California Regulators Did Little to Punish a Raw Milk Farm After Two Girls Got Sick — ProPublica

Sitting in a pediatric intensive care unit final 12 months, watching a ventilator maintain her 17-month-old daughter alive, Emily Marris scoured the contents of her telephone for proof to give to California well being and meals security investigators. 

She had purchased uncooked goat milk from a farm advisable to her in a Facebook group run by her chiropractor. Marris had hoped the milk, unprocessed and pure, would assist together with her daughter Brooklyn’s constipation. But medical doctors now suspected the unpasteurized milk, which hadn’t been heated to kill off pathogens, was the supply of the toddler’s extreme E. coli an infection. 

To the regulators who’d reached out to Marris, the case was a prime precedence. The farm appeared to be defying state law to promote unregulated uncooked milk to unsuspecting households; quickly, one other baby, a 6-year-old lady who’d drunk milk from the identical farm, would wind up in the identical San Diego hospital, with the identical doubtlessly deadly sickness, needing blood transfusions. 

Similar instances had been popping up throughout the nation as social media influencers and President Donald Trump’s White House stored touting the unproven benefits of raw milk and downplaying its dangers. In the previous two years alone, a whole lot had fallen in poor health throughout 9 states from consuming uncooked milk or consuming merchandise made with it. 

Recognizing that folks nonetheless need the liberty to purchase it, California had struck a steadiness: It licenses farms that sell raw milk for human consumption, inspects them for sanitation and requires them to commonly check batches for pathogens.

The system hadn’t prevented outbreaks, as ProPublica beforehand reported. But it aimed to be certain that prospects, on the very least, knew what they had been stepping into; milk legally bought within the state had to be clearly labeled with warnings.

Which is what troubled regulators much more about this explicit outbreak. 

The milk suspected to have sickened the women didn’t come from one of many state’s dozen licensed farms. The dairy was completely off the radar, promoting unknown portions of unlabeled gallons. 

And inside Marris’ telephone was much more alarming info. Months of textual content messages confirmed the farm’s proprietor knew from the beginning that a toddler was consuming her milk. Then after the farmer realized that Brooklyn had contracted a critical foodborne an infection, which medical doctors attributed to the milk, she continued to promote on Facebook: “raw goat milk from a clean tested herd.”

After many sleepless nights, Marris screengrabbed the messages and despatched them to the investigators, hoping to quell the outbreak earlier than it grew. 

Amid a flurry of emails involving at the very least 4 state and county companies, investigators with the California Department of Food and Agriculture took the lead. They wanted to verify that the farm was certainly promoting milk for human consumption. In California, doing so with out a license is a violation of state regulation and may lead to fines of up to $10,000 and jail time of up to a 12 months. 

On the night of June 17, 2025, an undercover investigator messaged the farm’s Facebook account:  

“Would like to buy like a gallon 🤗🤗🤗”

Someone from the farm replied that they bought goat milk by the gallon, defined that they had been briefly out of jugs and stated they’d message as quickly as their cargo arrived. 

Regulators now had a uncommon alternative. 

They had robust proof: two cooperating households, direct textual content admissions and entry to hospital information documenting the destruction wrought on two younger our bodies. 

They had a clear cause to act. Raw-milk consumption was a rising hazard, and their state, like others, was teeming with black-market dairies, propped up by shopper demand fueled by misinformation.

They may have pursued penalties underneath a regulation enacted to forestall this very conduct, sending a message to different sellers about what the state wouldn’t tolerate.

But that’s not what would occur.

Marris was breastfeeding her daughter in her southern California house one afternoon that earlier January when a put up on Facebook caught her eye.

In a non-public group of yard farmers, her chiropractor, Chris Boman, had shared a photo of a fridge, full of gallons of freshly collected milk. In the years Marris had been visiting his workplace, she’d seen him promoting uncooked milk from his personal cow in his clinic’s ready room. 

She had by no means thought to strive it herself, however milk was on her thoughts currently. She was making an attempt to wean Brooklyn, and to this point it wasn’t going nicely.

Brooklyn was her “miracle baby.” Marris had grow to be pregnant together with her — a desperately needed third baby — at age 48. Then she arrived seven weeks untimely, her low beginning weight and underdeveloped lungs confining her to the intensive care unit for her first month.

