Well, so much for the raw milk people accepting the consequences of their decisions.

Should the State go after the parents for child abuse? I would say exposing a child to an unnecessary risk is child abuse.

going to be very tough to prove in a real court of law, that it was the milk which made the subject sick, after she'd been drinking it for months, with no ill affect

obviously, this lawsuit is being used as a tactic a much larger, political agenda

I don't agree with Allin's comment. Risks are everywhere and I still believe that the risks incurred by consuming raw milk that comes from pasture-raised cows and milked using proper sanitary precautions is far less risky than, say, feeding a baby or child formula, deli meats or hot dogs (much bigger chance of listeria here), giving your child immunizations, or even putting your child in a car.

US government estimates there are ~12-15M consumers or raw milk in the US, so if, say, 100 people per year are infected with something (keep in mind deaths are far more rare), that means your odds of catching something are only 1 in 120,000, so HIGHLY unlikely.

I also think that the problems associated with pasteurized, homogenized grocery-store milk, which comes from sick cows that are fed a totally unnatural diet of genetically modified corn and soy, has all sorts of unintended negative consequences that need to be weighed (asthma, allergies, lactose intolerance, digestive issues, etc).

I worry that by overreacting to rare unfortunate events like this one could result in loss of more and more of the freedoms that our country was founded upon.

I found it interesting that the cases in California and the cased in Washington were in the same time frame. Is there another cause out there that created the illness that was common to all 8 Children in the two states. I feel that hear raw milk and immediately are sure that it is the cause. But my husband was raised on raw milk and raised his children on raw milk from thier own cow with no bad effects. If the milk was infected than why didn't others have at least some symptoms. There were other people sick at the time and they had not consummed raw milk while people I know were drinking raw milk from this dairy were not sick, even ones who were old or at high risk. The co-op also carried another brand of raw milk aroung the time that the illness broke out. I am not entirely convinced that it was the raw milk.

Gordon Watson, parents who bought raw milk are suing the raw milk dairy. What possible hidden agenda is there?

As for proving it was the milk, the article stated that E.coli was found at the dairy and it's a genetic match up for the E.coli that sickened the child. That's what's known as a smoking gun in food safety.

Nevra, you're making several unwarranted assumptions, including your assumption that pasteurized milk comes from diseased cows in confined animal operations. But I agree with you, there is no case of child abuse with the parents' decision to give their kids raw milk.

There is no way you can convince me that raw milk does not have fecal matter in it. This is the reason that we heat it. I don't want poo in my milk. Feel free to drink milk with poo in it if you feel that it is beneficial.

Shelley, I agree with your comments. My reason for bringing up the possibility of child abuse was to be provocative in light of this family suing the dairy with scant evidence that they did anything particularly wrong. The cause should be investigated for sure and if it is found that the dairy did something wrong then sueing them is certainly an option. Personally I’m sticking with pasteurization.