The Complete Patient

I think its a little unreasonable to expect a dairy to have a lab that can test every day for every possible pathogen and then critisize it for being too big. I wonder how much it costs to do all the testing that people would like to have done. Grade A milk is only tested for a general bacteria count and a somatic cell count.No specific bacteria are tested for. And pasteurization does not kill 100% of the bacteria.

David, Im sorry but what did it for me was when Mark told Mary that she needed counseling! Are you kidding me.?? I watched that woman almost lose her son and I feel he had no compassion at all. He looked like a greedy, self centered, lunatic when his dairy was shut down instead of someone that was MAYBE a little concerned that HIS farm may have gotten five kids sick.

I would be a little agitated also if my business was being questioned or threatened by government agencies even if I was innocent. Cut Mark a little slack. I have met him several times at his dairy while buying milk. If you had ever met him you would know he is very passionate about what he does and passionate people will seem a little agitated when defending their beliefs. The world would be a better place if more people had his passion about what ever it is they do.

Just a clarification about my suggestion that there may be a coordinated "epidemic of testing" - that's all I said, and although the FDA seems as likely a culprit as any to do such a thing, I don't have any information to that effect and did not, in fact, mention the FDA. Coordination could occur at many different levels, and I think it would be best to keep eyes and ears open to all possibilities, without prejudging, to better be able to figure out how it's happening, since I don't know (yet), except to believe strongly that it is being coordinated somehow.

On another blog, M M-M and Melissa have accused me of being Mark McAfee. I am NOT he. Are they a little paranoid? Unfortunately, they hide behind the role of victim, providing them am almost invulnerable ability to lash out. While I, like so many others, are more than sympathetic to their misfortunes, their wavering responses make me wonder if they are working for the DAIRY industry! Lets mooove on! This is after all the Complete Patient, NOT the complete McGonigle.

Ruth, This is an open forum and if you cant handle the heated conversation, I suggest you "MOVE ON"

Our children and families were victims. Talk to me when your child almost dies of E-Coli.

Im starting to wonder if you work for Organic Pastures Dairy !!

Last June in the Independent Weekly (Raleigh, NC), Mark McAfee used the name “mooshine” and made some insensitive comments about me that included the need for counseling. I called him on it and he came out of hiding and identified himself. So his past behavior has caused me to become suspicious. I found it interesting that when he did respond on the blog the other day, he did not deny the accusation.

So, now are you saying that you are (moonshine) and then Mark makes a statement afterwards? Just like on this blog. Was that you making an offensive statement about counseling and then Mark makes a statement afterwards? If so, you’re a creative and calculating team. You make insulting statements (hit and run) and then Mark comes on with his mantra about raw milk. Wow. Ruth you will be happy, I’m speechless.

Ruth, if this is who you would like to defend, be my guest, but I think you would be upset if your child was ill, actually near death, and someone told flat out lies about the situation to make himself look better. When we were in the hospital, I didn’t call the CDC or make claims that Mark’s milk made Chris ill. The doctors asked questions and then the CDC showed up and asked questions. Actually, I was defending Mark and his milk. I don’t come to a conclusion until I have all the facts. I didn’t have all the facts at that time, so I had an open mind as to what made him ill. Believe me, I was the only idiot defending his position. Melissa can validate this. She was very patient with my point of view.

In January of 2007, he did an interview for Acres U.S.A. These are Mark’s actual words. The more he speaks, the angrier I become. His false statements are insulting to our children and families. He didn’t come to the hospital out of concern for our children.

ACRES U.S.A. All these things stated — you have an absolutely impeccable record and reputation. Why would the authorities pick on you?

McAFEE. We are the poster child for how to do raw milk in the United States. If they can destroy the poster child, they’ll destroy the entire paradigm. They’ll destroy the entire movement and destroy the source of raw milk because it’s our integrity that’s under attack. I believe they think if they can get rid of Mark McAfee and Organic Pastures Dairy, they’ll have no leadership in the industry — so why not go after us? The problem they had was that they shot first and asked questions later — and they forgot something. They forgot who Mark McAfee was. I was a paramedic for 16 years, and I am very, very familiar with taking medical histories. I’m also very, very familiar with going into hospitals and becoming friends with nurses. So I went in and basically cozied up to all these ICU nurses and doctors and talked to the patients themselves, talked to the parents of the children that they said were sickened by our milk, and I found out that the truth was completely different from the claims of the authorities. In fact, there weren’t four children, there were only two children who were sick, and of those two children, one was officially on the spinach list and admitted to having spinach from Watsonville; the other came out on national TV and said it had nothing to do with the milk.