The traumatic beginning despatched Marris’ protecting instincts into overdrive. Already a self-described “crunchy” mother, she’d detoxified their house in suburban Winchester, a small inland group in Riverside County; stripped it of dangerous chemical compounds and artificial supplies; and restricted her household’s consumption of ultraprocessed meals. A educated beginning doula and former instructor, she spent a lot of her days caring for her children whereas her husband ran a sports activities expertise startup firm. As she had together with her different two youngsters, she was decided to breastfeed Brooklyn for so long as wanted.

But when her daughter was barely a 12 months outdated, Marris began a new remedy for her persistent hip ache that would move by breastmilk. She tried natural toddler method, however the variety of components alarmed her, and store-bought cow milk left Brooklyn severely constipated. Marris thought of stopping her remedy, however then she couldn’t stroll with out ache.

Desperate for another, she commented on her chiropractor’s Facebook put up, “Would this be a good milk for baby Brookie?”

The group’s members rapidly chimed in. “I had to put my baby on raw goats milk,” one mom wrote. “Healed her right up. … Goats milk is easier digested than cow.” While gross sales of uncooked milk are prohibited on Facebook’s Marketplace, and such adverts are eliminated when flagged, discussions of uncooked milk are nonetheless allowed, stated a Meta spokesperson.

The commenter advisable a farm known as Moonlight Ridge, and Marris clicked over to its Facebook web page, which was full of photos of velvety Nubian goats. The farm milked its animals twice every day, it stated, so the dairy was “always the freshest and best quality.” It was solely 10 miles away. Marris organized a go to that afternoon.

There had been no indicators marking the farm, however Marris turned down a dust highway and noticed its 23-year-old proprietor, Courtney Baker, with lengthy blond hair and a tan, standing by a metallic gate close to a white pickup truck. Baker and her husband had grow to be serious about elevating goats throughout the pandemic. They began promoting uncooked milk to assist animal rescues and breeders, Baker would later say, and bought most of their prospects by phrase of mouth.

Baker greeted Marris and handed over an unlabeled jug of uncooked goat milk, nonetheless heat to the contact.

Marris pointed to her daughter, asleep within the again seat of her SUV, and defined Brooklyn’s digestion struggles. “This is the sweet girl you’re helping,” she recalled telling the farmer.

Once house, Marris stuffed up a child bottle and nervously handed it to Brooklyn. Her daughter didn’t hesitate.

“She is gobbling it down! 💜” Marris texted Baker. 

“Yay!! I’m glad she likes it!” Baker responded, then later that day requested, “How’s her tummy handling the milk?”

By the subsequent morning, Brooklyn’s issues appeared to ease. “She has had two great and more normal poops!!!!” Marris texted Baker.

Marris believed she had executed her due diligence. She had researched uncooked milk, whose advantages had been readily promoted by the native farmers and wellness influencers she adopted. Shortly after that first pickup, she and her husband, Josh, visited Moonlight Ridge to examine the herd. The goats appeared well-kept. And after they requested Baker about her security practices, they recalled, the farmer repeatedly assured them her herd and milk had been “clean and tested.” Marris trusted Baker and thought the farmer was doing every part attainable to maintain the milk secure.

For six months, Marris gave Brooklyn uncooked milk with out incident.

Then, on June 2, all of it started to unravel. On the best way house from swim classes, Brooklyn vomited all around the again seat.

That identical day, one other couple, Navy veterans Iris and David Galindo, drove to Moonlight Ridge to choose up their first order of goat milk.

They had additionally been searching for alternate options for his or her 6-year-old daughter, Victoria, whose physician advisable limiting dairy merchandise from cows. They started to think about goat milk, which Iris drank as a baby in Guatemala. She contacted Baker, who had tutored their son in math years earlier and was now promoting uncooked goat milk in a native Facebook group. “There was trust there,” Galindo stated.

As Baker handed over an unlabeled jug that day, the Galindos stated they made it explicitly clear the milk was for his or her younger daughter. 

That night, Victoria drank her first cup.

The days after Brooklyn first threw up had been a hellish blur: vomit that turned bilious yellow, then a tarry blackish-green, then bloodwork that so alarmed emergency room medical doctors that they known as for transport to a pediatric intensive care unit 70 miles away.

