Raw Milk and Butter Recalled

California’s Organic Pastures Dairy has its third recall in less than a year. The first was for an E. coli outbreak and the last two because of Campylobacter bacteria found in their products. These are not their only recalls, they have had three other recalls in past years. If you live in California, you can get a list of stores where the recalled products are sold at Food Safety News.

The bad news is that after six recalls, people are still buying their products. Under present laws the FDA can not close down a dairy or even charge them a fine.
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Campylobacter is no laughing matter. This bacterial infection can cause diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain, nausea, headache and muscle pain and can last up to 10 days. Long-term complications may include contracting Guillain Barre Syndrome ( when your immune system attacks your nerves) If Campylobacter gets in the bloodstream, it can cause death.

Organic Pastures Dairy has been lucky so far in that only a few people have gotten sick from their products and there have been no deaths. The FDA issued a recall of milk from Family Cow Dairy in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania on Feb. 25, 2012 because of Campylobacter contamination. They were not so lucky. Seventy-eight people were sickened in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia. Nine of them were hospitalised.

Many people who drink raw milk believe that their dairies do a better job at cleanliness than the big factory farms. They also believe raw milk has health benefits and tastes better than pasteurized milk.

It’s true that there are differences in taste. (When I was a child I had raw milk still warm from the cow. I personally liked the pasteurized milk better.) Raw milk has a higher fat content. Because of the heating during pasteurization, the whey protein easier to digest than in raw milk. The amount of thiamine, cobalamin and Vitamin C is slightly reduced in pasteurized milk. The amounts are so small that they are not considered to affect human health.

According to a University of Michigan study some raw milk drinkers believe raw milk is beneficial for heart disease, neurological disease, aches, and cancer. Others feel that they do not have problems with lactose intolerance when they drink raw milk. There is no research to prove whether these beliefs are true or false. What is know is that it is not easy to keep all bacteria out of raw milk even when best processes are followed. Family Cow Dairy, for example, is licensed, inspected, and operating in compliance with Pennsylvania laws.

According to the CDC, one percent of dairy production in the U.S. comes from raw milk dairies. Yet, they were linked to 60 percent of dairy-related outbreaks of disease. In addition, 202 of the 239 hospitalizations (85 percent) resulted from raw milk outbreaks. Thirteen percent of patients from raw milk outbreaks were hospitalized, versus one percent of patients from pasteurized milk outbreaks.

Since raw milk drinkers may believe strongly in the benefits, getting them to drink pasteurized milk through education would probably not work. The only way to solve the problem is to make raw milk safer. I feel research into using Bacteriophage as an additive to raw milk should be researched.

Because people over the age of 65 or under the age of 6 are more likely to die from bacterial disease, this brings into question whether state laws should approve raw milk for all ages.
More information on campylobacter