(Mary) Does this at all sound a bit egocentric? Poster Child? And as for him cozying up to the nurses and doctors, this is laughable. First of all the PICU is a locked facility. They only let family and friends of family in (with a family member). HIPPA laws don’t allow any doctor or nurse to share any confidential information. I couldn’t even get information about Lauren Herzog. As for talking to the children, Chris was on a ventilator. Neither Lauren (who didn’t eat spinach) nor Chris (who did eat spinach, but not the packaged Dole spinach that was implicated in the outbreak) were on the official spinach list from Watsonville spinach. There were only two sick children at Loma Linda Children’s Hospital. The other two children were in San Diego County and another child in Northern California. Marks versions of the story are all fabrications. He’s impulsive when he speaks and makes up the story as he goes along. Only people who have something to hide make up lies.

ACRES U.S.A. What were you able to find out?

McAFEE. I went down and visited the families two days later — I actually had a physical visit at Loma Linda Hospital, and the story quickly unfolded. In fact the illnesses had nothing to do with our milk — we were just easy opportunity targets because we were raw milk, but when you’ve got 50,000 people a week drinking your milk in Southern California, you’re going to have overlap. And you know they didn’t even find the same strains in all the fecal exams — they weren’t the same, there were two different strains! I’ve learned that researchers are finding there’s a second strain of pathogen in the contaminated spinach, even though the CDC says there’s only one strain. There are a bunch of families out there right now that are bewildered because they had spinach and got sick and have E. coli, but have a different strain. There’s kind of official denial of that. In any case, within a week of this whole quarantine happening, I threatened to hold a press conference to tell all about what I had discovered. The state was begging me not to do so because they wanted more time to get their tests completed. I basically had them over the barrel because I’d caught them in a lie and consumers were irate, they were writing letters and calling their congressmen and everything — we had 8,000 e-mails come in. We had people ready to march on to Sacramento because they wanted raw milk. So the state capitulated within seven days.

(Mary)Once again, a tad bit egocentric. So now there are two different strains; meaning different e-coli blueprints. Mark has so much power that the state backed down???? If this was true (different blueprints of e-coli) Mark would have publicized this everywhere. It would have been to his benefit to make this information known. I think the true version of this story is his dairy was reopened because they didn’t find any e-coli 0157:H7 in the milk or around his dairy. In late October, when they searched hundreds of his cows, they did find e-coli 0157:H7 in one of the milking cows and two dry heard cows, but not the same blueprint as the sick children.

His final statement says it all.

ACRES U.S.A. So, where do you go from here? Does this in the long run hurt your business, or are you going to pick up customers?

McAFEE. Our sales are 30 percent higher now that we’re back in production. We cannot keep product on the shelf. It has been the greatest thing that’s ever happened to our market.

(Mary)Marks business is booming and he’s worried about what I say about his milk. Why? Am I hitting to close to the truth?

Melissa says, “Our children and families were victims.” That is true. There is no disagreement about it. But a victim of what, exactly? Willful human misconduct, or natural circumstance? Accidents do happen, and there is no system on earth that can guarantee 100% consistency in any sphere. Is it right that we must always have somebody in the noose whenever something goes awry? Personally, I do not like Mark’s tone; I will not attempt to justify his comments. But Mark’s abrasiveness does not qualify him for hanging, and even more important, does not indict raw milk. (By the way, I am NOT attempting to imply that willful misconduct is not actionable!)

Now I hand milk a family cow, and am very satisfied with the safety of our milk. But I’d bet that Mark’s dairy is cleaner than mine—his certainly receives more objective testing than mine. My cow tromps through muck and mire in a small pasture shared with deer and turkey and God only knows what else. I milk on a dirt floor. Milk goes from the udder into an open bucket. Dust and dirt and flecks of this and that inevitably drop in. I myself lean over that bucket every day. These are, in short, conditions that would make any dairy inspector cringe. But they are also, as Mary McGonigle Martin has pointed out, the “right” and natural way to get milk, and likely mimic the way the elderly raw milk drinker described in a previous post, got her milk. In all that mess, there is great health, and very adequate safety. How can that be?

