Health Law

A bad year gets worse for raw milk cheese

By Drew Falkenstein

Sally Jackson cheese company, from Oroville, Washington, has recalled all of its cheese products due to contamination by E. coli O157:H7.  The recalled cheeses, which are made from raw cow, goat, and sheep milk, have been identified as the source of an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak amongst residents of Oregon, and possibly Washington State.

For calendar year 2010 at least, raw dairy (especially raw milk-based cheeses) have replaced the usual suspects of beef and produce at grabbing headlines due to outbreaks and recalls.  Most notably, Bravo Farms, a California cheesemaker, sickened at least 38 people with confirmed E. coli O157:H7 illnesses by its contaminated raw milk-based gouda cheese product sold at Costco stores in the Southwest.  And Estrella Family Creamery, also from Washington, was recently profiled in the New York Times for its fight against the FDA's attempts to seize and destroy all of its raw milk-based cheese products, which tested positive for listeria monocytogenes multiple times over the course of 2010.

The Sally Jackson cheese E. coli outbreak and recall is the 12th raw dairy product outbreak this year.  Here are a few more examples of outbreaks and recalls:

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on December 17, 2010 (boomark / email).