Stunned and helpless, Marris and her husband waited as medical doctors at Rady Children’s Hospital mounted a internet of wires to their barely aware daughter: a tube down her trachea to assist her breathe, dialysis traces into her blood vessels to help her failing kidneys. 

Brooklyn had developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a uncommon situation through which microscopic blood clots clog small vessels and destroy important organs. Infectious illness medical doctors suspected it had been attributable to a pressure of E. coli and had Marris stroll them by Brooklyn’s current weight loss plan. 

When she talked about the uncooked milk, she stated, they checked out her uneasily and advised her that was the possible perpetrator. E. coli can thrive in animal intestines. As few as 10 cells, hidden in an infinitesimal fleck of feces, can contaminate uncooked milk and trigger a fatal infection.

Marris was terrified for her daughter and livid with herself. She had searched on-line for the advantages of uncooked milk and gotten the affirmation she wanted from raw-milk proponents. 

She wasn’t conscious of the medical consensus that uncooked milk has no confirmed nutritional benefits in contrast with its pasteurized counterpart, or that it carries over 100 instances the risk of foodborne illness. “I’m the one that gave it to her,” she thought. “Just how stupid could I be?”

From her daughter’s bedside, on June 5, Marris texted Baker. “They think Brookie got a strain of e-coli possibly from a bad batch of the milk … I just wanted to let you know in case you want to alert anyone that had milk from the week before this.”

“I am so incredibly sorry to hear she is going through this!!” Baker rapidly responded. “None of my milk testing results have showed anything abnormal.”

Later that day, although, Marris realized whereas texting with Baker that the farmer hadn’t examined for E. coli; it appeared like she didn’t know the way to. “All the tests I’m finding looks like it mainly comes from meat,” Baker wrote.

Marris was shocked. How did Baker not know the way to check for a widespread foodborne pathogen like E. coli? Still, Marris remained well mannered. “Please don’t beat yourself up either. You are a sweet kind person and I don’t want you or me to go there.”

Two days after Brooklyn arrived on the hospital, on June 6, medical doctors took her off the ventilator, however she struggled to get up. For hours, as she continued on dialysis, her eyes drifted again into her head, her physique often convulsed and her respiration grew heavy and speedy. 

That night, her blood grew so acidic that it disrupted {the electrical} alerts of her coronary heart, which struggled to pump sufficient blood and oxygen to her mind. For hours, the medical crew tried to stabilize her spiking pulse. Her dad and mom didn’t know if she would survive the evening. 

As they awaited an replace, a stool pattern confirmed that Brooklyn had contracted E. coli O157:H7, probably the most harmful strains. When Marris texted Baker concerning the analysis, the farmer detailed her equipment-cleaning course of and stated she would ship a pattern to a lab in Colorado. 

After a couple of days, Brooklyn lastly turned a nook. But in suburban Murrieta, not removed from the Marris household house, Victoria was simply beginning to decline. 

She’d grown torpid over the previous week, with bouts of bloody diarrhea. After two unhelpful pressing care visits, the Galindos drove her to Rady on June 13. Bloodwork revealed she had the identical dysfunction as Brooklyn, introduced on by the identical E. coli pressure; she was rushed into intensive care. “My world just dropped,” Iris Galindo stated. 

On June 14, after Marris realized that one other baby had fallen sick after consuming uncooked milk, she texted Baker once more: “Maybe hold off on selling any until we know if there is a common thread.”

Baker didn’t reply. 

The subsequent day, nonetheless, Marris noticed that Baker had not too long ago responded to somebody within the Facebook group searching for uncooked goat milk: “I have raw goat milk from a clean tested herd in wine country … We milk 2x a day so it is always super fresh.”

Marris was aghast, squeezing the perimeters of her telephone to seize what was on the display screen.

“Out of respect, I’m giving you a heads up,” she texted Baker. “I wasn’t going to EVER post anything, but I’m appalled that you’re advertising the milk as tested and safe when you haven’t been able to test for that deadly strain of e-coli.”

Marris then typed up a detailed description of what had occurred to her daughter.

“My 17 month old almost died this week,” she wrote. “I NEVER WANTED TO have to call her out on this, but it’s prudent that she take a break, make sure she tests for THIS SPECIFIC strain and ensure the milk is safe before resuming sales.”