We MUST come to grips with the fact there is inherent risk in, well, just about everything, and that our natural world affords us both dangers and protections. The raw milk movement is sometimes portrayed as a crazy killer, completely on the danger side of that equation. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is really about making the best use of the best protections we know of, by encouraging finely-tuned, vigorous, adaptable, and healthy bodies thorugh natural means.

Dear Bloggers…. please do not become raw milk Doggers. This is me Mark McAfee.

I never use a stage name when I post comments on public blogs… never. If I did not use my name, it was not me!!

I need to explain a little about raw cream. It takes 100 pounds of raw milk to make just 6 pints ( six pounds ) of raw cream. The rest of the precious (94 pounds ) is thrown away. In the raw markets everyone wants raw butter and raw cream. The pasteurized organic markets are a low fat market and there is extra organic raw cream available.

We never outsource our raw milk...never. But when it comes to providing living high quality raw organic cream from pasture fed cows...we do buy limited amounts from outside sources. I have been very open about this. I have no secrets about this, why would I? It is organic grass fed and raw. This is 100% integrity. Straus dairy out sources most of its milk. This is common in organic dairies. Anyone I speak with I share this with.

Some additional helpful facts might also help. Did you know that CDFA does not ever test pasteurized products for pathogens? It is against their policy. This is because pasteurization does not kill all pathogens it just reduces them by a factor of five logs.

The raw cream that has made so many headlines took nine days to culture in very special listeria broth in order to get a cell to grow enough to be detected. This detect was extremely low level and sub clinical. It could never make someone sick. In fact, according to Pub Med...10% of the population has listeria in their gut already and are completely immune to it.

No one has been sickened by the recalled cream.

That's zero people sick. Why is this news?

I think I will collect 100 samples of pasteurized milk and culture them for nine days in lab perfect conditions, conditions not found in humans or nature or stores and then report back to this blog.

All this talk about pathogens is really a symptom of how far we are disconnected with how organic systems function. Pathogens can only sicken those that are weak. Pathogens are only significant in America because of our love of sterile dead food. Sterile dead food is the source of our rampant immune depression and chronic disease patterns. Raw milk drinkers by definition have a completely different immune system and rarely get sick from pathogens or other bacteria.

That is the goal we all strive for. That is why raw milk is so critically important and so rare in our country.

This is a biological and political battle and this will not be the last or the worst attack on OPDC or other raw milk producers.

If you want raw milk....as consumers, I beg you to band together and thank god and OPDC and Claravale for raw milk in CA. We carry one hell of a cross for this public privilege.

In NC, they are now required to add black food coloring into their raw milk.

Bickering among raw milk consumers is so very sad. We should be spending our time rejoicing about the fact that our children no longer suffer from ear infections and asthma. No more lactose intolerance...no more IBS or Ulcers.

We should be spending our time building up the raw milk reputation instead of helping CDFA and FDA accomplish their objectives.

Another 270 people died today because of immune depression and MRSA and antibiotic resistant infections.

That’s the news.

Raw milk bacteria phobia is the distraction that many foolishly follow away from true discussions and issues. In order to be immune healthy...we must start a love affair with good bacteria sources or be forever doomed to illness. That’s how we function.

I always take calls from consumers. I was at the Fresno Farmers Market when I was called on a weekend. Please call 1-877 RAW MILK and I would be very happy to talk with any one. As CEO I am dedicated to each and every consumer and will always take that call. Always!!

If we expect to have whole foods available, we must fight together. Not amongst each other.

Please call me...

Mark McAfee
Founder OPDC

I happen to support and agree with Mark, especially after my own investigation into the listeria detection methods used against Autumn Valley Farms earlier this summer. Mark has quickly responded to my inquiries in the past, and even offered his help to Stump Acres dairy (PA) when they were accused of selling tainted raw milk earlier this spring.

I don't see the CEOs of Dean Foods, Horizon Dairy, Brown Cow, Seven Stars, Hartzler's Dairy, etc. anywhere on this blog, and I doubt they publicize their phone numbers or email addresses.

