Drinking raw milk — even from a certified dairy — puts you at risk for intestinal foodborne diseases, among them E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria. Not only that, diverting contaminated milk to raw cheese production is not necessarily safe.
That’s the warning from a team of public health scientists from California and local, state, and and federal partners who investigated a multi-jurisdictional outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium associated with raw (unpasteurized) milk. Carried out from Oct. 18, 2023, through May 4, 2024, the investigation, which was in relation to 171 cases with the outbreak, swung a spotlight onto the likely source of the outbreak: Raw Farm’s raw milk.
Originally Organic Pastures, Raw Farm is based in Fresno, CA. The report was put out by the Center for Infectious Diseases – Division of Communicable Disease Control Infectious Diseases Branch – Disease Investigations Section According to the report, as of May 4, 2024, 171 cases — 159 confirmed and 12 probable — were identified from five states: California with 167, New Mexico with 1, Pennsylvania with 1, Texas with 1, and Washington with 1. The California cases were from 35 local health jurisdictions throughout the state.
Twenty states explicitly prohibit raw milk sales within the state where it is produced in some form and 30 allow it in various scenarios, including on-farm sales only. Federal law prohibits the sale of unpasteurized milk across state lines, but individual state laws govern t.