Mark McAfee, the California uncooked milk producer who has been on the heart of a number of chicken flu-related product recollects, says a transition group for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has inspired him to use for a place on the Food and Drug Administration.
McAfee, CEO of Fresno-based Raw Farm, LLC, informed The Times that he has complied with the request and utilized for the place of “FDA advisor on uncooked milk coverage and requirements improvement.”
The recent raw milk recalls have been the results of constructive exams for H5N1 bird flu among McAfee’s cows. His farms have since been quarantined, and the state has suspended all gross sales of uncooked milk and cream. Raw Farm has voluntarily issued recollects for all remaining milk and cream merchandise in shops.
McAfee’s farm can also be concerned in a minimum of 11 lawsuits stemming from a salmonella outbreak that sickened 171 individuals in California, and which occurred between October of final yr and May of this yr, in response to Bill Marler, a Seattle-area meals security lawyer.
When requested about McAfee doubtlessly being tapped for a federal meals advisory position, Marler wrote in an e mail: “Clown Car.”
Last month, President-elect Donald Trump introduced that he had chosen Kennedy to guide the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and different businesses.
Kennedy has been a vocal advocate for uncooked milk, and has criticized FDA coverage forbidding interstate gross sales of the product. According to McAfee, Kennedy can also be a shopper and buyer of Raw Farm milk.
McAfee stated he has not formally been chosen for the advisory position. Indeed, Kennedy’s personal nomination as Health and Human Services director still requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
The Times has reached out to the Trump transition group and Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again group for remark, however has not but acquired a response.
McAfee is the most important producer of uncooked milk within the nation and maintains 1,800 dairy cows on two farms — one in Fresno, the opposite outdoors Hanford.
His uncooked milk merchandise embody entire milk, cream, kefir and cheese — all of which could be bought in shops in California, however not over state strains..
However, FDA laws don’t apply to his pet meals product line, which could be bought outdoors California — albeit with warning labels noting that the merchandise usually are not meant for human consumption.
McAfee can also be president of the Raw Milk Institute, an instructional and advocacy group designed to assist dairy farmers occupied with adopting requirements and strategies for uncooked milk manufacturing.
In an interview with The Times two weeks in the past, McAfee stated that as excited as he’s for Kennedy to alter the FDA’s coverage on uncooked milk, such a transfer must be carried out with deliberate care.
“I’m devoted to creating certain that no matter occurs, it isn’t chaotic, loopy, or only a free for all, however quite very constructive with farmer coaching and testing and excessive requirements,” he stated. “I’m very occupied with committing myself to serving to uncooked milk emerge as a constructive, excessive requirements, wholesome, fantastic, germinating, scrumptious meals.”
He famous that in 2021, Montana lawmakers handed a “meals freedom” legislation that legalized the unregulated sale of uncooked milk and uncooked milk merchandise. Soon after, individuals began to get sick.
McAfee stated he flew out to fulfill with uncooked milk dairy producers and helped them set up requirements that integrated coaching, testing and high quality management.
For occasion, he famous one dairy farmer was cleansing his milk buckets with chlorine, which McAfee stated doesn’t deal with fat and biofilms.
“It was filthy,” he stated.
Instead, he confirmed the farmers the way to clear their tools with scorching water and cleaning soap.
“You must have requirements,” he stated.
McAfee’s milk is extremely regulated by the state of California, which performs frequent testing for food-illness pests reminiscent of campylobacter, cryptosporidium, E. coli, listeria, brucella and salmonella and different bacterial diseases in his milk.
He stated in contrast to standard dairies the place the milk is pasteurized after it’s been collected, he’s required to check the cows for pathogens, and stated he solely milks disease-free cows.
He has an on-farm laboratory the place he exams for listeria, campylobacter, E. coli 0157H7 and salmonella in his bulk tanks and cows.
He stated his cows are meticulously cleaned earlier than they’re milked. And the milk is straight away shunted right into a fast chiller that drops the milk’s temperature from 100 levels Fahrenheit to 35 levels Fahrenheit in about two minutes, he stated.
Then the milk stays at that temperature till delivered to shops.
Even so, specialists say micro organism can nonetheless contaminate milk — even when procured from a sparkling-clean udder. The FDA, CDC and different well being businesses say the general public ought to drink solely pasteurized milk.
Since 2006, Raw Farm — previously referred to as Organic Pastures Dairy Company — has been concerned in 13 recollects, together with the three bird-flu-related ones from final month.
The different recollects have been the results of bacterial contamination, together with E. coli, listeria, campylobacteria and salmonella. In some instances, individuals grew to become severely ailing with hemolytic uremic syndrome — or kidney failure.
There was additionally a latest outbreak of salmonella poisoning from Raw Farm uncooked milk, which concerned a minimum of 171 individuals “nearly all of which have been kids,” famous a report on the outbreak by the state’s Center for Infectious Diseases.
McAfee stated if he have been chosen for an advisory position on the FDA, he’d take into account making a certification program, reminiscent of these in place for natural farming that contain farmer training and coaching, for uncooked milk manufacturing.
He additionally stated he’d look into altering meals legal responsibility legal guidelines, “the place you may’t go get one million {dollars} for anyone that will get diarrhea for per week.”
McAfee stated the federal government ought to take into account uncooked milk and different entire meals insurance coverage applications, just like the USDA’s crop insurance coverage program which supplies for farmers whose fields and crops have been impacted by drought, flooding or fireplace — or the newer milk insurance coverage program which supplies cash for dairy farmers whose herds have been contaminated with chicken flu.
“I might suggest strongly that every one entire meals — together with possibly greens, eggs, carrots, by God, poor carrots — have meals legal responsibility insurance coverage… so individuals can get that meals, as a result of proper now, insurance coverage or firms saying, ‘Oh, you’re on the naughty record so no extra insurance coverage for you,’” he stated. “And so that you’re going to have shops with much less and fewer of those entire meals which can be vital to really getting individuals wholesome once more.”
