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Food
Food Saturday
02Dec
A Frank Discussion About Raw Milk, and a Plausible Theory on Why It Sometimes Makes Kids Sick
Saturday, December 2, 2006 at 08:01AM There’s quite a remarkable article just out from the Los Angeles Times magazine about Organic Pastures Dairy Co., and its trauma back in September and October, when five children who drank its milk became ill and the dairy was shut down by authorities for more than two weeks. (I wrote about the shutdown in BusinessWeek.com and had numerous blog postings about the situation.) For the first time I’m aware of, the subject of raw milk and sick children is seriously discussed and analyzed, without the usual ideological rhetoric pro and con. It's a lengthy article, but well worth the time to review.
Five points stand out to me from the article, aside from the drama of a dying child and the threat to Mark McAfee’s farm from the regulatory crackdown:
1. There may be brief periods when e.Coli does inhabit raw milk, but then fades away.
2. Children who are new to raw milk may be especially susceptible to becoming ill from the e.Coli.
3. Those children shouldn’t be treated with antibiotics because, by killing huge amounts of bacteria, the antibiotics have the effect of releasing a toxin that can damage a child’s kidneys. Without antibiotics, the illness takes the course of an upset stomach for a few days, after which the children recover fully.
4. There's an absence of fear mongering, since no agriculture officials or doctors are quoted directly.
5. McAfee shows admirable candor in discussing and assessing the five children who became sick after drinking his farm’s milk. When I was speaking with him regularly in October, he wasn’t willing to admit his raw milk might have made the children sick, speculating rather about the possibility of spinach being the culprit. Now he is, perhaps faced with what the regulators call the epidemiological evidence, or perhaps because he appreciates that candor is more disarming than denial.
As the article speculated about the possibility of a brief appearance of bacteria in raw milk, I realized that I have heard that possibility expressed previously--by Ohio agriculture officials. They mentioned this to me in describing their frustration with the phenomenon of kids becoming sick, and then the bacteria seemingly not being there when they test the milk.
The unfortunate difference between the two camps is that while McAfee sees this phenomenon as a risk to be managed (like taking care with raw meat or raw eggs), the Ohio officials take it as confirmation that raw milk is too risky for everyone and should be banned. One question that stands out: why don't the dairy, regulator, and medical communities try to learn more about the phenomena described in this article?
In the end, parents may conclude that it’s too risky to feed their children raw milk (like the father of the seven-year-old boy who became most seriously ill). Or they may conclude they understand the risks well enough to control the situation. The point is people should have the freedom to make their own choice. Many people seem already to have made their choice, as McAfee reports his sales are better than ever. Other reactions to the article?
Reader Comments (12)
Perhaps now the time has come where more testing can occur, for example, regarding the life cycle of pathogens in milk, e.g. is there a "zone of danger" that is typical - say, a day after milking - or two weeks? Does this differ for raw and pasteurized product? For example, we typically don't finish the last of our (raw) milk until two weeks after pick-up, and in nearly two years' experience we've only had one batch that had started to turn (we didn't get sick, and may not have had we used it, but simply poured it out) and as I recall, that occurred maybe a week after pick-up. Thus, a question I'd be interested in seeing answered, would be if there were contamination, would it be most virulent early in that two-week period or later? Or only on day one post-milking? Or is it totally random? Should the answer to this question imply labelling (for both raw and pasteurized) to show the date of last milking in a given batch? Etc.
Hopefully, the growing presence of raw milk will cause concerned parties, particularly the regulators who seem to have a narrow view of the matter, to get some more facts. More information will serve everyone well, and move the sometimes-fractious dialogue further out of the zone of opinion and into the zone of fact-based decision making. Again, the work should not focus just on raw milk but include pasteurized (and, for that matter, homogenized since nagging questions persist about that process) since significant risks have showed up over time with pasteurized products.
Notwithstanding, those who choose to consume raw milk (and other raw foods) should be permitted to enjoy the freedom of choice, just as surely as do those who choose to do other, far more dangerous things such as bungee-jumping, smoking or eating french fries cooked in vegetable oil. At least with raw milk, there is a much better chance of making an informed choice.
The article was highly emotionally charged, which detracts from its ability to convey unadorned facts and follow up with key events in the story. To wit: what WAS the result of the search for pathogens from the intestines of the cows? What WAS that strain of E.coli "never before found in the US" and what do actual scientists think about the reasons for its appearance? Why did the second hospital "not factor in" the possibility of E.coli infection and then administer antibiotics which brought the boy to near death, and isn't that malpractice?
Further, the thought on McAfee's part that the milk might possibly have been contaminated with the pathogen, but then also could have fought it off and destroyed the evidence was very interesting and merits test trials, but was portrayed in a science-fictiony way. "McAfee knew something about his milk that made him wonder. [Can't you hear a slow drum beat start about now?] It was so mercurial, so alive, that it could change faces right inside the bottle." Eee! Now THAT'S scary! Give me nice, safe, dead milk any day. All that McAfee was referring to is the ordinary ability of the healthy beneficial bacteria in the milk to overpower pathogens, not some Twilight Zone fantasy of a protean white liquid that's innocuous milk one day but an alien space invader the next. I'm getting carried away here, but I do think we still have no conclusions about the source of the children's terribly unfortunate sickening. I will only drink raw milk from a source I know and trust, just as I will only eat raw meat and eggs from sources I know personally. As David and Steve say, being fully aware that there is always risk involved should not be the means to deny people their right to choose what they eat.
