In summertime, cows wait beneath a cover to be milked at Mark McAfee’s farm in Fresno, California. From his Cessna 210 Centurion propeller airplane, the 63-year-old can view grazing lands of the dairy firm he runs that produces merchandise equivalent to unpasteurized milk and cheese for nearly 2,000 shops.
Federal regulators say it’s dangerous enterprise. Samples of uncooked milk can comprise hen flu virus and different pathogens linked to kidney illness, miscarriages, and loss of life.
McAfee, founder and CEO of the Raw Farm, who additionally leads the Raw Milk Institute, says he plans to quickly be ready to vary that message.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist President Donald Trump has tapped to run the Department of Health and Human Services, recruited McAfee to use for a job because the FDA’s uncooked milk requirements and coverage adviser, McAfee stated. McAfee has already written draft proposals for potential federal certification of uncooked dairy farms, he stated.
Virologists are alarmed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends against unpasteurized dairy that hasn’t been heated to kill pathogens equivalent to hen flu. Interstate uncooked milk gross sales for human consumption are banned by the FDA. A Trump administration that weakens the ban or extols uncooked milk, the scientists say, might result in more foodborne illness. It might additionally, they are saying, elevate the danger of the extremely pathogenic H5N1 hen flu virus evolving to unfold extra effectively, together with between individuals, presumably fueling a pandemic.
“If the FDA says raw milk is now legal and the CDC comes through and says it advises drinking raw milk, that’s a recipe for mass infection,” stated Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and co-editor-in-chief of the medical journal Vaccine and an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University in New York.
The uncooked milk controversy displays the broader tensions President Donald Trump will confront when pursuing his second-administration agenda of rolling again laws and injecting extra shopper selection into well being care.
Many insurance policies Kennedy has stated he desires to revisit — from the fluoridation of faucet water to diet steerage to childhood vaccine necessities — are backed by scientific analysis and had been established to guard public well being. Some doctor teams and Democrats are gearing as much as combat initiatives they are saying would put individuals in danger.
Raw milk has gained a following amongst anti-regulatory conservatives who’re a part of a burgeoning well being freedom motion.
“The health freedom movement was adopted by the tea party, and conspiracy websites gave it momentum,” stated Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who has studied the historical past of the anti-vaccine motion.
Once-fringe concepts are edging into the mainstream. Vaccine hesitancy is rising.
Arkansas, Utah, and Kentucky are weighing laws that will chill out or finish necessities for fluoride in public water. And 30 states now allow for the sale of raw milk in some type inside their borders.
While solely an estimated 3% of the U.S. population consumes uncooked milk or cheese, efforts to attempt to prohibit its gross sales have riled Republicans and supplied grist for conservative podcasts.
Many conservatives denounced final 12 months’s execution of a search warrant when Pennsylvania agriculture officers and state troopers arrived at an organic farm tucked off a two-lane highway on Jan. 4, 2024. State inspectors had been investigating instances of two youngsters sickened by E. coli micro organism and gross sales of uncooked dairy from the operation owned by Amish farmer Amos Miller, in line with a complaint filed by the state’s agricultural department.
Bundled in flannel shirts and winter jackets, the inspectors put orange stickers on merchandise detaining them from sale, and so they left toting product samples in massive blue-and-white coolers, on-line movies present. The 2024 grievance in opposition to Miller alleged that he and his spouse offered dairy merchandise in violation of state legislation.
The farm was well-known to regulators. They say within the grievance {that a} Florida shopper died after being sickened in 2014 with listeria micro organism present in uncooked dairy from Miller’s farm. The FDA stated a uncooked milk pattern from the farm signifies it was the “likely source” of the an infection, primarily based on the grievance.
Neither Miller’s farm nor his lawyer returned calls searching for remark.
The Millers’ lawyer filed a preliminary objection that stated “shutting down Defendants would cause inequitable harm, exceed the authority of the agency, constitute an excessive fine as well as disparate, discriminatory punishment, and contravene every essential Constitutional protection and powers reserved to the people of Pennsylvania.”
