I never thought I’d spend six months of my life investigating raw milk. But I did.
In early June, ProPublica published a story I reported that features Mark McAfee, who runs America’s largest raw-milk dairy. The story came about after months of reporting on how the Trump administration’s policies were reshaping federal health agencies. My colleagues and I spoke with dozens of civil servants, many of whom described a climate of fear in which routine science had suddenly become politicized.
One notable example they shared with me was raw milk, which most scientists and health experts agree has no significant, proven nutritional benefits over its pasteurized counterpart and subjects its consumers to over 100 times the risk of foodborne illness.
But under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., current and former government workers told me, the federal approach to raw milk was shifting to align with his priorities. In his new role, Kennedy said he was “advocating” for it and celebrated the release of a federal report to Make America Healthy Again with a toast of raw-milk shooters in the White House.
McAfee, who counts Kennedy as a customer, has advocated for raw dairy for more than two decades. But only in recent years has raw milk, which once drew a fringe crowd, been thrust into the mainstream. More than 10 million Americans now drink it; national weekly sales rose by 65% from 2023 to 2024 alone.
McAfee’s farm is pulling in about $30 million a year. It has also attracted significant scrutiny: Federal and state regulators have linked his business to more than a dozen recalls and outbreaks that had left hundreds of people ill.
Raw milk’s success had confounded me: How had it gained such a foothold in this country, despite regular outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli?
Speaking with McAfee seemed like a good place to start. The story I reported takes you through my extended tour of his farm, and I encourage you to read it. Below, I’ll take you through some of the highlights of my conversations and interactions with McAfee and contextualize them with my reporting.
“I’m begging you to say: ‘This is not anti-science, this is extremely pro-science. … It’s using science that is not conveniently accepted yet.”
Dairy owner Mark McAfee, on the claimed benefits of raw milk
If you trust 150 years of bedrock science, there is little reason to consume raw milk. By definition, it has not been pasteurized, the simple process of heating milk to kill off harmful bacteria. Before the practice was widely adopted a century ago, thousands of babies died each year from illnesses linked to contaminated dairy.
Today, most scientists and health experts agree that raw milk has no significant, proven nutritional benefits over its sanitized counterpart, cannot treat or cure disease, and subjects its consumers to over 100 times the risk of foodborne illness, which can be especially dangerous for young children. Despite stringent hygiene efforts, contamination from deadly bacteria remains an inherent, unavoidable risk in unpasteurized dairy.
Exhaustive reviews of the published science on raw milk have broadly been unable to substantiate claims of its benefits, and most experts agree that it is neither healthy nor safe to consume. But McAfee said his customers know better. To him, the stories of families who believe raw milk has transformed their health are their own form of evidence, revealing truths that institutions have failed to capture. “If raw milk was a fad or a lie, then why would people repeatedly buy raw milk and then tell the world how they love it,” he said. “Our consumers read their gut and watch their kids thrive.”
He also said the government hasn’t invested enough in research to assess its benefits.
“I’ve put a couple kids in the hospital, and they have been sick, but they recovered. … But here’s the thing: I’m a pioneer. And I’m going against the grain here. I’m climbing a mountain they say you can’t climb.”
McAfee, on his experience as a raw-milk producer
In 2006, six people contracted E. coli during the first outbreak connected to McAfee’s farm, according to federal regulators; their median age was 8. While the outbreak’s specific strain of E. coli was not found in the products, some samples taken by investigators had high bacterial counts, indicating contamination.
One of the children affected was 7-year-old Chris Martin. After about a month of drinking raw milk, he fell gravely ill with a dangerous strain of E. coli, known as O157:H7. Chris suffered permanent kidney damage. Now 27, he can’t drink alcohol and will spend the rest of his life under a nephrologist’s care because of his elevated risk of chronic kidney disease.
McAfee said the 2006 outbreak opened his eyes to the risk of his product and was part of the reason he developed standards for unpasteurized dairies. But more awareness and better practices didn’t stop McAfee’s customers from continuing to get sick — in 2007, 2011, 2012 and 2016 — and the farm had to issue recalls more than half a dozen times after pathogens were found in its products.
