Mark McAfee, a California uncooked milk producer whose merchandise have been recalled a number of instances not too long ago resulting from hen flu contamination, stated he has been approached by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s group to information the upcoming administration on uncooked milk coverage.
McAfee, whose dairy merchandise have been recalled after state officers detected hen flu virus in milk samples, stated that the transition group for Kennedy, the nominee to guide the Department of Health and Human Services, requested him to use for a place advising on uncooked milk coverage and requirements improvement. The thought, he informed the Guardian, can be to create a “uncooked milk ordinance”, mirroring the present federal “customary milk ordinance”.
Kennedy is a notable fan of uncooked, or unpasteurized, milk, together with McAfee’s merchandise. If confirmed, he has stated, he would work to take away restrictions on uncooked milk, which the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have to date suggested towards consuming.
Kennedy’s group didn’t reply instantly to the Guardian’s request for remark.
If McAfee, whose farm is the biggest producer of uncooked milk within the US, have been to realize a task within the upcoming administration, it could be in step with the upcoming administration’s broader edict to place business heads in roles regulating the very merchandise they promote.
Trump has additionally appointed oil govt Chris Wright for secretary of vitality, and Wall Street govt Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary.
McAfee’s Raw Farm in Fresno provides uncooked milk and milk merchandise to grocery tales throughout California, and has the distinctive distinction of supplying the kefir used within the smoothies at Los Angeles’s celebrity-approved Erewhon market.
Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy’s working mate when he ran towards Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, interviewed McAfee for a documentary about uncooked milk launched earlier this 12 months. She informed McAfee that Kennedy was a fan, and drinks his milk when he’s house in Malibu. In a submit on X in October, Kennedy stated that with Trump in workplace, the FDA’s “conflict on public well being” would finish, as would its “aggressive suppression” of uncooked milk.
Raw milk, which isn’t heated to kill dangerous pathogens, has been linked to the outbreak of bacterial infections together with a pressure of E coli that may trigger kidney failure. McAfee’s farm has additionally been concerned in a number of lawsuits stemming from a salmonella outbreak that sickened a minimum of 171 individuals in California final 12 months.
The federal authorities doesn’t regulate the sale of uncooked milk – states do – however the FDA prohibits the interstate sale of unpasteurized milk for human consumption. In 2008, McAfee’s firm pleaded guilty to putting “pet food” stickers on its uncooked milk with a purpose to illegally promote it throughout state strains for human consumption.
McAfee and different proponents of uncooked milk have claimed that it has extra useful enzymes and various probiotics than pasteurized milk. The present FDA and researchers have countered that milk will not be, the truth is, a major supply of probiotics within the first place, and that the micro organism present in uncooked milk – which come via contaminated udder tissues, or the dairy atmosphere together with soil and cow manure), and milking tools – usually are not the sorts that profit our digestive techniques.
But the consumption of uncooked milk has come below explicit scrutiny this 12 months amid a hen flu, or H5N1, outbreak, which included the primary documented human instances of the virus. No identified instances of hen flu virus have been confirmed in individuals who drank uncooked milk, though there are three instances in North America the place the supply has not been recognized. Contact with uncooked milk and the dealing with of uncooked milk, nevertheless, has been related to infections – particularly amongst dairy employees.
Research means that milk carries huge amounts of viral particles. “The most infectious factor from the cows is the milk,” stated Meghan Davis, a molecular epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University finding out environmental well being. In some instances, cows that examined destructive for H5N1 of their respiratory tracts have been discovered to be carrying the virus of their milk.
Consuming uncooked milk amid the hen flu outbreak, Davis stated, is inherently dangerous. While most individuals who’ve been contaminated with hen flu have reported delicate diseases, individuals with compromised or suppressed immune techniques may expertise extra extreme signs. And as extra persons are contaminated, the virus is extra prone to mutate and develop extra infectious or extreme strains that might have an effect on the broader inhabitants.
“The influence of one other pandemic can be terrible,” stated Davis. “Especially of a pandemic that basically impacts our food-producing animals in addition to individuals.”
Cats who’ve drunk contaminated uncooked milk have exhibited extreme neurological signs and died.
Still, McAfee vehemently denies that uncooked milk may very well be implicated in any such dangers.
“This is the most recent platform for the FDA to assault us,” McAfee stated. “There are not any reported diseases within the United States concerning [bird flu] and uncooked milk. Zero. But but they are saying the sky is falling.”
Like different proponents of uncooked milk, he has recommended that milk from contaminated cows boosts immunity to hen flu by passing on antibodies. Antibodies to H5N1, nevertheless, haven’t been present in uncooked milk merchandise, and cow antibodies wouldn’t confer immunity to people.
This week, Raw Farm voluntarily recalled all milk and cream merchandise made between 9 and 27 November after exams discovered hen flu virus in retail samples and dairy storage and bottling websites. The California division of meals and agriculture additionally quarantined the farm and suspended the distribution of Raw Farm product produced on or after 27 November.
