COUNTY: 9 FOUND POSITIVE FOR SALMONELLA CONSUMED RAW DAIRY

San Diego County health officials are asking the public to discard raw milk products from a Fresno-based producer, and stores to temporarily set aside their inventories, after nine local residents tested positive for salmonella infection in late September and early October.

Three of the nine cases, the county said in a statement released Friday afternoon, got sick enough to require hospital stays. All three were children, though their specific ages were not released. The cases, the county said, ranged in age from 1 to 41.

Dr. Seema Shah, medical director of the county’s epidemiology and immunization services branch, said Friday that the request was made out of an abundance of caution given the case correlation, though results are not back yet from the California Department of Public Health, which is testing samples of products made by Raw Farm LLC.

All nine who got sick, the county says, “reported consuming Raw Farm LLC raw milk or milk products the week before their illness onset.”

“We’re waiting to hear back on testing results that can often take time,” Shah said. “We didn’t want to miss an opportunity to communicate with the public and be transparent that we’re seeing this.”

The director said that all three children who were hospitalized have since been discharged home. Further information on their current medical conditions and severity of the symptoms they experienced was not immediately available.

Heather Buonomo, San Diego County’s director of environmental health, confirmed that her department asked local retailers to stop selling Raw Farms products Friday.

“While this is not an official recall, we do have a really robust relationship with our local retailers when it comes to communications and pulling products,” Buonomo said. “We did reach out to our retailers that we know carry raw milk and just had a conversation, asking them to pull and set aside those products until we get further direction.”

Raw Farm reacted quickly to the announcement Friday afternoon with Aaron McAfee, the company’s chief executive officer, saying that the company contracts with a testing company to check daily for salmonella and several other species of bacteria.

“We have sent our retail partners and the Department of Public Health the negative results for the milk that is actually in stores right now,” McAfee said, adding that independent monthly tests conducted by the California Department of Food and Agriculture also show negative results. He provided test results from contractor Food Safety Net Services dated Oct. 18 that showed negative salmonella, E.coli and other pathogen results for whole milk, cream, butter, and Keifir.

He added that the company would never sell products if those tests ever came back positive.