She hit the put up button, heaved a sigh of aid and watched the responses roll in.

“Praying for your sweet baby.”

“Omg I almost bought milk from her a couple weeks ago.”

“Thank you for protecting the rest of us.”

And then her telephone buzzed. Baker had lastly replied.

At first, she apologized for the gradual response, explaining that she’d additionally been hospitalized with an unrelated sickness. She stated that, regardless of her Facebook remark, she had stopped promoting milk whereas she waited for check outcomes. 

And then she requested Marris to take down her put up. “As much as I hate and feel bad for what happened to Brooke [sic] I really really do,” she stated, “I really don’t appreciate my name being thrown out there like that.”

Reluctantly, Marris deleted what she wrote.

She’d already spoken with state regulators concerning the outbreak and handed over her textual content messages. 

Surely, she believed, they’d do one thing.

On June 20, three regulators paid an unannounced go to to Moonlight Ridge, in accordance to internal records from the investigation obtained by ProPublica. 

The farm was situated inside a bigger horse ranch, and so they didn’t see anybody on the entrance. They walked alongside the fenceline till they noticed Baker’s husband, who requested in the event that they had been there due to the goat milk. Baker confirmed up 20 minutes later. 

She advised them one thing she hadn’t stated to the parents or the undercover investigator: The milk was for pets solely and marketed as such on Facebook. 

“Of course, she insisted that she only sells the goat milk for pet food,” Jill Soares, a regional supervisor with the Food and Agriculture Department, later wrote in an email to the team.

Although California requires licenses to promote uncooked milk for human consumption, unlicensed farms can promote it so long as they label it as pet food. Sellers have seized on the loophole to keep away from scrutiny and prosecution, a well being official conversant in Baker’s case advised ProPublica, talking on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to speak publicly. “There is a gap in regulation,” the official stated. 

The hole is magnified in 13 different states, the place uncooked milk may be bought solely as pet meals, however regulators know individuals are nonetheless consuming it. Outbreaks this 12 months in Louisiana and final 12 months in Florida sickened a number of youngsters, together with at the very least one who developed the identical life-changing kidney situation as Brooklyn. No dairy bought in hassle. State officers stated the milk was legally bought and clearly labeled.

In Baker’s case, the investigative report makes no point out of California regulators interrogating her concerning the pet meals protection, regardless of the textual content messages they’d learn. “She clearly knew the milk was going to a child,” Soares wrote to her team. 

With such proof in hand, they might have referred the case to native prosecutors. Instead, earlier than the location go to, supervising particular investigator Jeffrey Eggert wrote in an email to the team that pursuing costs was not the precedence. 

“The immediate goal here is to get the goat farm to stop all milk related-product manufacturing, and keep the community safe,” he wrote. His unit “typically pursues the criminal route; however, the legal process is lengthy.” 

That determination appeared to inform how the regulators approached their go to to Baker’s farm. 

They handed Baker a cease-and-desist order and a violation notice for working as a meals facility with out a legitimate allow; neither carried penalties, however each threatened penalties if she didn’t comply. 

Then, they advised Baker they’d return the subsequent morning to accumulate a milk pattern for testing, because the households whose youngsters had fallen sick didn’t have any leftover milk.

The subsequent day, they met Baker on the gate and accepted a half-gallon jug of uncooked milk she assured them had been collected the earlier evening from 11 goats. 

Department officers advised ProPublica that California regulation doesn’t allow investigators to enter unlicensed properties, even after they obtain reviews of unlicensed exercise. 

At licensed farms, California investigators have collected the milk themselves. And as a result of newer batches won’t have the identical contaminant that sickened shoppers, they’ve additionally combed the farmland for the pathogen, sampling dust, groundwater and animal droppings. In some instances after they haven’t discovered a pathogen pressure within the milk, they’ve found it in the surroundings.

Eleven days after regulators left with the pattern Baker collected, the state’s restricted test results got here again damaging for a number of pathogens, together with E. coli. 

Regulators then pivoted to serving to Baker get approval to begin promoting her milk once more — nonetheless with out a license, inspections or testing — as long as she labeled and registered it as pet meals. 

