Personal Injury Law

More Sour News For Connecticut Raw Milk E. coli Dairy

By Bill Marler, Esq.

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"

Full post as published by Marler Blog on August 01, 2008 (boomark / email).