That fact that the CDFA cultured the cream sample for nine days is ridiculous, bordering on outrageous and could only have been done with malice in mind. The FDA's guidelines call for food samples to be cultured for two days at 86 degrees in an enrichment and selection broth before examination for pathogens. The FDA also has a zero-tolerance policy for Listeria Monocytogenes, so detection of any viable bacteria at all is grounds for a recall - no matter how ridiculous. I'd love for Mark to run the same tests on any pasteurized milk products and look for Listeria, Campylobacter, E. Coli and all the rest. Heck, I'll write and distribute the press release for him if he does! :-)

The real Mark McAfee has stood-up, he stands for true real health.

A couple of questions for Mary Martin.

Firstly and most importantly how is your son? I have heard that he is doing great and I am so very glad!!

#1 Did your son ever have Ecoli 0157H7 cultured from his stools?

You told me that your son never had Ecoli 0157H7 cultured in his stools and that the culture showed Shiggella not Ecoli.

#2. Did your son eat spinach prior to getting sick?

You told me that your son had eaten spinach prior to becoming ill.

I have the greatest compassion for you and your family and your pain. I nearly lost my daughter Kaleigh when she was 11 years old, nine years ago from Meningitis. I know about the pain of nearly losing a child and holding their weak precious hand in an ICU and wishing and praying to god and crying. I was a paramedic for 16 years and ran about 15000 911 EMS calls. I know about death and dying. I have stood as the only thing between precious warm vital life and the still cold soullessness of death. Many times at 0200 in the morning my skills ( by the grace of god ) made that difference. I have the family thank you cards and the memorializing hugs forever in my memory. I have held parents in my arms as I told them that their child was dead. I have cried with them...I still dream of them.

Mary it is now time to emotionally heal and go forward. No connection was found between your son and our raw dairy products. This was the official CDFA statement released and printed on the front page of the Fresno Bee in September 2006. I can email this to anyone that wants it.

I have dedicated the rest of my life to the prevention of disease through whole foods and nutritional prevention. I can not do this through dead pasteurized products. They do not heal, they irritate and inflame. Pro-biotic raw whole dairy products heal and sooth .

I am in the business of health education and good bacteria and how the immune system of the human body works. I also sell raw milk.

I would ask that those that do not understand Mark McAfee and think of me as a "pathogen pusher" to please come visit with me and read the growing three inch think book of consumer testimonials. When you stop crying then you can join me in my passion…. now more than ever. This added experience is the strongest evidence ever that we have much work to do in America. America does not understand how to prevent disease. Our official bacteria paranoid policies cause disease. Change is our job and change is my job. This is literally “bioterrorism of our own making”.

Blessings to all the mothers that suffer when their children are sick. Blessings to all the kids that can not drink raw milk (because of ignorant parents) and be well...naturally. There is a reason why mother nature created the human breast and why this breast did not produce pasteurized milk.

Remember…another 270 people, enough to fill a 747 Jumbo Jet, died ( were killed ) today because of immune depression and antibiotic resistant infections ( CDC data ). This is a direct result of FDA policy, drug companies greed and doctors ignorance. Strong immune systems would prevent this daily tragedy.

Healing to you all,

Mark McAfee
Founder OPDC
Fresno County Paramedic of the year 1994
Retired EMS Paramedic
Fresno County A-82155

Hi all,

On Mothering.com in the commune section where you post comments, there is a woman that says her and her husband drank Raw Cream from Organic Pastures and both her and her husband got sick. She was asking other bloggers what she should do about it. (I dont want to post her comments so you will have to go on there and search for it)

Mark, I wouldnt make the claim that no one got sick quite yet.

And what are you saying, its ok that you have Listeria in your product as long as NO ONE gets sick.?????

I think you are just used to being knee deep in cow manure that you think that everyone else should be too.

MAYBE WE SHOULD ALL PUT ON OUR BOOTS. :)

I appreciate Mark's candor and sincerity.

Melissa, I've read and participated in that particular discussion on MDC, and the woman did not think the cream caused the symptoms, although the reports made her momentarily concerned and she wanted more information from Organic Pastures before using the cream again. This seems very logical. And not at all like what you just posted. Please don't cherrypick information to buttress your argument.

