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To: epicure who wrote (141071)	7/18/2010 9:06:08 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543052

Utah County reports apparent outbreak of salmonella Six people have been diagnosed with salmonella in an apparent outbreak first reported in Utah County, and health officials believe raw milk is the cause. Lance Madigan, spokesman for the Utah County Health Department, said four of those individuals came from Utah County. All of the affected people purchased unpasteurized milk from a Real Foods Market. The milk most likely came from Redmond Farms in Sevier County. Madigan said the first onset was about April 22, and the health department found out about the diagnoses last week. None have been reported in the last week. Tom Hudachko, spokesman for the Utah Department of Health, said three of the people were male and three were female, and the ages ranged from 2 years old to 56 years old. Real Foods has suspended sale of the milk at the health department's request pending further tests. Madigan said the cause still is under investigation, but the only common denominator they can find between the cases, which include one individual each from Salt Lake and Wasatch counties as well as the Utah County cases, is the milk, purchased at either the Orem or Heber stores. "That's one common exposure, and that's also a very, quite frankly, very easy answer because salmonella and raw milk are very common together," he said. A Real Foods employee in Orem referred all questions to Brandon Foote, the farm manager at Redmond Farms. He said every batch of milk shipped out for sale is tested for salmonella by an independent, certified dairy lab, and the farm also does its own testing. They even test the cow's manure for the bacteria. "No salmonella has ever been detected in our milk, now or ever in the past," he said. The regulations for raw milk are more strict than for pasteurized milk, he said, so they take extra precautions to keep bacteria out. The standards as set by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food actually ensure the raw milk is cleaner initially than pasteurized milk. "Before we can sell it, it has to pass those standards," Foote said. An Orem woman, 56, who declined to be identified, was one of those diagnosed with salmonella. She found out Friday after a week of diarrhea, severe joint pain and uncertainty. She and her husband do drink Redmond Farms milk, she said, but she doesn't think that was the answer. She thought the salad bar where she ate the night before was the likely culprit because the milk didn't make sense. "The crazy thing is, my husband drank four times what I did, and he didn't get infected," she said. She's been to the emergency room twice in the last two weeks and is only now starting to feel better. Madigan said officials are hopeful the outbreak will spread no further. The state public health lab is testing milk from two weeks ago and current samples to determine if there is salmonella. The most common symptoms for salmonella include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pain; it's unpleasant but rarely deadly.