The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a news release Saturday they were working with officials in North Carolina and South Carolina to investigate an outbreak of campylobacteriosis in three people who consumed raw milk from Tucker Adkins Dairy in York, S.C.
The three confirmed cases and another five probable cases are from three different households and each case reports that prior to becoming ill they consumed raw milk that was obtained from Tucker Adkins Dairy on June 14, 2011.
The FDA recommends that consumers only drink pasteurized milk. Raw milk is unpasteurized milk from hoofed mammals, such as cows, sheep, or goats. Raw milk may contain a wide variety of harmful bacteria – including Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria, Campylobacter and Brucella -- that may cause illness and possibly death. Public health authorities, including FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have expressed concerns about the hazards of drinking raw milk for decades.
The FDA recommends that consumers only drink pasteurized milk, and those who may have raw milk produced by Tucker Adkins Dairy should dispose of that product.
What is Campylobacter? It is a bacterium that can also be found, with not quite the frequency as in chicken, in healthy cattle, birds, raw milk, and contaminated water.
Most cases of campylobacteriosis are associated with eating raw or undercooked poultry meat or from cross-contamination of other foods by these items. Infants may get the infection by contact with poultry packages in shopping carts. It is also possible to be infected from the feces of an infected pet cat, dog or farm animal. It is the leading cause of bacterial diarrhea in the United States, more than Salmonella and Shigella combined.
It doesn’t take a lot of this organism to get you ill. In some studies it showed that as little as 500 organisms can cause disease in some individuals. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention says that you can get infected from one drop of juice from raw chicken meat.
Campylobacter jejuni, the species most often implicated in infection causes diarrhea, which may be watery or sticky and can contain blood and white blood cells. Other symptoms often present are fever, abdominal pain, nausea, headache and muscle pain. The illness usually occurs 2-5 days after ingestion of the contaminated food or water. Illness generally lasts 7-10 days, but relapses are not uncommon (about 25% of cases).
There can be complications associated with campylobacteriosis; they include arthritis and neurological disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome. It is estimated that the latter is seen in one out of every 1000 cases of Campylobacter.
Most cases of Campylobacter are self-limiting and do not require treatment. However, severe cases can be treated with antibiotics to shorten the length of the disease.
The raw milk associated with the illness was in one-gallon containers and was distributed in North Carolina by a courier. It is unknown whether the raw milk may have been distributed in other states.
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