ICFA Members Testify at California Raw Milk Hearings

Dr. Robert Irons - Nutritional Immunologist -
My name is Dr. Robert Irons. I have a Ph.D. in nutritional immunology from the University of Missouri, Columbia. And I thank you for your attention to this matter of dairy safety and consumer choice and for the opportunity to provide expert testimony in my home state of California. My field of expertise, as I mentioned, is nutritional immunology, meaning how the foods we eat affect our immune system. I received post doc training at the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. I testify today as a scientist in the fields of nutrition, microbiology, immunology and health.

As the title of this hearing states, your objective is to balance the need for a safe food supply while not infringing on consumers� choice or the public�s access to that liberty. Others will attest to the facts that raw milk has been a natural food for humans since the beginning of man. Consumer opinion demands raw milk and the constitutionality of liberty and the right to choose.

My testimony will give you a scientific weight to balance consumer choice with health care and safety concerns.

AB 1735 made changes to the Food and Agricultural Code that have done very little to protect consumer safety while at the same time potentially preventing from entering the market a fundamentally natural and necessary dietary component�raw dairy. There are parts of AB 1735 that were good changes and I agree with because they make scientific sense to promote food safety. Just reading the summary of the bill has those points. The single most effective method to reduce food-borne illness from dairy products is to control the growth of bacteria by reducing the time and temperature at which milk shall be cooled, stored and transported.

AB 1735 changed Section 35783 to reduce the time in which market milk is required to be cooled to 50 degrees Fahrenheit or less to within four hours of the commencement of the first milking instead of the five hours that was previously written into the statute. Therefore, milk gets cooled more quickly and bacterial growth is inhibited. That�s a good thing.

AB 1735 also added to Section 35783 a requirement for colder refrigeration to 45 degrees Fahrenheit or less within two hours after the completion of milking and to maintain the milk at that temperature until delivery. These are effective food safety measures.

The other most effective method to promote food safety is to prevent initial contamination. California Food and Agricultural Code Sections 35681(a) through (c) and 35891(a) through (b) already provide for monthly and bimonthly inspections and score determination on raw milk dairy facilities to ensure that dairy collection techniques are sanitary and meet current statutes thus the problem of initial contamination is addressed by current law.

Section 35681(e) of the Food and Agricultural Code provides enough language to provide the consumer with reasonable safety and knowledge to assess raw milk consumption. Quoting: "Guaranteed raw milk shall be sold to the consumer within 30 hours after production and labeled to indicate the date of sale to the consumer. This language protects raw milk quality by ensuring quick distribution to the consumer and provides for full disclosure so the consumer knows within what timeframe they may chose to consume or use that raw milk. This language should be considered for proposed bills."

The part of AB 1735 that are based on flawed science, which I take absolute objection with and urge these committees to correct, is the language in Section 35781(1), 35861(d) and 35891(c) which require that "market milk, including Grade A raw milk, be delivered to the consumer and it shall contain not more that ten coliform bacteria per milliliter." This language is not based on sound microbiological, nutritional or health science. The law currently requires that certain raw foods that may pose an increased risk of food-borne illness carry a warning, thus many raw foods are ingested with full knowledge by the consumer of the inherent bacteria and risk of food-borne illness as well as raw foods health promoting effects. Raw dairy ranks low in the relative risk of foods, as you�ve heard testimony to that effect.

Take, for example, the case of oysters, sushi, steak tar-tar, eggs sunny side up, these foods are permitted for consumption without strict coliform requirements. However, they carry the appropriate labeling or warning, �Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish or eggs may increase your risk of food-borne illness, especially if you have certain medical conditions.� Perhaps it is time that �dairy products� is added to this list.

The science of raw milk should center around three main issues; safety, nutrition, and health benefits, with the ultimate goal to strike a balance between allowing the health promoting effects of raw milk while ensuring a safe food supply. For a point of clarification, one of the previous experts mentioned that there had been pathogens found in milk and I wanted to make a point of clarification that I have it on good authority that no CDFA tests have ever found pathogens in Claravale or Organic Pasture�s milk. There was some listeria positive test in cream that was purchased and brought in to that farm but no pathogens, actually, have ever been found in Claravale or Organic Pastures milk.

So getting to safety. The language of AB 1735 put food safety assurance at the monitoring stage, which is not effective in the bacterial world. Given the right conditions, a single bacterium, a single cell, can grow to over five billion in just 12 hours. That�s over ten to the ninth coliform units per milliliter. That it is why it is so important to focus on inspection and appropriate handling techniques to prevent the initial contamination and growth of bacteria.

