One dairy. Two sides. Multiple outbreaks. A recall filed “under protest,” and a country that’s buying more raw milk than ever.
In April 2026, a Fresno-based dairy called Raw Farm LLC issued a “voluntary recall under protest” for its raw cheddar cheese products after federal health officials linked them to a multistate E. coli O157:H7 outbreak.
Nine people were sickened across California, Florida, and Texas. More than half were children under five years old. One patient developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a condition that can destroy the kidneys.
This was not Raw Farm’s first rodeo. The same dairy was linked to a massive Salmonella outbreak from late 2023 into early 2024 that sickened 171 people, the largest raw milk-linked outbreak in decades.
Yet Raw Farm remains in business, sales of unpasteurized dairy are reportedly up more than 17 percent nationally, and several states are actively loosening the rules around raw milk sales. Something is happening here that goes beyond one company or one outbreak.
The Recall That Wasn’t, Until It Had To Be
Raw Farm resisted the FDA’s recall recommendation for nearly three weeks before caving in early April 2026. Company president Aaron McAfee called the agency’s pre-recall public advisory a “backdoor move” designed to force retailers to pull products without confirmed contamination. He had a point, sort of. When the FDA first pushed for the recall, no pathogen had been confirmed in the actual product. All of Raw Farm’s internal tests, plus samples collected by the FDA and state health officials, had come back clean.
McAfee described the situation as a “witch hunt,” and his company eventually relented only under legal advice, citing estimated losses of around $1.5 million. The recall language was initially filed as “under protest.” A week later, that phrase was quietly removed.
Here is the complicating twist: on April 16, 2026, the FDA reported that a Raw Farm cheddar sample finally tested positive for E. coli O157:H7.
However, the specific strain did not match the current outbreak. It matched a closed 2025 outbreak. That is not exoneration, but it is not a clean conviction either. It suggests the FDA was working on epidemiological probability, not confirmed product contamination, when it pushed for the recall. Whether that is responsible precaution or regulatory overreach depends heavily on your priors.
Who Is Writing the Pro-Raw Milk Science, and Why
The research landscape on raw milk is not purely objective. The studies most frequently cited by advocates come from a small cluster of institutions and organizations with identifiable ideological or financial stakes in the outcome.
The Raw Milk Institute (RAWMI) publishes material arguing that “intentionally produced” raw milk from hygienic farms is a fundamentally different product from industrial pre-pasteurization milk. Their position is that the CDC and FDA conflate the two, inflating risk statistics. The Weston A. Price Foundation, through its “Campaign for Real Milk,” has pushed the nutritional superiority angle for decades, funding advocacy and selectively citing European epidemiological studies.
The studies they lean on most heavily are the PARSIFAL study from 2007 and the GABRIELA study from 2011, which found lower rates of asthma and allergies among children raised on farms who drank unprocessed milk.
These findings are real but frequently stripped of their context. Both studies noted the “farm effect” involved far more variables than just unpasteurized milk, including animal exposure, outdoor time, and microbiome diversity from the broader farm environment. The researchers themselves were cautious about attributing the protective effect to raw milk specifically.
Meanwhile, the CDC’s numbers draw from a much wider net: a 2017 analysis estimated raw milk causes 840 times more illnesses per serving than pasteurized milk. A Stanford study found no statistical difference in lactose intolerance symptoms between people who drank raw versus pasteurized milk, directly contradicting one of the movement’s central selling points.
The advocates are not making things up wholesale. But they are consistently cherry-picking data that supports a predetermined conclusion while dismissing pathogen numbers as the result of “dirty factory farming” rather than inherent risk.
Why Raw Milk Believers Distrust Pasteurization
The core objection is thermal damage. Heating milk to 161 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds kills pathogens, but advocates argue it also destroys lactase, alkaline phosphatase, and beneficial bacteria that support gut health. Beyond that, there is a historical argument: pasteurization became widespread in response to filthy urban “swill dairies” feeding cows distillery waste. Raw milk advocates argue the technology was a band-aid for an industrial farming problem and that clean, small-scale operations do not carry the same baseline risk.
This is not entirely wrong as history. The problem is that even rigorously clean raw dairy operations produce milk that can carry Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, Campylobacter, and Listeria from perfectly healthy cows. These pathogens do not require negligence to appear.
The Political Dimension
RFK Jr., now serving as HHS Secretary, has been a vocal raw milk supporter, though he has recently distanced himself from the industry as outbreaks accumulate. The Dairy Freedom Act, signed in March 2026, ended the federal prohibition on interstate raw milk sales, handing regulatory authority back to individual states. Iowa, Oklahoma, and Michigan are all actively expanding access.
The result is a country where the regulatory floor on raw milk is being actively lowered at the same moment that outbreak frequency is climbing. Children are the primary casualties. That is the story.
Sources
Outbreak and Recall (Raw Farm / E. coli O157:H7, 2026)
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Outbreak Investigation of E. coli O157:H7: Raw Farm Cheddar Cheese. April 2026. fda.gov
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Voluntary Recall: Raw Farm LLC Raw Cheddar Cheese Products. April 2, 2026. fda.gov
- Los Angeles Times. “Amid E. coli outbreak, Raw Farm owner voluntarily recalls unpasteurized cheddar.” April 3, 2026.
- Fresno Bee. “Fresno County raw milk dairy recalls cheese, denies it made anyone sick.” April 4, 2026.
- CIDRAP. “Under protest, Raw Farm pulls unpasteurized cheddar from shelves.” April 6, 2026. cidrap.umn.edu
- The New York Times. Coverage of Raw Farm recall and Aaron McAfee statements. April 2026.
Historical Outbreak (Salmonella, 2023-2024)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium Infections Linked to Raw Milk. Updated July 24, 2025. cdc.gov
- Food Safety News. “Raw Farm lifts recall of unpasteurized cheese despite ongoing E. coli outbreak.” February 2024. foodsafetynews.com
Political and Regulatory Context
- NBC New York. “RFK Jr. and Rep. Rosa DeLauro spar over raw milk.” April 16, 2026.
- Food Safety News. “Sunday Edition: King Raw.” April 2026. foodsafetynews.com/2026/04/sunday-edition-king-raw/
- Marler Blog. Coverage of the Dairy Freedom Act (signed March 2026). marlerblog.com
Pro-Raw Milk Research and Advocacy
- Riedler J, et al. PARSIFAL Study. The Lancet. 2001, expanded 2007.
- Lluis A, et al. GABRIELA Study. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2011.
- Raw Milk Institute (RAWMI). rawmilkinstitute.org
- Weston A. Price Foundation. Campaign for Real Milk. realmilk.com
- Heckman, J.R. Rutgers University. Raw milk re-emergence. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems.
CDC and FDA Risk Data
- Costard S, et al. “Outbreak-Related Disease Burden Associated with Consumption of Unpasteurized Cow’s Milk and Cheese, United States, 2009-2014.” Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2017. cdc.gov/eid
- National Institutes of Health / PubMed Central. Studies on raw milk and lactose malabsorption. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Stanford Medicine. Randomized controlled trial on raw milk and lactose intolerance symptoms.
- American Academy of Pediatrics. Policy statement on unpasteurized milk. aap.org
Bird Flu / H5N1 Context
- Cornell Chronicle. “Bird flu can persist in refrigerated raw milk for up to eight weeks.” 2024. news.cornell.edu
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Advisories on H5N1 avian influenza in raw dairy. fda.gov