I talked with Katharhynn Heidelberg of the Montrose Daily Press about yet another raw milk outbreak:

Seattle attorney Bill Marler said that doesn’t mean raw milk is safe. Marler has represented several clients, or their survivors, in food-borne illness cases, even taking on Con-Agra.

“The amount of raw milk that is sold commercially is actually quite small and is unfortunately growing,” he said. “The number of illnesses and the frequency of illnesses, in my opinion, certainly indicates that it is a growing problem, not a shrinking one you can ignore.”

Colorado does not allow the commercial sale of raw milk. But a recent law allows for cow-shares, which Marler, speaking generally, said is being used to sidestep commercial-sale bans.

One of Marler’s clients, a formerly healthy 39-year-old Californian, developed a rare and progressively paralytic illness after drinking raw milk. Marler said she’s been rendered quadrupalegic and claims raw milk is to blame.

“A lot of times, raw milk groups have a tendency to say the health department is out for them, rather than that the health department is doing its job. That’s part of their marketing scheme, to feel like they’re being put upon,” Marler said.

“It’s not like I had a particular jag against raw milk, it’s just frankly another food that poisons people and the producers have to be as responsible as the corporations.”