having trouble articulating. There’s a reason people have kids when they’re young — like I did with the other four – and not when they’re 46. Ah but it’s fun (see the video clip below – and I do compost).
The Canwest News Service story reporting that interview showed up tonight, and has the usual raw milk stuff, with me saying it is difficult to change the minds of people who hold "hocus-pocus scientific theories about the nutrient benefits of raw milk."
Amy laughed at that.
"From a public health point of view, it’s a no brainer, don’t drink it," Powell said. "From a consumer point of view, why not make raw sprouts illegal because there is the risk of Salmonella or E. coli?"
Powell said he doesn’t take issue with adults choosing to drinking raw milk, but it’s usually children who get sick because of their parents dietary choices.
What I would have added is that with sprouts and other foods, there’s no simple control like there is with raw milk – pasteurization.
Michael Schmidt, Ontario’s raw milk lord along with his evangelical disciples, maintain that their crusade is about choice.
Choice is a Good Thing.
But the 19th century English utilitarian philosopher, John Stuart Mill, noted that absolute choice has limits, stating, "if it [in this case the consumption of raw unpasteurized milk] only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself."
Excused from Mill’s libertarian principle are those people who are incapable of self-government – children.
In September, two children who drank raw milk from a Whatcom County dairy in Washington State became ill with E. coli O157:H7. At the same time, four children, including two eight-year-olds in San Diego County, Calif., were hospitalized with E. coli infection after consuming raw milk products.
In December 2005, 18 people in Washington and Oregon, including six children, were infected with E. coli O157:H7 after drinking an unlicensed dairy’s raw milk.
Two of the kids almost died.
In April 2005, four cases of E. coli linked to unpasteurized milk were reported to Ontario health officials — in this case, from an individual who routinely sold raw milk from the back of a vehicle parked in the city of Barrie. Dozens of other outbreaks are listed at: http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/384/RawMilkOutbreakTable.pdf
Ontario finance minister Greg Sorbara can obliviously insist that "raw milk is safely distributed in parts of the United States and Europe" but politicians are expected to spin facts.
So are lobbyists. Thus it was that the Toronto contact for an organization strongly advocating raw milk successfully passed himself off in the National Post this morning as a food safety researcher.
Schmidt, celebrity chefs and the wannabe fashionable can devoutly state that grass fed cattle is safer than grain-fed by spinning select scientific data, except cattle raised on diets of grass, hay and other fibrous forage do contain E. coli O157:H7 bacteria in their feces as well as salmonella, campylobacter and others.
Poop happens, especially in a barn, and when it does people, usually kids, will get sick. That’s why drinking water is chlorinated and milk is pasteurized.
From Kansas, this looks like an awfully familiar clash of science and faith. But it’s not so simple as natural is good, and science — in this case pasteurization — is bad. Science can be used to enhance what nature provided; further, society has a responsibility to the many — philosopher Mill also articulated how the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one — to use knowledge to minimize harm.
There are lots of other foods that make people sick. On the one-year anniversary of the Ontario salmonella-in-sprouts outbreak that sickened 650 people, raw sprouts are widely available and no one seems to notice. After being banned for three weeks, raw mung bean sprouts were back on grocery store shelves and being placed ever so gingerly on gourmet, supposedly healthy sandwiches.
This fall, it was spinach, lettuce and tomatoes sickening hundreds across North America. So why aren’t Ontario government-types, who treat an outwardly eco-friendly and holistic health product like raw milk as a major biohazard, setting their sights on fresh produce?
Part of the answer is that the risks associated with fresh produce have only been recognized in the past decade; the risks associated with raw milk have been recognized for over a century. Further, unlike fresh produce, there is a relatively simple and benign solution for producing safe milk: pasteurization.
And perhaps that is why health officials are adamant that a ban stay in place: there simply isn’t the resources to manage all the microbial food safety outbreaks that strike down 11-13 million Canadians each year, let alone someone proselytizing the virtues of raw milk while flaunting the law.
The only things lacking in pasteurized milk are the bacteria that make people – especially kids – seriously ill. Adults, do whatever you think works to ensure a natural and healthy lifestyle, but please don’t impose your dietary regimes on those incapable of protecting themselves … your kids.
A group of Chinese dairy firms used some modern means to say, “we’re sorry” for killing and poisoning babies with melamine-contaminated milk, at the same time the Chinese government went back to detaining folks it doesn’t agree with.
The 22 firms sent a new year text message to millions of mobile phone subscribers apologizing for the melamine contamination scandal. The companies have asked forgiveness for the contamination of their products, which killed at least six babies and made almost 300,000 people ill.
Also today, Zhao Lianhai, the father of a child sickened by tainted milk, was detained by police to prevent a news conference by parents to complain that proposed compensation for their ill children is too low
"They said the compensation was unilaterally set by the companies with no participation from victims’ families. They thought the amount of compensation was quite low."
