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E. Coli Prompts Recall of Gourmet Raw Milk Cheese

By Dan Flynn and Suzanna Schreck

A longtime, highly respected Pacific Northwest cheesemaker has been linked through an epidemiological investigation to an E. coli outbreak, resulting in a nationwide recall of all its gourmet raw milk cheese and revealing sanitation problems at the dairy.

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that Sally Jackson Cheese of Oroville, in northeastern Washington state, had agreed to recall its cheese after eight people were stricken with an identical strain of E. coli O157:H7.

 

The eight are residents of Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Minnesota.  Onset of their illnesses ranged from September into November.  One person required hospitalization.

 

"All Sally Jackson cheese on the market should be avoided because the products were processed under conditions that create a significant risk of contamination," the FDA said in its news release.  Sally Jackson Cheese is sold in restaurants and retail outlets nationwide, including Whole Foods, Tamales in Berkeley, CA.; Quality Cheese in Seattle and Ideal Foods in New York City.

 

A spokesman for the State of Washington Department of Agriculture said Sally and Roger Jackson, owners of the tiny dairy, have been cooperating with public health authorities during the outbreak investigation and, for at least eight years, documents show they've also been working with regulators to correct food safety issues at their dairy.

 

Sally Jackson began making cheese in 1979; she was one of the first in the U.S. to craft artisanal cheese from sheep's milk.

 

Her cheese wheels, handmade with unpasteurized milk from her own goats, sheep and cows, are wrapped in grape and chestnut leaves gathered from a neighbor's orchard and tied with twine.  Their rustic appearance--no labels listing ingredients, no pull dates--are part of their appeal.  They are ultra-premium and highly sought after by connoisseurs.

 

Until now, there had been no reports of illness associated with the cheese.  But there were signs that the dairy was not meeting basic safety standards.  According to state agriculture department documents obtained by Food Safety News via a public disclosure request, Sally Jackson Cheese was issued a "notice of correction" in 2002 to remedy multiple safety violations, including being months overdue in testing its private water system for coliforms.  Parts of its facility were unfinished or in need of repair and a sink in the processing room drained to the floor, inspectors noted.  The Jacksons complied.

 

On June 1 this year, the cheesemaker was given another notice after a "routine, semi-annual" inspection in April identified critical issues: no sanitizing of cheese-making utensils, old milk residue in a milk chiller, mold-like substances on an aging table and above a draining table, a dirty floor, peeling ceiling plant, cobwebs, rodent droppings and one dead mouse.

 

The Jacksons again promised to resolve the problems and inspectors tried to familiarize the couple with food-security preventative measures.

 

Last month, state regulators observed chickens in the milking areas and milk left outside to cool overnight and gave the Jacksons 30 days to meet the standards of a Grade A dairy.   Not long after, public health officials investigating an E. coli outbreak began to hone in Sally Jackson cheese as its source--not because of problems at the dairy but because some of the infected patients, filling out food-history questionnaires, mentioned they had eaten the exclusive cheese.

 

"It was hard work and some good luck" to so quickly track down the likely link, initiate a recall and possibly prevent more illnesses, said Dr. William Keene, senior epidemiologist with the Oregon Public Health Services Acute and Communicable Diseases Program.

 

Keene said initial lab test results of Sally Jackson cheese samples were PCR (polymerase chain reaction) positive, indicating DNA identical to the outbreak strain.  While they have not yet been culture confirmed, that testing is ongoing at several labs and preliminary results are presumptive for the outbreak E. coli, he said.

 

Although investigators tried to pinpoint which batch of cheese had become contaminated, Keene said the Jacksons' production records were so sketchy, or nonexistent, that the entire inventory had to be recalled.

 

Inadequate record-keeping may also make it difficult to determine how fecal contaminants got into the cheese, Keene noted.

The Sally Jackson Cheese recall is the 12th raw milk-related foodborne illness outbreak this year and highlights the safety questions about the use of raw milk--milk that hasn't been pasteurized to kill pathogens--in food production.

This fall, 38 people raw milk Gouda cheese produced by California-based Bravo Farms were sickened by E. coli O157:H7.

Using raw milk in cheeses that are aged for at least 60 days is permitted under federal law, because the aging process supposedly kills pathogens, but there's a increasing evidence that 60 days may not be enough to make bacteria like E. coli or Listeria harmless.

Full post as published by Food Safety News on December 18, 2010 (boomark / email).