Mark McAfee, a California uncooked milk producer whose merchandise have been recalled a number of instances just lately as a result of hen flu contamination, mentioned he has been approached by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s crew 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, mentioned that the transition crew for Kennedy, the nominee to guide the Division of Well being and Human Providers, requested him to use for a place advising on uncooked milk coverage and requirements improvement. The thought, he instructed the Guardian, could be to create a “uncooked milk ordinance”, mirroring the prevailing federal “commonplace milk ordinance”.
Kennedy is a notable fan of uncooked, or unpasteurized, milk, together with McAfee’s merchandise. If confirmed, he has mentioned, he would work to take away restrictions on uncooked milk, which the Meals and Drug Administration and the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) have up to now suggested towards consuming.
Kennedy’s crew 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 will be in keeping 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 power, and Wall Avenue govt Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary.
McAfee’s Uncooked 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 instructed McAfee that Kennedy was a fan, and drinks his milk when he’s residence in Malibu. In a publish on X in October, Kennedy mentioned that with Trump in workplace, the FDA’s “battle on public well being” would finish, as would its “aggressive suppression” of uncooked milk.
Uncooked 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 at the least 171 folks 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 responsible to placing “pet meals” stickers on its uncooked milk with the intention to illegally promote it throughout state traces 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 just isn’t, in reality, a big supply of probiotics within the first place, and that the micro organism present in uncooked milk – which come by contaminated udder tissues, or the dairy surroundings together with soil and cow manure), and milking gear – are usually not the varieties that profit our digestive programs.
However the consumption of uncooked milk has come below specific scrutiny this 12 months amid a hen flu, or H5N1, outbreak, which included the primary documented human instances of the virus. No recognized 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, nonetheless, has been related to infections – particularly amongst dairy staff.
Analysis means that milk carries enormous quantities of viral particles. “Probably the most infectious factor from the cows is the milk,” mentioned Meghan Davis, a molecular epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins College learning environmental well being. In some instances, cows that examined unfavourable 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 mentioned, is inherently dangerous. Whereas most individuals who’ve been contaminated with hen flu have reported delicate sicknesses, folks with compromised or suppressed immune programs may expertise extra extreme signs. And as extra individuals 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 impression of one other pandemic could be terrible,” mentioned Davis. “Particularly of a pandemic that basically impacts our food-producing animals in addition to folks.”
Cats who’ve drunk contaminated uncooked milk have exhibited extreme neurological signs and died.
Nonetheless, McAfee vehemently denies that uncooked milk could possibly be implicated in any such dangers.
“That is the latest platform for the FDA to assault us,” McAfee mentioned. “There are not any reported sicknesses in america concerning [bird flu] and uncooked milk. Zero. However but they are saying the sky is falling.”
Like different proponents of uncooked milk, he has prompt that milk from contaminated cows boosts immunity to hen flu by passing on antibodies. Antibodies to H5N1, nonetheless, haven’t been present in uncooked milk merchandise, and cow antibodies wouldn’t confer immunity to people.
This week, Uncooked 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 Uncooked Farm product produced on or after 27 November.
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