Media Release
Thursday 29 October 2009 - For Immediate Release
The risky business of unpasteurised milk products
Dairy Food Safety Victoria (DFSV) the independent authority to regulate dairy food
safety issued advice today that drinking
unpasteurised or raw milk products may be
unsafe due to potential disease causing organisms being present.
DFSV Chief Executive Officer Dr Anne Astin said raw milk products are
available
through some health food retail outlets, farmers markets, produce and bush markets
across Victoria.
“Although these products are labelled for pet or cosmetic use and not for human
consumption it is possible that they are being consumed by some people.
As there
are no food safety programs required for the production and distribution of these milk
products, their safety cannot be assured by authorities,” said Dr Astin.
DFSV has monitored the microbiological content of some of these products. Results
have found varying levels of potentially harmful bacteria
such as E.
coli,
Staphylococci and Listeria to be present. Other organisms that can be found in raw
milk products and have the potential to cause disease include
Salmonella, Bacillus
cereus and Campylobacter jejuni.
“Australian
food laws require that cow’s milk
products sold for human consumption
be pasteurised and there are good public health reasons for that,” said Dr Astin. “The
value in pasteurisation is that it heats the milk to a temperature just high enough to
kill bacteria without significantly altering the flavour or nutritional value of the milk.”
Additional work recently undertaken by the Faculty of Life and Social Sciences at
Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne has shown that no detections
of
pathogens
at the milking stage does
not match
levels found in retail cosmetic
products. The period between fresh-off-the-farm and in a retail outlet days later can
be critical in enabling pathogens to grow to levels where they can make the
consumer very sick.
“It is important that the
public be made
aware of the risks they are taking if they
choose to drink unpasteurised milk products. Consuming these products may cause
severe illness,
particularly in susceptible people such as pregnant women, young
children, the elderly and those that have weakened immune systems.”
“We have recently
seen
evidence from Wisconsin in the USA linking illness in 35
people to having drunk raw milk which contained Campylobacter jejuni. This is not
the sort of report we would like to see coming from Victoria, where we have
an
enviable food safety record within the dairy industry,” concluded Dr Astin.
-ENDS-
Media contacts:
Connie Finestone, Communications Coordinator
Ph 03 9810 5934 or 0408 510 713 cfinestone@dairysafe.vic.gov.au
Anne Astin, CEO, Ph 03 9810 5900
NEWS 
