NBC17 reports state health officials have determined that the source of the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak came from the Kelley Building at the North Carolina State Fair.

The Kelley Building is one of the permanent buildings where sheep, goats, and pigs were housed and competed in livestock show.

NBC-17 was the first to report a direct link to goats at the State Fair and the E. coli outbreak. A family of six in Sampson County who was diagnosed with E. coli reported they visited the goats while attending the State Fair.

The N.C. Division of Public Health says 27 individuals were identified as having contracted E. coli after attending the State Fair in October.

State Epidemiologist Megan Davies said the illness is likely related to animal contact, however the study did not implicate any specific animal or breed. Health officials say no other exhibits, foods or activities were linked to the E. coli infections.

In 2004, 108 cases of E. coli were reported, all linked to the petting zoo at the State Fair. After the 2004 outbreak, Fair officials installed handwashing stations with sinks, soap and water around the petting zoo and near animal exhibits.

A table of petting zoo related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/petting-zoos-outbreaks.

WBOC-TV reports that Wicomico County Health Department officials say they believe an increase in the number of people visiting the hospital with salmonellosis is related to a fish fry held in Salisbury.

The fish fry in question occurred on Friday, July 1 at a home on Delaware Avenue in Salisbury. According to the health department, the emergency department at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury has reported an increase in the number of hospital visits related to gastrointestinal illness involving salmonella and one other unspecified type of bacteria.

In addition to fish, goat was also served at the event, health department officials noted.

Anyone who may have attended the fish fry is asked to contact the health department's community services division at (410) 543-6943 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., or call (410) 543-6996 after hours.
 

A Kansas State colleague was telling us about his travels during the winter break, including a visit to a daughter-in-law who is seriously committed to providing her young children – and his grandchildren – with raw or unpasteurized goat’s milk.

I said we’d update the table of outbreaks and he could provide it, as information, without the lectures, to his daughter, and possibly leverage the future health of his grandchildren, although that kind of discussion wouldn’t go very far (even though several of the outbreaks involve raw goat’s milk).

Columnist Stephen Hume of the Vancouver Sun writes today that he doesn’t believe claims that pasteurizing milk destroys its nutritional value or that it’s a conspiracy of big agribusiness and big government to promote the interests of big pharma.

I see pasteurization of dairy products as a blessing. It prevents our return to a dreadful past in which diseases transmitted by raw milk afflicted hundreds of thousands every year. In fact, they still do in many parts of the world where people can’t get pasteurized dairy products. …

Raw milk advocates who trumpet the health benefits of unpasteurized products are in fact the beneficiaries of precisely the public health “conspiracy” to pasteurize that so many deride and vilify.

I’m all for personal choice, and there are lots of risky foods out there. Choice is the reason raw milk farmer Alice Jongerden in British Columbia can risk public health, waste tremendous public health resources that could be better used elsewhere, and take up time in the Supreme Court of B.C. by asking judges to set aside a 2010 court order that prohibits her from producing and packaging unpasteurized dairy products.

I choose not to consume raw dairy because the pasteurized alternatives offer an easy disease control option, and I try not to inflict food poisoning risks on my children, who don’t have much of a choice.

An updated list of outbreaks related to raw and unpasteurized milk and products is available at:

http://bites.ksu.edu/rawmilk
 

Billy Goat Dairy – most unappealing name for a place to buy milk – has an additional eight cases of E. coli O157:H7 and campylobacter linked to its raw goats milk, bringing the number of confirmed sick people to 24.

Two children were hospitalized in connection with the outbreak. One has been released; the other remains under observation, but health officials reported his condition is improving.