A farmer whose son suffered kidney stones and liver damage told The Associated Press this week the compensation wouldn’t even cover his medical expenses.
Doug wrote a book called Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk about a decade ago. I still haven’t read it. I feel bad about that, but I don’t think it has the answers to my recent nursing questions.
When we were meeting with the lactation consultant in the hospital (Melanie – you are fabulous, by the way), we asked her if foodborne illness could be passed on to the baby. She said no. She said not to worry about viruses such as flu or colds and that the baby cannot get Listeria or Salmonella from anything I eat.
Once home from the hospital, I immediately went for the pâté, brie, goat cheese (thank you Graduate Students!), and smoked salmon. Who knew that motherhood could be so delicious?
As many of you reading this blog may know, Rutgers University has sponsored a seminar series on the topic of raw milk. I am scheduled to present the fourth and final talk in the series on Monday. Today (April 3, 2008) I attended the third talk in the series: “Raw Milk, A Microbiology Primer” presented by Dr. Mark Gebhart, an MD with Wright State University.
Dr. Gebhart is a licensed physician and board certified medical specialist practicing in Ohio. Dr. Gebhart has worked in acute care medicine as a clinician, teacher, and researcher. Dr. Gebhart has taken special interest in raw milk obtained from grass fed cows and believes many of the gastrointestinal disorders affecting millions of Americans could be cured by consumption of this product.
Gebhart spent the first half of his time pointing out in great detail that raw milk contains multiple redundant systems of bioactive components that reduce or eliminate pathogens. He proceeded to show a series of slides listing more than twenty of these components (e.g. lactoperoxidase, medium chain fatty acids, B-lymphocytes, lysozyme, etc.).
Gebhart’s focus then shifted to the microbial risks in raw milk. He cited one study from a reputable journal (Applied and Environmental Microbiology) that showed that levels of the pathogens Campylobacter decline over time in raw milk. When questioned by one audience member – Dr. Tom Montville – about CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) statistics showing many foodborne disease cases linked to raw milk, Gebhart said the he believed the epidemiological links to raw milk were not conclusively proven.
Gebhart then shared some statistics from two different sources (American Journal of Public Health and the CDC) that show that there were only 1.9 cases of raw milk food poisoning per 100,000 people, vs. 4.7 cases of pasteurized milk food poisoning per people 100,000. Gebhart thought that these data made a compelling point in favor of raw milk, until another audience member – Dr. Mukund Karwe – pointed out that many more people consume pasteurized milk than raw milk. Gebhart then stated that he needed to double check his references.
Gebhart then shared a number of slides in quick succession on a variety of topics including information on the effect of pasteurization on human breast milk, the safety of milk from cows with access to pasture, and the ability of some pathogens (spore formers like B. cereus and C. botulinum) to survive pasteurization. Gebhart quickly wrapped up his talk as the debate between different audience members began to drown him out.
I can’t wait to see how things go on Monday. — Don Schaffner is an Extension Specialist in Food Science at Rutgers University.
The Sophia news agency is reporting that some 1300 children from Bulgaria’s southern municipalities of Dupnitza, Rila, and Kocherinovo will be examined for the dangerous Listeriosis infection after consuming contaminated milk in their kindergardens.
Authorities said the milk contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes bacteria was produced by Euromeat and Milk EOOD, which were sanctioned in the end of January over not meeting hygienic requirements.
The sale of raw milk is currently illegal in the state of New Jersey, but local groups, such as Garden State Raw Milk, are campaigning towards legalization. The Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station is hosting of a seminar series on raw milk to inform the public on this topic. On February 6th, the seminar series started with a presentation by Mark McAfee, from the organic dairy farm Organic Pastures (California): “Raw Milk, mother nature’s inconvenient truth”. Mr. McAfee discussed the health benefits of raw milk consumption as well as the personal satisfaction and commercial advantages of organic farming.
Throughout the talk, emphasis was put on the safe history of raw milk consumption with respect to pathogen contamination and association with foodborne outbreaks, and on the seemingly overwhelming health benefits of the consumption of raw milk as opposed to FDA-approved pasteurized milk. According to Mr. McAfee, raw milk represents an inconvenient truth to big dairies, pharmaceutical companies, western medicine in general and long-distribution chains. Though all these entities may have a commercial interest in keeping raw milk illegal, the consumer would be the one to benefit from its commercialization. Cases were mentioned of raw milk consumers who recovered from diseases such as allergies, lactose intolerance, Crohn’s disease or asthma which were unable to be cured by western medicine. Western medicine was claimed to only treat the symptoms of disease, whereas exercise and the consumption of unprocessed foods, such as organic raw milk, help prevent disease. The ability of raw milk to enhance the immune system is the most generally claimed reason for its health benefits. According to Mr. McAfee, among the factors that contribute to organic raw milk’s beneficial effects are its high content of animal fat (from grass-fed, not grain-fed cows), enzymes, beneficial bacteria, as well as vitamins and minerals. All of these are of course important components of a healthy diet, which are minimized in the standard American diet (aka “S.A.D.”). In particular, the example of pasteurized milk was used to describe the “harmful” effects of commercial processing. Apart from the destruction of enzymes and probiotic bacteria, it was implied that pasteurization covers for unsanitary processing practices, and that pasteurized product is an easy target for pathogens such as L. monocytogenes. Furthermore, the prevalence in recent times of immune system diseases was correlated with the consumption of processed food products. Unfortunately, scientific evidence is not abundant due to the limited number of research grants available and the implications of doing research against the interests of official agencies.