The quantitative limit of ten coliforms per milliliter is not scientifically valid. Standard microbiological practice and the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) method for coliform measurement in dairy have a quantitative limit of 25 CFU per plate. The sampling error of this method alone allows a ten-fold margin of error, making even one bacteria in an entire vat of 500 gallons of milk count as ten CFU per mil. Even stratification of water treatment plants for quality relies on a point system whereby up to 100 coliforms per milliliter account for only two points toward an 80 point system of water quality.

The coliform limits are greater in water than in raw milk yet most individuals consume more water than raw milk. In other words, your friends and family are already consuming more coliform bacteria in their water than they would consume drinking raw milk. A policy basing raw milk safety on ten coliform per milliliter is not the answer to achieve food safety because it is qualitatively and quantitatively inaccurate.

Until AB 1735, Section 35781(1) established a limit of less than 15,000 bacteria per milliliter with no stipulation as to coliform content. This natural coliform content is the ultimate goal of many raw milk consumers. Sound public policy and scientific principle dictate the coliform stipulation for raw milk be removed from law. Raw dairy has built-in natural safety mechanisms, as were discussed by Dr. Hull and others. The symbiotic bacteria that are present in raw dairy, such as coliform and other bacteria that live in symbiotic relationships with humans compete with and overgrow pathogenic bacteria in raw milk. Symbiotic bacteria also secrete antimicrobial factors that inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria, such as lactic acid, lacto-peroxidases(?) and other proteins. Antibodies naturally present in raw milk help destroy pathogenic bacteria through the process of opsonization, where antibodies bind to bacteria and enhance cell membrane rupture and phagocytosis. Furthermore, raw milk is not a suitable growth medium for pathogenic bacteria. Food safety regulation through the use of monitoring practices as outlined by AB 1735 is an ineffective approach and fails the cost versus benefit analysis that must be applied to all food safety processes. Destruction of a naturally protective mechanism in raw dairy occurs during the act of pasteurization which brings post-pasteurization contamination of dairy to the forefront as the most significant threat to consumer dairy safety. This area should be the are of future bills to improve dairy safety.

Regarding nutrition: The nutritional quality of milk is altered by pasteurization. The CDC continues to disseminate erroneous information on their website regarding this point.

And in my written testimony I provided a letter to CDC, as well as several references that are easily obtained with a quick literature search, that shows a direct comparison between raw, in this case, human milk and pasteurized human milk and the inability of infants to grow on the pasteurized milk. So, the nutritional quality is affected. As I mentioned, human babies thrive well on raw milk but show reduced growth and health when the same milk has been pasteurized. Veterinarians and zookeepers require raw, unpasteurized milk as a suitable source of nutrition for their animals. Pasteurized milk will not suffice.

The bacteria in raw milk have effects on the physical and physiological environments of the gastrointestinal tract of humans, thereby contributing significantly to our own nutrition and immunity. For instance, lactobacilli, the bacteria, increase soluble immunoglobulin A production in the human intestines. They also contribute to immune balance, the TH1 versus TH2 balance in immunity, which covers inflammatory response or antibody mediative responses, and it also strengthens the mucosal barrier by increasing tight junction fit. So we don�t want sterile foods, necessarily; we want foods with some bacteria in them.

The hygiene hypothesis and oral tolerance that exposure to antigen prepares our immune system and limits autoimmunity is being proven true by studies that show better immune related health in children exposed to farm versus non-farm environments. A study with 15,000 children, as Ms. Fallon mentioned; 15,000 thousand children over three years showed that those that access to raw milk had a reduced incidence of asthma and allergies. Even entering this world, studies show that a baby is healthier if delivered vaginally because of the initial ingestion of bacteria that colonizes the newborn�s intestines does not occur with a caesarian birth. Our nutrition affects our intestinal microflora which affects our health and vice versa. It has been shown that a high maltose diet increases gram positive fermecute(?) numbers which is linked with obesity.

Good nutrition promotes an appropriate fermecute(?) which are gram positive bacteria to bacateria-dete, gram negative bacteria. It promotes an appropriate ratio while poor nutrition increases this ratio and contributes to obesity. In other words, diet has such profound impact on intestinal microflora that mice switched from a plant-based diet to a simple sugar diet exhibited changes in their intestinal microflora that were consistent with obese mice.

Science is beginning to understand how these bacteria, nutrition, immunity, and health have intervening mechanisms of action and how a sterile environment is not in the best interest for long-term health.

