Federal health officials said at least seven people in three U.S. states were sickened by E. coli food poisoning linked to cheddar cheese made from raw milk.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Raw Farm, a California company, made the cheese it described as the “likely source” of the outbreak. The FDA noted that no Raw Farm products had tested positive for E. coli during the outbreak period, even as investigators were working to connect illnesses to the product.
The illnesses were reported between September 2025 and mid-February, according to the FDA. It said five cases were reported in California and one each in Florida and Texas, and that more than half of the illnesses were among children aged 3 or younger. The agency said two people were hospitalized.
The FDA recommended that Raw Farm voluntarily remove its raw cheese products from sale, but the company declined. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged consumers to “consider not eating” the products.
In comments, Mark McAfee, the owner of Raw Farm, said he refused to recall the products because investigators have not definitively linked them to any illnesses. In an interview, McAfee said, “They have found no pathogens in any of our products,” and he disputed the FDA’s findings that the cases were genetically linked, calling the outbreak announcement premature.
The FDA said interviews with three people who got sick found that all three reported eating Raw Farm brand raw milk cheddar cheese. The agency also said analysis of samples from the sick patients showed that the E. coli isolates that caused their infections were closely genetically related.
Officials said they were working to gather information from four additional cases. The investigation remained under way to determine the source of contamination and whether additional products were linked to illnesses.
CC0 (public domain) dedication: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/