More Sour News For Connecticut Raw Milk E. coli Dairy
The Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) and Connecticut Department of Agriculture (DOA) are investigating an outbreak of Escherichia coli O157 associated with consumption of unpasteurized milk produced at a dairy farm in Simsbury, CT. A total of four cases have been identified; one is laboratory-confirmed as E. coli O157 at the DPH State Laboratory and two are presumptively positive for E. coli O157 at clinical laboratories. All four patients were diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) or thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP); three required hospitalization. Three patients are children, aged 2 to 7 years. Onset of symptoms occurred during June 28 - July 15, 2008. Unpasteurized milk was sold on site at the dairy farm and also distributed to four food markets in the greater Hartford area. The farm had voluntarily suspended all raw milk production on July 9 as a result of elevated coliform counts found on routine testing that was done as part of the production process. Based on patient interviews, raw milk consumed by the cases had known sell-by dates of June 24, July 4, and July 13. The sell-by date is generally one week from the production date.
The Town Farm Dairy was profiled in the New York Times earlier this year - "Making Their Case for Raw Milk"
My sister is one of the victims of the E. coli outbreak from this farm, and she has been very sick in the ICU for several weeks now. She is a single mom of a 21 month old little boy, and we were so scared for weeks that my nephew was going be left parentless. There is a comment from Pete from Wolcott about HUS, which my sister was diagnosed with, and it has been a very scary ordeal for my entire family. We've stayed by her side night and day. The medical bills that my sister will have will be astronomical, not to mention the medical conditions she will probably have to deal with for the rest of her life. Please keep her in your prayers...she is very slowly getting better, but she is not out of the woods yet.
My sister is one of the victims of the E. coli outbreak from this farm, and she has been very sick in the ICU for several weeks now. She is a single mom of a 21 month old little boy, and we were so scared for weeks that my nephew was going be left parentless. There is a comment from Pete from Wolcott about HUS, which my sister was diagnosed with, and it has been a very scary ordeal for my entire family. We've stayed by her side night and day. The medical bills that my sister will have will be astronomical, not to mention the medical conditions she will probably have to deal with for the rest of her life. Please keep her in your prayers...she is very slowly getting better, but she is not out of the woods yet.
Well, I hope she is doing better - what happened to the pathogen testing that is done on raw milk? While I think raw milk testing is necessary because it is RAW, I wanted to point out that last year a dairy in Massachusetts killed 3 people and the milk was PASTEURIZED. I think too much press focuses on one (negative for raw only) and not the other -- they can both be killers if handled the wrong way.