Regarding health benefits: Ultimately the risk of all foods must be weighed against their health benefits. Since coliforms are a necessary part of human health and existence and naturally colonize the human body via ingestion, why would the Legislature ban a food based on this coliform count content? The very bacteria that AB 1735 excluded are the same found naturally living in a human intestinal tract as intestinal microflora.

Intestinal microflora refers to the varied species of bacteria that live in the healthy human intestine. When these bacteria are present in food they are termed probiotics. When these bacteria exist in intestines and enter the environment they are termed coliforms. Coliform, then, is from the Latin root for colon, cole. Coliform include 11,831 bacterial sequences that represent species found to colonize the healthy human intestines. Some of the human intestinal microflora consist of biffidus, lactococcus, lactobacillus, streptococcus, E-coli, and ___________ species. Even Dr. Harris� testimony earlier today stated that not all coliforms are pathogenic. That�s an important point to remember. Thus, coliforms, probiotics, and intestinal microflora are indistinguishable by standard coliform plate counts.

Coliform testing is normally used as a surrogate for fecal contamination but it should not be applied to raw dairy because some of the same bacteria strains that make raw dairy a probiotic will show up on a coliform ______. The AOAC standard method for coliforms uses a growth media containing two percent lactose, the predominant sugar in milk, that is readily digested by lactobacillus and lactococcus bacteria which are common to both raw dairy and the healthy human intestinal tract.

Probiotics are defined as live microorganisms that when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host. (This is the World Health Organization definition). Published studies on probiotics health benefits include asthma, allergy, gastrointestinal disorders, cancer, etc. And recommended doses of probiotics are in the range of one- to ten billion bacteria per day.

These aerobic and coliform bacteria live in a natural and symbiotic relationship with humans as part of our intestinal microflora which experts say contribute to over 70 percent of our own protective immunity. These bacteria constitute ten times the number of cells in our entire body, weighing up to two to four pounds, and have a microbiome that is 100 times that of the human genome. And this intestinal microflora has metabolic activity that is greater than that of our liver.

Probiotics and coliform have similar yet distinct effects on our immune system. Gram positive and gram negative bacteria have distinct effects on the innate immune response invivo and exhibit marked similarity and cydocon(?) response patterns observed between probiotic versus pathogenic coliform bacteria.

Dairy products have always served mankind as a dietary or probiotic source of these bacteria. A restriction on raw dairy based on coliform counts is a restriction on health promoting functional foods without any real benefit to the consumers� safety. Therefore, Sections 35781(1), 35861(d), 35891(c), 35971, 38671, 38731, and 38761, including light cream, light whipping cream, heavy cream, whipped cream and eggnog, these sections of the Food and Agricultural Code should be amended to remove coliform language requiring for these raw milk products�.requiring that these raw milk products shall not contain more than ten coliform bacteria per gram. The coliform content can be healthy as well as pathogenic and it is what the consumer wants in a probiotic functional food. What should be required is testing for lethal pathogenic bacteria such as listeria, salmonella, E-coli 0157H7, and others. Also, the hazard analysis and critical control point methodology and procedures that have been discussed today, I think, are a good way to ensure consumer safety. The important point to remember at this juncture is that these heat liable, beneficial, antimicrobial nutritional and immune enhancing natural properties of raw milk are destroyed when heated and processed.

Milk will always contain some bacteria. This is one of the reasons why consumers drink milk�as a probiotic for health. Thus, it is illogical to limit availability of raw, natural probiotic functional food based on coliform counts. Probiotics are recognized as coliforms upon _________. A restriction on raw milk based on coliform counts is a limit on a natural probiotic food. Probiotics are recognized as essential for health. In fact, I just returned from a meeting at experimental biology two weeks ago. The International Life Sciences Institute, North America Division, had a conference on microbes and health. And one of the prominent speakers was Dr. Walker from Harvard Medical School, talking about the importance and the role of intestinal microflora in health and how really absolutely essential it is.

Logic dictates regulating sanitary methods, storage conditions, pathogen testing, and inspections to ensure that product quality stays high from the start to the consumer, and in the end it is up to lawmakers to ensure that consumers have free access to choices that determine their health.

Thank you.

Read:

Liz Reitzig Testimony - VICFA

Sally Fallon Testimony - President Weston A. Price Foundation

Dr. Robert Irons Testimony - Nutritional Immunologist - MOICFA

Dr. Ted Beals Testimony - Pathologist