Mark McAfee, a California milk producer at the center of several bird flu-related product recalls, said Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s transition team encouraged him to apply for a job at the Food and Drug Administration. said.
McAfee, CEO of Fresno-based Raw Farm, LLC, told the Times that he applied for the position of “FDA advisor on raw milk policy and standards development” as requested.
The recent milk recall was the result of McAfee cows testing positive for H5N1 avian influenza. His farm was then quarantined and the state stopped all sales of raw milk and cream. Law Farms has issued a voluntary recall of all milk and cream products left on store shelves.
Bill Mahler, a Seattle-area food safety attorney, said McAfee’s farms were involved in at least 11 cases stemming from a Salmonella outbreak that sickened 171 people in California between October of last year and May of this year. He is also involved in a lawsuit.
Last month, President-elect Donald Trump announced his choice to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees agencies such as the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
President Kennedy is a supporter of raw milk and has criticized FDA policies that prohibit the sale of the product between states. McAfee said Kennedy is a consumer and customer of raw farm milk.
McAfee said he has not been formally selected for the advisory role. In fact, Kennedy’s own nomination to head Health and Human Services still requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
The Times has reached out to Trump’s transition team and Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again team for comment, but has not yet received a response.
McAfee is the nation’s largest raw milk producer, managing 1,800 dairy cows on two farms outside Fresno and Hanford.
His raw dairy products include whole milk, cream, kefir, and cheese, all of which can be sold in stores within California but not across state lines.
However, FDA regulations do not apply to his line of pet food products, which cannot be sold outside of California despite carrying warning labels stating that the products are not intended for human consumption. can.
McAfee is also the president of the Raw Milk Institute, a raw milk education and advocacy organization dedicated to assisting dairy farmers interested in adopting raw milk production standards and methods.
In an interview with the Times two weeks ago, McAfee said that while he was excited that President Kennedy would change the FDA’s policy on raw milk, such a move would need to be made with caution.
“I believe that whatever happens, it will not be chaotic, crazy or just for everyone, but rather something very constructive with the training and testing of farmers and high standards. “We are dedicated to making sure that,” he said. “I’m very interested in helping bring raw milk to life as a positive, high-quality, healthy, wonderful, easy-to-germinate, delicious food.”
He noted that in 2021, the Montana Legislature passed a “Food Freedom” law that legalized the unregulated sale of raw milk and raw milk products. Soon after, people started getting sick.
McAfee said he flew to meet with raw milk dairy producers and helped establish standards that incorporate training, testing and quality control.
For example, he noted that one dairy farmer was cleaning milk buckets with chlorine, which McAfee said does not address fat or biofilm.
“It was dirty,” he said.
Instead, he taught farmers how to wash their equipment using hot water and soap.
“You have to have standards,” he said.
McAfee milk is highly regulated by the State of California, and milk is frequently tested for foodborne pests such as Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, Salmonella, and other bacterial diseases.
He said that unlike traditional dairy farms, where milk is pasteurized after it is collected, cows must be tested for pathogens and only cows that are free of disease are milked.
He has a laboratory on the farm that tests bulk tanks and cattle for Listeria, Campylobacter, Ecolli 0157H7, and Salmonella.
He said the cows were meticulously cleaned before milking. The milk is then immediately sent to a rapid chiller, which reduces the milk’s temperature from 100 degrees Fahrenheit to 35 degrees Fahrenheit in about two minutes.
The milk is then kept at that temperature until it is delivered to the store.
Still, experts say bacteria can contaminate milk even if it’s milked from a sparkling clean udder. The FDA, CDC, and other health organizations say the public should only drink pasteurized milk.
Since 2006, Law Farms (formerly known as Organic Pastures Dairy Company) has been involved in 13 recalls, including three related to bird flu last month.
Other recalls were due to bacterial contamination, including E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, campylobacteria, and salmonella. In some cases, people develop severe symptoms of hemolytic uremic syndrome, or kidney failure.
A recent outbreak of salmonella poisoning from Raw Farm’s raw milk involved at least 171 people, “the majority of whom were children,” according to Marler’s Seattle-area law firm, Food Safety Law. The lawsuit points out. Food safety lawyer.
“Clown car,” Marler wrote in an email when asked about the possibility of McAfee being selected for the role of federal food adviser.
If elected to advise the FDA, McAfee said he would consider creating a certification program similar to that used for organic farming, including farmer education and training for raw milk production.
He also said he would consider changes to food liability laws that would “make it impossible for someone who has had diarrhea for a week to receive $1 million.”
McAfee said the government should consider raw milk and other whole food insurance programs. For example, the Department of Agriculture’s Crop Insurance Program provides for farmers with fields and crops affected by drought, floods, and fires, and more recently, the Milk Insurance Program, which provides for dairy farmers whose herds have been infected with avian influenza.
“I highly recommend getting food liability insurance for all your natural foods, maybe vegetables, eggs, carrots, God gave me those poor carrots, so people can You can get food, because now insurance and companies say, “Oh, you’re on the naughty list, so there’s no more insurance,” he said. “And there will be fewer and fewer stores carrying these natural foods that are essential to actually make people healthy again.”
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