A number of benefits of organic farming were also mentioned, and from an economic point of view it was emphasized that a market exists for raw milk products, in which a consumer is willing to pay ~$5 per half gallon of organic raw milk.
My personal conclusion of this presentation is that although organic raw milk may represent a more wholesome alternative to pasteurized milk, and has traditionally been consumed raw for centuries, the current state of technology is able to produce microbiologically-safe, nutritious milk readily available to large, wide-spread populations in a cost-efficient manner. The presence of raw milk in the market may be a rightful and, if properly produced, safe alternative to consumers and farmers. — Silvia is a Graduate Assistant at Rutgers University and is looking forward to the upcoming seminars! ("Raw Milk Wars, Government’s Attempt to Dictate What Foods We Can Consume" on 2/20, and “Raw Milk, A Microbiology Primer” on 4/3).
Are humans safer when they’re happy? Are you? Ok. Now follow this logic… Are cows?
I’m willing to go along with the California Cow commercial that claims “Great cheese comes from happy cows” and maybe even the only happy cows in the world come from California. Why not – the weather is nice and the people are laid-back. But does that necessarily mean their milk is safer?
In a post today on http://wewantorganicfood.com/ author, Lynn Cameron says, “If there could be a master key to safe raw milk, I think it would be contented cows.” The author contends that today, some raw milk is unsafe because some cows spend their days indoors, “living on field corn and soybeans to the degradation of their milk and the degeneration of the nation’s health.” I guess this is something akin to the cubicle complex.
Call me a skeptic, but I really need some science to back up this happy feeling. It’s nice to think that happy cows frolicking on the hill cannot produce anything bad. The author of the article rightfully makes a call to our nostalgia – to a happier time before farming was industrialized. Nostalgia is nice, but it does not make food safer. While Cameron says, “It’s not complicated science to understand that quality of life as well as diet affects cows’ milk quality,” her inability to produce that uncomplicated science leaves me completely unconvinced. This kind of thinking, that cows “raised entirely outdoors on green grass and/or hay, their milk is proven time and again greatly reduced in pathogens (bad bacteria),” has really not been proven as explained by David Renter in September 2006. “Cattle raised on diets of ‘grass, hay and other fibrous forage’ do contain E. coli O157:H7 bacteria in their feces as do other animals including deer, sheep, goats, bison, opossum, raccoons, birds, and many others.”
I’m completely in favor of good conditions and happy cows – who wouldn’t be? But even in the best conditions, microbiological contamination can happen – just as it happens in very happy homes with very content cooks. “Confinement cows” or “happy cows,” the only scientifically proven measure to reduce the risk of dangerous pathogens in milk is pasteurization.
The Whatcom County Health Department announced Monday that five people were sickened by the the same campylobacter jejuni strain found in raw milk that was recalled last month from Pleasant Valley Dairy.
The dairy pulled that batch of milk from the shelves and has resumed its distribution of raw milk.
The health department said the dairy has changed its testing procedures to reduce the risk of releasing contaminated milk.
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But, the discussion in Montreal over the past two days is about the fate of small cheese producers, who are apparently giving up.
The trial of Ontario raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt has garnered media coverage far beyond its importance.
Whether that little manoeuvre exempts him from the law is up to the courts to decide. But it seems unlikely. After all, bar owners tried this technique to sidestep anti-smoking laws, selling "shares" in their establishment and arguing that patrons were smoking in a private club. Judges saw through the subterfuge. ….jpg)
Sorenne usually conks out after 15 minutes of walking, and then I catch up on phone calls. It’s my kind of multi-tasking.
A table of raw dairy outbreaks is available at .jpg)
In September, two children who drank raw milk from a Whatcom County dairy in Washington State became ill with E. coli O157:H7. At the same time, four children, including two eight-year-olds in San Diego County, Calif., were hospitalized with E. coli infection after consuming raw milk products.
From Kansas, this looks like an awfully familiar clash of science and faith. But it’s not so simple as natural is good, and science — in this case pasteurization — is bad. Science can be used to enhance what nature provided; further, society has a responsibility to the many — philosopher Mill also articulated how the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one — to use knowledge to minimize harm.
The 22 firms sent a new year text message
Doug wrote a book called 
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Are humans safer when they’re happy? Are you?