Unpasteurised milk has been ruled as the probable death of a healthy three-year-old boy from Victoria.
The Coroner’s Court heard that the toddler’s father had been feeding his son small amounts of Mountain View Organic Bath Milk on a few occasions before his tragic death in October 2014, reports the Herald Sun.
A Department of Health investigation into the milk, plus a forensic pathologist’s report and an illness outbreak among four more children who drank the same milk, has all lead to the consumption as being the likely cause of the boy’s death.
This then led to the Victorian government introducing laws that make unpasteurised milk undrinkable.
The little boy had no medical issues until September 30, 2014, when he began suffering gastro symptoms. He was then admitted to Frankston Hospital four days later and was transferred to Monash Medical Centre on October 6.
His large bowel was infected and he sadly died soon after.
Mountain View Organic Dairy Bath Milk
Coroner’s solicitor Rebecca Cohen told the court that he was found to have traces in his bowel that lead to Hemolytic Uraemic Syndrome (HUS), a rare and dangerous infection that can be present in raw milk, stemming from ecoli bacteria.
After the boy’s death, the Department of Health tested samples on 39 bottles of Mountain View Dairy milk and discovered a shiga toxin which produces ecoli.
HUS infections are extremely rare, but at the time of the toddler’s death, the Department was investigating two non-fatal cases. The one link between these three cases is that they all consumed the same unpasteurised milk.
Ms Cohen said that the boy’s father knew the milk should not be drunk, but proceeded to feed it to his son anyway.
“(The father) understood the milk was labelled not to be drunk, but he noted it looked like every other milk container,” she said in court.
“Due to his intolerance to dairy, (the child) would only drink very small amounts of the unpasteurised milk, and only on odd occasions. “(The father) said it only amounted one-eighth of a sippy cup, and only twice per month at a maximum.”