Baker quickly wrote back to the undercover investigator to see whether or not they had been nonetheless . “I have gotten confirmation from CDFA that I’m in full compliance for pet consumption milk!”

On Aug. 1, the Food and Agriculture Department closed its case, finding that Baker had “promoted raw milk for sale and sold unapproved milk products in commerce without a CDFA license.” She was given no penalty.

“I was unable to show that she sold milk intended for human consumption,” wrote particular investigator Nancy Del Cid. “If this had been proven, the case would have been referred to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office for potential prosecution.”

The division didn’t reply to ProPublica’s particular questions concerning the investigation, together with why officers had come to this conclusion regardless of proof that had made at the very least one supervisor comment that Baker “clearly knew the milk was going to a child.”

Officials advised ProPublica that in search of felony costs would have slowed down their effort to cease Baker from promoting extra milk. 

“Issuing a cease-and-desist order almost always results in a product being removed from the market more rapidly than a criminal referral,” stated Devon Keeler, a spokesperson for the division, in an emailed assertion. “In this case, CDFA acted to protect public health as quickly as possible by taking steps to stop this product’s distribution based on the evidence and information investigators collected and confirmed.”

In response to questions on why it didn’t pursue prosecution in parallel to its try to implement a cease-and-desist, division officers advised ProPublica that native regulation enforcement usually doesn’t pursue felony costs except a cease-and-desist order has been violated.

Earlier this 12 months, Baker moved out of California and reopened her farm in Arizona. But earlier than she left city, I visited Moonlight Ridge.

Heading down the identical highway the inspectors did months earlier than, I stumbled on the identical gate. This time, it was open, so I drove by it, previous the sprawling property of horse corrals and stables. I parked close to a grove of peeling eucalyptus timber the place I noticed a small pen with a giant herd of goats protected by a barking farm canine. About 30 yards away was an getting old trailer. I climbed the dusty stairs and knocked.

Baker opened the door, in leggings and a tank prime, her hair held again with sun shades. After I defined why I used to be there — regulators had related her farm with a current outbreak — she advised me that the case had been dismissed and urged me to name the state’s Food and Agriculture Department. “Everything was negative,” she stated. “There were no pathogens.” She added that the outcomes from her personal non-public lab check had additionally come again clear.

Baker touted the decision of the case as a whole vindication, and the damaging check outcomes — from samples she had gathered unsupervised, weeks after the infections began — as proof that her milk had not brought on the outbreak. 

If her animals had carried E. coli, she stated, she and her husband would have been contaminated sooner or later. “Quite frankly, we don’t care if we’ve cleaned the pen and then go grab a sandwich,” she advised me. “We’ll eat with our hands filthy.”

She stated she examined her herd for some goat illnesses, however stated she by no means claimed to have examined the milk for foodborne pathogens. 

She additionally burdened that households had knowingly purchased milk that was not for human consumption. “Everything is sold as pet milk,” she stated. “What they choose to do with it is not my business.” She added that Marris made a poor determination and was “trying to find someone to take the blame for it.” 

She steered she didn’t know the Galindo household nicely, or that they had been consuming the milk. It was simply a coincidence, she maintained, that the 2 households, who hadn’t met one another, each had youngsters who fell in poor health with the identical uncommon pressure of E. coli — one strongly related to raw-milk consumption — after consuming her product. 

Regardless, she stated, she stopped promoting it after Marris’ daughter fell in poor health. 

“I was nice to Emily,” Baker advised me in a sharp tone, describing how she gave the household particular privileges by permitting them to go to her farm. “She has completely ruined it.”

Several of her assertions didn’t line up with what the households had shared with me, or what I had learn of their textual content messages and the state’s inside information. When I adopted up this summer season and requested her about what I had realized, she refused to reply to my questions.

Through Facebook Messenger, Baker said she “vehemently” disagreed with ProPublica’s “distortion and mischaracterization of the facts,” however didn’t level out any particular errors.

When Brooklyn got here house from the hospital, she barely resembled the energetic toddler who had began to cruise and communicate easy phrases earlier than falling in poor health. The illness had considerably interrupted her growth. “It just all sort of stopped and stalled,” Marris stated. 