And then between 2023 and 2024, regulators linked the farm to one of the largest publicly known raw-dairy outbreaks in decades, with more than 170 people falling ill from salmonella. McAfee disputed his farm’s connection to many of the outbreaks, including this one. He maintained that regulators’ practices for tracking illnesses were not smoking-gun proof that his farm directly caused outbreaks.
At least 233 people have been sickened in eight outbreaks that federal and state regulators have connected to McAfee’s farm since 2006, and at least 40 of them have been hospitalized. The tally is almost certainly an undercount, experts and regulators told me. Many recover at home from foodborne illness and do not seek out testing.
“We have a red-flag system here, where if there’s anything that gets really out of whack, they can immediately tag the milk, and it doesn’t go to anything but cheese. … Because, you know, cheese is resistant to pathogens.”
McAfee, on his cheesemaking practices
Research has shown that raw cheese is not, in fact, resistant to pathogens; while aging can mitigate some risk, harmful bacteria can still survive the usual 60-day maturation process.
So, when McAfee told me about his cheesemaking practice, it took me by surprise: The farm did what with that milk? I asked him about it again.
McAfee confirmed that milk with pathogens was used to make cheese, except for batches with salmonella, which he said were dumped or sent out for pasteurization.
I would later find out that the federal government knew that his farm was doing this. In 2024, the Food and Drug Administration discovered his farm had a “standard practice” of producing cheese from milk suspected or known to contain pathogens, according to court documents. It had told the farm to stop and destroy any cheese made with contaminated milk. That was two years ago.
The farm pushed back. It said it followed federal regulations by aging its cheese and said it tested all of it before sale. To force the farm to follow its orders and stop this practice, the government needed a judge’s ruling. But a backlog in the courts delayed the case well into 2025.
By then, political winds had shifted. The Trump administration had come in, with Kennedy at the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services. (McAfee said the farm no longer diverted problematic milk to cheesemaking.)
Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
“They have the guns and the money. I got the truth and the moms.”
McAfee, on the federal government
While federal officials were gathering evidence against the farm, McAfee focused on the “education” of consumers. Online influencers were spreading his message to audiences of millions.
In January, the government dropped its efforts to take action against the farm. A former federal employee with knowledge of the suit told me that cases involving raw milk were deprioritized in the new administration because of Kennedy’s stance on it.
A Justice Department spokesperson didn’t respond to my questions about the decision, but said in an email that the administration will “always be concerned about risks to public health and will continue to take enforcement action as appropriate to protect American consumers.”
The health department and the FDA did not respond to my attempts to seek comment. Kennedy, through his department, also did not respond to my questions.
McAfee called the withdrawal a “big win.” Drawing on ancient Chinese military leader and philosopher Sun Tzu’s teachings, he told me that he had learned to engage not in “their war,” but his own.
“Our sales are highest they’ve ever been, and feedback online with influencers is: If the FDA says something, do the opposite. It’s safer. They don’t trust them at all.”
McAfee, after regulators linked another outbreak to his farm
Just weeks after my visit to Raw Farm, federal regulators publicly linked its cheese to yet another E. coli outbreak. Nine people were infected across three states; more than half were younger than 5. It took 18 days for the farm to issue a recall, and when it did, it said it was doing so “under protest.” Raw Farm had tested its products, found no pathogens and wasn’t at fault, McAfee told me.
I asked McAfee whether the illnesses might be connected to his practice of using problematic milk to make cheese. But now, he told me a different story. “We would in the past divert to cheesemaking,” he said. “We no longer do.”
I brought up the fact that he’d made similar disclosures in podcasts in the last year and to me just weeks earlier. But he doubled down.
“I think you have caught me in something where there’s an issue between practice and what I’m saying,” he said. “If I said it, I believed that at the time to be true, but I do know that now we do not use any questionable milk.”
On April 30, the FDA closed its investigation into the recent E. coli outbreak in cheese without taking any enforcement action. McAfee told me his raw-cheese products were back in stores. Sprouts and H-E-B, two major retail chains that have carried his cheese, did not respond to my emailed questions about the outbreak.
The post 5 Raw Quotes From America’s Largest Raw-Milk Dairy Owner appeared first on ProPublica.
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