Regulators in Pennsylvania stated in a press launch they need to defend the general public, and particularly youngsters, from hurt. “We cannot ignore the illnesses and further potential harm posed by distribution of these unregulated products,” the Pennsylvania agricultural division and lawyer common said in a joint statement.
Unpasteurized dairy merchandise are answerable for nearly all of the estimated 761 illnesses and 22 hospitalizations within the U.S. that happen yearly due to dairy-related sickness, in line with a research revealed within the June 2017 subject of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
But conservatives say raiding an Amish farm is authorities overreach. They’re “harassing him and trying to make an example of him. Our government is really out of control,” Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Doug Mastriano stated in a video he posted to Facebook.
Videos show protesters at a February 2024 listening to on Miller’s case included Amish males wearing black with straw hats and locals waving home made indicators with slogans equivalent to “FDA Go Away.” A courtroom in March issued a preliminary injunction that barred Miller from advertising and promoting uncooked dairy merchandise throughout the commonwealth pending attraction, however the order didn’t preclude gross sales of uncooked milk to prospects out of state. The case is ongoing.
With Kennedy, the uncooked milk debate is poised to go nationwide. Kennedy wrote on X in October that the “FDA’s war on public health is about to end.” In the put up, he pointed to the company’s “aggressive suppression” of uncooked milk, as one instance.
McAfee is prepared. He desires to see a nationwide uncooked milk ordinance, much like one which exists for pasteurized milk, that will set minimal nationwide requirements. Farmers might attain certification by coaching, persevering with training, and on-site pathogen testing, with one normal for farms that promote to customers and one other for retail gross sales.
The Trump administration didn’t return emails searching for remark.
McAfee has detailed the system he developed to make sure his uncooked dairy merchandise are secure. He confirmed the method for KFF Health News: cows with yellow-tagged ears graze on grass pastures and are cleansed in washing pens earlier than milking. The uncooked dairy is held again from shopper sale till it’s been examined and located away from pathogens.
His uncooked dairy merchandise, equivalent to cheese and milk, are offered by a wide range of shops, together with well being, natural, and pure grocery chains, in line with the company website, in addition to uncooked dairy pet merchandise, which aren’t for human consumption.
He stated he doesn’t imagine the uncooked milk he sells might comprise or transmit viable hen flu virus. He additionally stated he doesn’t imagine regulators’ warnings about uncooked milk and the virus.
“The pharmaceutical industry is trying to create a new pandemic from bird flu to get their stock back up,” stated McAfee, who says he counts Kennedy as a buyer. His view is not shared by main virologists.
In December, the state of California secured a voluntary recall of all his firm’s uncooked milk and cream merchandise because of potential hen flu contamination.
Five indoor cats in the identical family died or had been euthanized in December after ingesting uncooked milk from McAfee’s farm, and assessments on 4 of the animals discovered they had been contaminated with hen flu, in line with the Los Angeles County Department of Health.
In an unrelated case, Joseph Journell, 56, stated three of his 4 indoor cats drank McAfee’s uncooked milk. Two fell sick and died, he stated. His third cat, a big tabby rescue named Big Boy, briefly misplaced using his hind legs and had to make use of a specialised wheelchair machine, he stated. Urine samples from Big Boy had been constructive for hen flu, in line with a copy of the results from Cornell University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
McAfee dismissed connections between the cats’ sicknesses and his merchandise, saying any potential hen flu virus would now not be viable by the point his uncooked milk will get to shops. He additionally stated he believes that any sick cats acquired hen flu from recalled pet meals.
Journell stated he has employed a lawyer to attempt to recover his veterinary costs however stays a staunch proponent of uncooked milk.
“Raw milk is good for you, just not if it has bird flu in it,” he stated. “I do believe in its healing powers.”
Stephanie Armour:
[email protected],
@StephArmour1
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