Four of six California children in a confirmed E. coli outbreak cluster drank unpasteurized raw milk from Organic Pastures Dairy Co. before becoming ill in January, state officials said Monday.
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) reported lab tests show all six children had the same unique strain of Shiga-toxin producing E. coli O157. Some of the children required hospitalization. Health officials said it is investigating the possibility of additional victims.
“CDPH is continuing to work with local health departments to identify potential case patients that might be associated with this cluster of illnesses,” a health department spokesman said.
The department’s Food and Drug Branch (FDB) collected a number of samples from the marketplace. Test results were not yet available on Monday according to the state health department spokesman.
The dairy owners are aware of the illnesses and are cooperating with the investigation, CDPH officials said.
“FDB has also initiated an environmental investigation at the dairy, but since that investigation is ongoing, we cannot provide any specifics at this time.”
Mark McAfee, founder and CEO of the Fresno-based dairy, said Monday the state had collected hundreds of samples from the dairy and none were positive.
The dairy recalled two lots of its whole, raw milk via its Facebook page at 9 p.m. Feb. 4. One lot had an expiration date of Jan. 23. The other expired Jan. 26. Organic Pastures also posted the recall on its website.
“Our food safety program saved the day,” McAfee said Monday when asked about the CDPH report. “It worked extremely well. We’re proud of that.”
McAfee said the test-and-hold procedure at the 500-cow dairy isn’t a 100 percent guarantee that pathogens are not present in Organic Pastures raw milk products. Raw milk is not pasteurized, which kills harmful germs and bacteria including E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter and Listeria.
The Organic Pastures testing procedure apparently failed on Jan. 6 when a batch of raw, unpasteurized milk returned a false negative, McAfee said. The milk was distributed. That false negative wasn’t apparent until last week, he said.
On Jan. 7, a test on a batch of raw milk returned a positive result. McAfee said that raised a red flag. That milk was not distributed under the Organic Pastures brand. McAfee said he sold it to a company that pasteurizes milk.
“We’ll never know for sure that the negative was actually false,” McAfee said of the Jan. 6 test.
He said the current situation is the first of its kind and that the dairy is working with state officials and researchers at the University of California-Davis to learn from it.
“The scientists always tell us that E. coli comes from manure. But we had a cow with E. coli on the inside of her udder. That’s never happened before,” McAfee said. The animal tested negative on Jan. 7 and positive for E. coli on Jan. 8. The dairy immediately quarantined the cow, McAfee said.
“All of our manure tests are negative. … We spend thousands a month on food safety.”
The dairy is now double testing its raw products before distribution, McAfee said. The company’s website references triple testing.
“If anyone has ever been made sick by our milk we want to talk to them,” McAfee said.
Source: Food Safety News