Melissa, I have toured Organic Pastures Dairy twice. Once in the middle of winter after a lot of rainy days and all I wore was tennis shoes. It was very very clean.I did not need boots.

I am skeptical about nearly every businessperson I meet. I was skeptical about Organic Pastures when I first discovered them. I thought the whole raw milk claim was overblown. I had been consuming cultured pasteurized milk products for a couple of years and could tell they made a big difference in my bacteria balance. I didn't think the raw milk would do much more for me. Many of the claims in the raw milk are overstated from a food science point of view. Pasteurization does not kill all of the B vitamins, for instance. So I was skeptical.

About two years ago I bought raw milk for the first time and I cultured it. After my first glass of homemade raw milk kefir (from Organic Pastures), I could feel the difference in my gut. I thought "there is something special about this milk."

The other kefir I had been drinking had vitamins, beneficial bacteria, and enzymes, but this particular kefir had more of something. I don't know entirely what the difference is. I expect it's some combination of the bacteria, enzymes, and nutrients. Food science literature would be at a loss to account for my particular experience.

I kept drinking the milk but I continued to be skeptical of the Organic Pastures business because, as I said, that's how I am.

I met Mark for the first time at the press conference after the recall. From some of his actions I decided that he was the real deal and it was not about the money. I have since had a number of interactions with him that have only reinforced my belief.

Mark is a little wild and crazy (which you really have to be in this business) and I can see how that zeal would rub some people the wrong way. But I would not mistake that zeal for a zeal for money. There are easier ways to earn money than by owning a raw milk dairy, to be sure.

The cream issue and the growing market for raw milk does bring up the question of how dairies will meet the growing demand. As a resident of the largest dairy-producing county in the country, it's pretty clear to me that Organic Pastures isn't just like any old dairy. In fact, watch my video eulogy of the Vander Eyk Organic Dairy as an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txT6A5MHJ58

While it would be ideal for all of us to have our own cows, it's also a good idea to discuss how Mark's methods can be used by other dairies to improve dairy products in general and to reduce the environmental impact of dairies. If other dairies were using the methods of the Organic Pastures Dairy, the outsourcing of the cream would not be an issue at all.

Amanda

Melissa ... Before posting my story, you might have wanted to drop me a message and ask for any clarification. Thankfull Maggie beat me to it. Yep, my husband and I were both sidelined with the flu the other weekend. And yep, he, our three sons, and I are all consumers of many of the OP products, including, but not limited to, the raw cream. And more than likely we had consumed some of the September 14th cream around the time we had the flu. As Maggie clarified (thank you), I was concerned and wanted more information. I never said we had listeria; I was asking if it were possible and whether anyone had anymore information. I have communicated with Mark; he was very upfront with me regarding the situation. And based upon everything that has surfaced regarding the listeria contamination (including the seemingly illegal CDFA testing), there is no way what we had was listeria.

This is a little off topic, but while I was reading Joel Salatin's book, Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal today, the following little passage stuck in my thoughts:

It's not a conspiracy; but it is a fraternity of thought that does not recognize simple, humble, natural. It's a fraternity that worships technology, power, and domination. In the process, the systems are inherently energy-intensive, high maintenance, and non-adaptable. The research never considered better options.

I'm really enjoying the book and the view from Joel's eyes.

When presented with alternative explanations for common "truths", people ask all the time how the "experts" could possibly be wrong (about cholesterol, saturated fat, raw milk, grass fed beef and pastured animals, and so many more things), since they are experts and mistakes would be detected and corrected. I think the statement above sums it up nicely why "they" miss things from looking at issues in such a one-dimensional way.

Another note: We're switching milks again. Since last spring and all summer I've been buying what I guess is essentially probably illegal (no official oversight at all) raw goat milk the past few months for a couple of reasons: it is delivered to me (how cool is that?!); at $7/gallon is half the price of OPDC milk; it is more local (same county) rather than half a large state away; and I like making cheese with it.

But I've just dropped our order down to one gallon a week, just for making cheese.

My son missed the taste of OPDC cow milk for drinking and is a bit tired of drinking the "goaty" milk. It just doesn't taste right in some things, like coffee, hot chocolate, etc. I had the permission of some friends' moms to serve it to their kids, but they also didn't like the flavor (they like OPDC and I also have permission to serve that - I don't serve raw milk to kids if I don't have parental permission). Gabriel had practically stopped drinking milk the second half of this summer while I was buying goat milk it was piling up faster than I could make it into cheese.