Brooklyn started bodily remedy instantly, however she walked with a slight limp and couldn’t sleep by the evening with out terrors. Doctors additionally warned that she would possible face long-term kidney points. She would want to be seen each six months by a nephrologist and wouldn’t ever find a way to drink alcohol.

Victoria, too, would require ongoing medical monitoring. 

Not lengthy after each women had been discharged, a mutual acquaintance related their two households, who gathered in Marris’ yard. Sitting over a unfold of cheese, crackers and blueberry jam, they in contrast the textual content messages that Baker had despatched them. 

It turned evident, recalled Marris, that Baker had recognized that each youngsters had grow to be sick after consuming her uncooked milk, however had not knowledgeable the hospital or advised the households that they weren’t alone. Together, they determined to file a lawsuit towards Baker and her farm in Riverside County Superior Court, alleging they’d negligently bought the households contaminated uncooked milk that was introduced as “fit for human consumption.” The case is ongoing. Baker advised ProPublica that the farm will “fully defend against the allegations by Plaintiffs.”

Marris stated she felt she wanted to maintain Baker accountable for what she’d executed, on condition that regulators had squandered their probability to achieve this. But she additionally carries her personal heavy burden of guilt. 

“I’m going to hate myself to the day I die for having allowed that to happen,” she stated. Now extra petrified of harming her youngsters, she agonizes over whether or not meat is undercooked or pasteurized milk has been sitting out on the counter too lengthy. 

Hoping to spare different households the identical ache, Marris posted one other warning when she noticed another person promoting uncooked milk in her chiropractor’s Facebook group that summer season. 

“Just PLEASE PLEASE educate yourself and make choices about raw milk carefully. My 17 month old baby and one other little girl almost died last month from raw goats milk,” she started. “I’m posting this so you know what can truly happen if the milk has bacteria….know the risks, and make your own personal choices.”

When she later logged again in to see whether or not individuals had responded, she noticed a notification on the prime of the feed: “Your profile is suspended from this group.”

She texted the workplace of her chiropractor, Boman, one of many group’s three directors. “I’m now banned from the group Chris runs, despite knowing what has happened,” she wrote. “I’m pretty disappointed.”

Boman texted again together with his condolences however stated he wasn’t a mediator. “You shared your story, we appreciate it, and people can read it and decide for themselves if they want to assume the risks or not,” he stated. “Are you wanting anything else from the group?”

I visited Boman this January at his workplace in a Murrieta strip mall the place he makes a speciality of pediatric and prenatal chiropractics. I discovered him leaning on the entrance desk of his ready room, carrying a sweatshirt that stated “PRAY” throughout the chest. His neatly clipped facial hair framed a welcoming smile. He agreed to communicate exterior.

After Marris was suspended from the group, Boman stated, he hoped it might settle down the dialog. She was “just drumming up a bunch of fear,” he stated. “She’s coming out of this traumatic experience. … People need to see all perspectives.”

Boman stated he had spoken with Baker to perceive hers. “I don’t want someone in the group that’s doing shady things,” he advised me. “People have been kicked out for selling bad cows.” But Baker assuaged his issues. “From everything I understand, her standards are super high,” he stated, citing her damaging pathogen outcomes. “Her milk came back squeaky clean.”

Boman stated he related Baker with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit that assists raw-dairy sellers, which Baker stated final January was representing her. Boman stated the referral wasn’t, “You did something wrong, make sure you lawyer up,” including that he has a membership that enables him to entry the fund’s providers. “If something arises, it’s nice to have someone in that corner.” The group stated it’s not representing Baker within the lawsuit.

Boman nonetheless believed in uncooked milk, he advised me. He’d solely stopped promoting it in his workplace as a result of he had dried up his cow. He stated he was supportive of what Marris had been by, however “I don’t want a product to get blamed if it wasn’t that.” Boman didn’t reply to follow-up questions despatched by e mail.

For Marris, his response was a betrayal. But the expertise didn’t maintain her away from Facebook teams the place individuals proceed to unfold misinformation about uncooked milk and promote it on the market. At evening, after tucking her youngsters into mattress, Marris scrolls by them, monitoring the posts. 

From time to time, she steps again into the feedback and shares her story, hoping to forestall different moms from making the worst mistake of their lives. Sometimes, she is attacked and accused of mendacity by raw-milk absolutists. And typically, the teams delete her posts.