Were it not for his drinking raw milk, a 3-year-old Australian boy who died in 2014 would very likely still be alive to this day. That much has been known since the inquiry by Coroner’s Solicitor Rebecca Cohen.

With the publishing of findings by Coroner Audrey Jamieson, those findings became final and official on Nov. 11. The 3-year-old boy’s death was from organ failure from drinking raw, unpasteurized milk.

Jamieson said the source of that raw milk was Mountain View Farm, which produced Mountain View Organic Bath Milk labeled “not for human consumption” and “for cosmetic purposes only.”

“I emphasize that at no point has prosecution been contemplated against Mountain View Farm, and the company was not considered to have breached at legislative at the time of (the child’s) death in 2014,” Jamieson ruled.

His parents kept the boy on a gluten-free and organic diet that included giving him drinks of the raw milk sold for bath and cosmetic purposes. That’s is what apparently killed the boy.

The coroner’s report says four other children became seriously ill from drinking Mountain View Organic Bath Milk around the same time as the boy’s death. Three of four children suffered from hemolytic uremic syndrome, a kidney disease often brought on E. coli infections.

The fourth of the surviving children developed cryptosporidiosis, a parasitic infection associated with gastroenteritis.

The boy who died was first treated at the Franklin medical center on Sept. 30, 2014, for vomiting and diarrhea. He was diagnosed with gastroenteritis and sent home. His parents took him back to the doctor on Oct. 2, 2014, when his conditioned worsened.

Tests were ordered, but he was not dehydrated, and was again sent home. When blood showed up his stool, his parents took him to the Franklin hospital emergency room on Oct. 4, 2014.

It was at that point that he was admitted to the hospital, where he died on Oct. 13, 2014, of thrombatic microangiopathy, a rare condition leading to organ failure.

The final report says the boy’s medical treatment was “reasonable and appropriate” with no cause for adverse findings against the clinicians involved. The boy was suffering from HUS, for which onset was rapid and no cure was possible.

Selling raw milk for human consumption has been illegal in Australia since the 1940s. Its sale for cosmetic purchases, usually in health food stores, is permitted.

However, bath milk must now contain a bittering agent that gives it a foul taste. Further, after the boy’s death, the law was changed to make anyone guilty of giving someone raw milk to drink, the target of a $60,000 fine.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)