I didn't hesitate for a second about buying OPDC milk the way I hesitated picking up a package of bagged baby spinach one day not long ago when I was out of CSA farm share veggies and company was coming to dinner. I put the prewashed spinach bag back and bought a fresh bunch and washed it myself, even though I was short on time.

I've been to Mark McAfee's lectures, read his interviews, received email answers to my emailed questions when we were new to raw dairy products, and he gave us a personal tour of his farm & dairy when we showed up one afternoon (I can't even get Trder Joe's to tell me which dairy suppied their private label organic milk, let alone visit and meet the perosn in charge). Yes, McAfee's passionate and evangelical (perhaps a bit too much in manner like a revivalist) and often speaks extemporaneously so some of his words could be better chosen. So I guess I make allowances for some of the more over-the-top things he says (for instance I object to the "cure" claims). He's a believer, and as such, is into it 100%. Probably everything he has is sunk into raw milk. But he doesn't strike me as a false man, one only out for money, or one who would wish harm on others.

Mary makes a powerful case that the milk was the link. I'm open to that possibility, though I think it is far from proven and I doubt we will ever know for sure. But even so, I still choose raw milk. And stay away from prewashed, bagged, convenience produce (actually I had stopped buying prewashed ready-to-eat produce about a year before the spinach recall, partially because I knew it was a contamination risk tradeoff for convenience).

Mark,

You and I both know the answers to your questions. We already had this discussion on the phone in April of 2007 and on the blog after Suzanne Nelson ran her story about raw milk in June of 2007. Why do you ask them again? Is this to take the focus off the fact that 3 of the 4 children who became ill after drinking OP milk all had the same blueprint of e-coli 0157:H7? It doesn’t really matter that the bacteria was never isolated in Chris, it was isolated in the three other children. An outbreak is defined as 2 or more people becoming ill after consuming the same food.

An 8 year old girl in San Diego County (S.California) consumed raw milk on 9/2 and 9/3 and became ill on 9/6. The e-coli bacteria were isolated.

Lauren Herzog, San Bernardino County (S.California), consumed raw milk on 9/2 and/or 9/3 and became ill on 9/6. The e-coli bacteria were isolated.

Chris Martin, Riverside County, (S.California) consumed raw milk on 9/2, 9/3, and 9/4 and became ill on 9/7. The e-coli bacteria were not isolated.

Adam Chaffee, Nevada City, (N. California) consumed raw milk on Labor Day weekend (I don’t have the dates). The e-coli bacteria were isolated.

The E-coli bacteria that were isolated in the children was a different blueprint than the E-coli bacteria that were isolated in the people who became ill after eating spinach.

Here are the answers to your questions again:

#1. No, the e-coli bacteria was never isolated in Chris. NO bacteria was ever isolated in Chris—not Shigella, not e-coli. The Shiga toxin was found in Chris. Both e-coli and Shigella emit the Shiga toxin. The Shiga toxin attacks the cells in the kidneys, pancreas and brain. Severe cases of e-coli 0157:H7 (and other strains of e-coli) and Shigella can develop into HUS. Shigella that develops into HUS is almost unheard of in the U.S. This is seen in third world countries.

For whatever reason, Chris was initially diagnosed with Shigella. The diagnosis took place at Kaiser Sunset in Los Angeles California. The nephrologist who diagnosed him had never treated a case of Shigella that developed into HUS, but she chose Shigella as a diagnosis instead of E-coli. Why….probably as a CYA. They screwed up and gave Chris an antibiotic. This is the correct treatment protocol for treating Shigella, not E-coli 0157:H7. Giving an antibiotic to someone who has e-coli contamination increases the chances of developing HUS.

After Kaiser almost killed Chris because they filled him up with fluids without having the capacity to do kidney dialysis, he was airlifted to Loma Linda Children’s Hospital. Unbeknownst to us, Lauren Herzog had already been there for 2 days. Once Chris arrived and they discovered he had also consumed OP raw milk in the same timeframe as Lauren, Chris’ diagnosis was officially changed to E-coli 0157:H7. Two of the three nephrologists who treated Chris have been in practice at LLUCH for over 20 years. Neither of them had ever seen a case of Shigella that had turned into HUS. But you already know all of this information because I’ve explained it in great detail to you before.

