Wise Traditions Impacts of Public Reporting of Outbreaks It is acknowledged that when any apparent outbreak is announced, there is an increase in: –Number of people reporting similar illness –The health professionals focus their surveillance to that specific illness and food –Decrease in awareness of illness not associated with the announced food

Wise Traditions Ease of Recognizing Milkborne Illnesses by Spotting Clusters CharacteristicFUWM OperationIndustrial Dairy Herd size Small  Large  Comingling milk from different farms Rare  Standard Practice  Inputs NO  Universal  Diversity of Products Limited  Common  Distribution Range (geographic) Very Limited  Extremely wide  Traceability Nearly instantaneous  Extraordinarily difficult  Potential exposed population Modest and well defined  Huge, Undefined  Number of customers from single batch (batch size) Small, easily determined  Huge  Exposure interval Usually one week  Long  Public Health Impact Very small Huge

Wise Traditions Outbreaks and Public Health Impact

Wise Traditions * There are a number of slide coming up that show “outbreaks” of illness. An outbreak is defined as 2 or more illness that are considered to have common cause. There are a number of sources for the data I will be showing. But they are not my data. Furthermore, by showing the data I am not saying that they actually reflect proven cases of illness associated with a given food. In nearly all cases they have been identified by a government agency, investigated, and reported in official documents or published in journals. Some of the associations are questionable, but I am showing the data unedited. The * will indicate that I am NOT saying the data is valid.

Wise Traditions Foodborne Outbreaks in USA * 76 Million people sick from foodborne illness Includes 350,000 hospitalizations 5,000 deaths In USA each year Bars are accumulated totals over period

Wise Traditions Foodborne Outbreaks in USA *

Wise Traditions Texas Grade A Raw Milk

Wise Traditions Foodborne Outbreaks in USA *

Wise Traditions Relative Risky Behavior 1 out of every 4 people have a foodborne illness every year 1 out of every 20,000 people who drink fresh unprocessed milk may become sick each year More people are killed each year from lightning strikes on golf courses than die from milkborne illness. More people die from defective toasters Unpasteurized milk is not even on the list of the top 10 most risky foods.

Wise Traditions What are the real food safety Risky Behaviors ? Industrial operations that favor investor profits rather than public health/safety Highly processing foods Co-mingled of ingredients and products Sourcing from variable and multiple locations Wide final distribution of the product Distribution under numerous brand names

Wise Traditions Any illness and certainly death is a genuine tragedy to the individuals and an empathetic community. And every outbreak must be aggressively investigated to determine if there was a breakdown of best practices, or to determine if new practices would have averted the outbreak. However, outbreaks should not be exploited to fuel the obsession of those that want to eliminate any access to raw milk. Responsible public health policy must start with the acknowledgment that our lives can never to totally free of risk. No food can ever be considered completely safe.

Wise Traditions Reframing the question: Is there evidence that pasteurization would have prevented these outbreak? Examination of the actual historical records in the period after 1900, confirm reports of outbreaks of the epidemic illnesses associated with milk. Nearly all of these identified milk handlers who were either sick or carriers; or milk containers that were contaminated. And since it was not “the milk” pasteurization would not have prevented those outbreaks. Currently, outbreaks should not be attributed to raw milk unless you confirm that the milk that was consumed contained the specific virulent bacteria causing the illnesses

Wise Traditions What is a Health Hazard? What is the Public Health Interest ?

Wise Traditions  9 And don’t forget…milk is inherently hazardous

Wise Traditions Irrational conclusion based on these dogma Since it will be shown that ultimately there are illness and even some deaths attributed to each fresh food. Therefore, based on the words and actions of those obsessed with banning raw milk the government will be obligated to ban all fresh food that has not been pasteurized in some form!

Wise Traditions Shedding of C. jejuni

Wise Traditions Positive tests for E. coli O157:H7 in feces