Wisconsin food safety officials are taking the opportunity of a Campylobacter raw milk outbreak to warn consumers once again that unpasteurized milk is inherently risky and shouldn’t be toyed with as an alternative to legal dairy milk. In Wisconsin and other states, sales of raw milk to consumers are outlawed because the product has the potential to kill.
The raw milk culprit this time in “America’s Dairyland” has been identified by the state Food Safety Division in the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) as the Zinniker Family Farm in Elkhorn, located in southeastern Wisconsin. Zinniker sold raw milk under a “cow share” program to a defined customer list, which the Food Safety Division says is flatly illegal.
An investigation by DATCP and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services found an outbreak of 35 confirmed cases of Campylobacter jejuni infection was caused by contaminated raw milk from the farm. The outbreak started in August and sickened 21 individuals under age 18. One person was hospitalized and all patients had consumed unpasteurized milk before falling ill. Thirty of the patients identified Zinniker as the source of their raw milk and testing found Campylobacter in manure samples of milking cows on the farm. The identical molecular strain of the bacteria was found in 25 of the outbreak victims, state officials reported.
Victims of the outbreak can protect and assert their legal rights by contacting an attorney. Our firm, PritzkerOlsen, P.A., has represented victims in Campylobacter outbreaks around the country and is one of the country’s foremost practitioners in the area of foodborne illness litigation.
In DATCP’s press release, Food Safety Division chief Steve Ingham was blunt about the dangerous of ingesting raw milk, which some people stubbornly swear is not only better tasting but more healthful than pasteurized milk.
“So far we’ve been fortunate that the infections have not been life-threatening,” Ingham said in the press release. He said raw milk is just as capable of transmitting diseases more dangerous than Campylobacter — which itself in extreme cases can lead to paralysis and respiratory failure.
One of the known risks of consuming raw milk is E. coli O157:H7 , which kills an estimated 60 people a year in the U.S. and can lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, the leading cause of kidney failure in children.
From a page out of the federal government’s new emphasis on food safety, here’s a list of facts to fight the fiction surrounding raw milk:
- Raw milk DOES NOT kill dangerous pathogens by itself.
- Pasteurizing milk DOES NOT cause lactose intolerance and allergic reactions. Both raw milk and pasteurized milk can cause alergic reactions in people sensitive to milk proteins.
- Pasteurization DOES NOT reduce milk’s nutritional value.
- Pasteurization DOES kill harmful bacteria.
- Pasteurization DOES save lives.
5 Comments
Why don’t you go after the government and the pharmaceutical companies killing people with all these toxic vaccines and do something worthwhile rather than going after small family farms providing people with REAL FOOD and espousing UNTRUTHS about raw dairy! Did the government shut down the farm(s) that produced ecoli in spinach, or the giant agriculture meat producers with ecoli contaminated meats from SICK animals in CAFOs and factory farms??? SPEND YOUR TIME ON worthwhile issues!
Our law firm has represented people sickened with Campylobacter who suffered incomprehensible pain and life-changing illness. It is possible you do not consider Campylobacter a serious illness because you have never known anyone who contracted campylobacteriosis. When a retailer sells a product that it knows can severely sicken and kill someone, the retailer, even if it is a family dairy, needs to take responsibility for that.
The Zinnikers have sold cow shares for years and nothing ever happened. The milk was wonderful. I miss it very much.
Store bought milk tastes like chalk compared to raw organic milk.
I believe the camphobacter was planted by a government source.
You obviously have not read: The Milk Book, or The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid, ND
The Zinnikers are wonderful people and their farm is pristine clean. I would go back to raw milk in a heart beat.
Steeny Betker
Why don’t these lawyers fight to make GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS ILLEGAL? This is the real danger to our health. The Zinnikers are wonderful people with excellent, healthy milk. I am sure this bacteria was planted by someone who wants to shut the Zinnikers down. Their farm is VERY CLEAN. There are some big companies who may not care about people’s health, but the Zinnikers do.
And to Fred’s comment above “When a retailer sells a product that it knows can severely sicken and kill someone, the retailer, even if it is a family dairy, needs to take responsibility for that.” Then go after all the fast food restaurants and processed food companies, because these fake foods with hydrogenated oils are sickening and killing an entire new generation of people with diabetes and cancer, and the companies know that.
Fred, please fight the vaccine producers who are DESTROYING health with poisons injected into our next generation of Americans.
(Our e-mail is changing soon. You may not be able to respond to me.)
Terry, I understand your frustration, but it does not alter the fact that companies large and small should be held responsible for illnesses caused by their food. By holding companies responsible, we are deterring others from selling food contaminated with foodborne pathogens that can kill people.
As lawyers, we have to have solid evidence of “causation” to sue someone. This means that there has to be be a very persuasive connection between the problem with the food and a specific illness in a specific person. This connection cannot be made as of yet with genetically modified food. Further advances in technology and new research may change that, but we could not ethically pursue these cases now.
I am not out to get the little guy. I have gone after large fast food companies and won. What I care about is making it clear to the food industry that at every level all possible measures need to be taken to prevent foodborne pathogens from contaminating food. There are no good excuses for poor sanitation.
Fred Pritzker On Newsmakers
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