When something stops working the way it should, we can try all kinds of tricks to get it going again.But when all else fails it never hurts to consult the owners manual.Unfortunately most people, including doctors,have never read the owners manual to the digestive system.Fortunately for us ,parts of the earth's digestive system are still intact and can easily be studied.Our digestive system is one small part of the earth's system and it operates by the same rules as the bigger system.
Stability is what we strive for. This means a large variety of organisms each doing their particular job as best they can.Our job is to manage our digestive system to maintain a healthy balance. We do this by carefully selecting what we add to the system. We call it eating.
When things get out of balance,we get gas or diarea or some sign of distress.How can we reestablish the balance?If the organism that is taking over the system is E. coli 0157:H7, we need to add something that encourages the other organisms and discourages the 0157:H7. 0157:H7 likes an acid environment and isn't bothered by antibiotics( it was created in grain fed ruminants that were treated with antibiotics).
The most effective thing to add which makes the system less acid and adds lots of competeing organisms( some of which actually search out and destroy 0157:H7) turns out to be a cultured raw milk product known as kefir.Even better protection comes from eating kefir daily as a means of preventing things getting out of balance. Lactobacillus can coat itself with casein and attach itself to the intestinal wall. This can prevent 0157:H7 from getting established in the first place.
You can find lots of information about probiotics at www.innvista.com/health/nutrition/biotics/proborg.htm
In an article in the NY Times, Michael Pollan writes "E. coli 0157:H7 was unknown before 1982; it is believed to have evolved in the gut of feedlot cattle". In The Omnivores Dilemma, he tells how almost all of the food that we eat now can be traced back to corn.Does it surprise us that E.coli 0157:H7 feels right at home in our bodies? The hospital was handed a seriously ill child,they panicked and made the situation worse,but the real blame should fall to a diet of processed foods heavy in grains and grain fed animal products.0157:H7 is just doing its job which is to destroy weak or deformed cells in our bodies .If we only had a few deformed cells,its actions would make us stronger. Unfortunately we seem to be made up of weak and poorly functioning cells.
From my perspective of writing about attacks on raw milk farmers, the thing I have felt weirdest about is the illnesses. While the Ann Arbor illnesses were likely explained as the work of pasteurized milk, the illnesses in California and Ohio have been less clear. To have Mark McAfee saying in September and Octor that it must have been spinach or some other non-milk cause(s) and the agriculture officials saying it had to be the raw milk seemed like posturing on both sides. Now we have at least a reasonable starting-point theory, something that isn't just assigning blame.
As Miguel and Steve point out, the medical profession has an obligation to educate itself. Unfortunately, doctors receive almost no education in nutritional issues. Their education is geared toward diagnosing and getting rid of disease, not preventing it. Their primary tools for getting rid of disease are drugs (like antibiotics) and surgery. This article chronicles the disastrous consequences of the antibiotic approach.
The other thing that is important with this article is that it signals further sophistication in media reporting on the raw milk issue. Same thing is happening in Canada. This is media pattern. While yoga, for example, was written about eight or ten years ago as kooky, today we see mainstream media taking it much more seriously.
Hopefully we'll see more dialogue and less diatribe going forward.
The science behind the fact that E.coli 0157:H7 can appear inside a cow's digestive system without being introduce by an outside source is not disputed. Each one of the billions of common E.coli in the cow divide into two new E.coli every 20 minutes. If an E.coli cell doesn't divide perfectly a mutation occurs. This is not uncommon. In order to reproduce itself the mutation only has to survive for 20 minutes.In a grassfed cow,the 0157:H7 form of E.coli does not survive for long because it cannot compete with the other bacteria that flourish in that environment.In a feedlot (grainfed) cow the acid environment slows down the bacteria that would normally crowd out 0157:H7 and since it tolerates the acidity better it reproduces and grows.
The question to ask is could the same thing happen inside a person's digestive system.Whether the 0157:H7 live long enough to reproduce depends on the environment inside the cow or the person . If you give the bacteria the same environment they will act the same whether in a cow or a person.
When someone is hospitalized and there is a bill to pay, science is irrelevant. You just round up the usual suspects and build a case of circumstantial evidence against whoever has enough money to pay the bill.
If that child that got sick had a bowl of corn flakes with unpastuerized milk on it for breakfast,it is more likely that the corn flakes were to blame than the milk.
The ignorant ideas are being taught right now at Michigan State and the U of C at Ervine. You can also read research from the U of Nebraska and Oklahoma that support my ignorance.Talking to students recently ,they told me that human beings are now considered to be symbiotic communities of bacteria and other microbes.Bacteria and other microbes on and in our bodies actually outnumber the human cells in our bodies. Our health depends on the health of the microbes that live inside and outside of our bodies.They tell me there is no such thing as good or bad bacteria.The microbes act as a buffer between us and the environment.Innocent children get sick when their community of microbes gets out of balance. Antibiotics in pasteurized milk can suppress some members of this community and make room for antibiotic resistant bacteria to flourish.Preservatives put in food to prolong shelf life are antibacterial . They also upset the balance. We can't win a war against bacteria without killing ourseves.Food safety starts with mineral rich soil full of life.The plants grown from this soil make healthy livestock and healthy children.Food safety and security can only come from fresh food grown locally on a reasonable scale.
It's actually intended as just one thread of the whole issue of the effects of our industrial development, of which I have a few other threads on the site also :o)
My best to you and yours,
Lee C