#2 Yes Chris ate spinach. He ate spinach that was purchased from an open bin at our local health food store. He did not eat Dole packaged spinach that was implicated in the spinach outbreak. For this reason, spinach was ruled out as the food source that caused him to become ill. All the people that became ill in the outbreak ate Dole packaged spinach. When I told you this in the hospital (that he ate spinach) it was the beginning of the outbreak. All the facts weren’t in yet. I explained all of this to you on the phone when we spoke in April

Mark, I was completely honest with you in the hospital. I shared all to the facts regarding Chris and his illness because there was no reason to keep anything a secret. My son was on a ventilator with his arms tied to the bed, had drainage tubes coming out of both sides of his chest and was receiving kidney dialysis. My focus was on Chris, not on what he ate that caused him to become ill.

At this time, I knew was that there was a raw milk and spinach e-coli outbreak and that my son consumed both products on Labor Day Weekend. I also knew that all the children who drank OP milk tested positive for the same e-coli blueprint.

When I spoke to you, I thought we were in the process of having the spinach and milk tested. The public health nurse had picked up both products, but then later I discovered that they wouldn’t test them because the e-coli bacteria were never isolated in Chris. They were too overloaded from the spinach outbreak. At this time, I didn’t come to any conclusions about what made Chris ill because I was waiting for all the facts. I told you to your face that I hope it wasn’t your milk that caused Chris to become ill. I didn’t make any accusations. I was very kind, calm and tried to treat you with the utmost respect.

I do owe you an apology for one thing; I accused you of making derogatory comments about me needing counseling. Ruth made these comments. So I apologize for accusing you of saying something you didn’t say. In my defense, if you go back and read the comments, you will see why I came to the false conclusion it was you.

The next time you speak about my child in any of your interviews, please get the facts straight and do not embellish the story. It very disrespectful to hear the way you speak about our tragedy. You were not blindsided by the recall. Both my husband and Melissa’s x-husband called you a day or two after the kids became ill. Don’t make it sound like you didn’t know the identities of our children or which hospital we were at. Melissa’s x-husband and girlfriend were in very close contact with you. The girlfriend even attended your rally.

These are the facts I want you using about Chris:
1. He drank raw milk for only three weeks before becoming ill
2. The weekend he drank the milk that was implicated in the recall, he also ate spinach. But it was not packaged Dole spinach, so spinach was ruled out as the source that caused Chris to become ill
3. The bacteria that caused Chris to become ill were never isolated in his stool, however, because he developed HUS, E-coli 0157:H7 is the bacteria he was suspected of having. All the medical experts at Loma Linda’s Children’s Hospital concurred with this diagnosis.

Here are the facts I have used about the milk and the recall:
1. Four kids became ill after drinking OP milk. Three of the four kids all had the same blueprint of E-coli 0157:H7.
2. E-coli 0157:H7 was never found in the milk or on the farm
3. In late October of 2006, 200 + cows were checked for the matching blueprint of E-coli 0157:H7. It was not found. However, all of your cows were not checked.
4. They didn’t find the matching blueprint of 0157:H7, but they did find 1 milking cow and two dry herd cows with 0157:H7. I spoke to Patrick who was in charge of investigating your farm, and he told me this information.

Based on the above facts, I have a right to my opinion and I believe your milk was contaminated with E-coli 0157:H7. I believe your milk caused our children to become ill. 4 children drank OP milk on the same weekend, they all become ill in the same timeframe, they all live in different counties within California, & 3 or the 4 had the same blueprint of E-coli 0157:H7 (which means it comes from the same food source). This is proof enough that your milk was contaminated.

Mary

Brit, were you tested by a doctor for Listeria or are you just going by what Mark McAfee says? Its amazing, Mark is now an MD. Im so impressed with his multi-facited talents.

If you would have read my post more clearly, you would have noticed that I didnt say you had Listeria. I said that Mark should be careful what he says as far as claiming that no one got sick. You are still not sure one way or another are you? Oh wait, I forgot you had a conversation with Mark and now there is NO WAY you had Listeria! GOOD GRIEF!!