On a summer day in California, 17-month-old Brooklyn Marris vomited all over the backseat of the family car.
Over the next two days, she continued to vomit “yellow bile” then “blue-green.” Doctors sent her to the ER, which quickly determined she needed serious help at a children’s hospital 70 miles away.
Brooklyn was put on a ventilator for breathing and dialysis to take over for her failing kidneys. She went into cardiac arrest three times. Her parents didn’t know if she’d survive, ProPublica reports.
Doctors confirmed that Brooklyn was sickened with a dangerous strain of E. coli, a bacteria her parents believe it came from a drink they’d given her for about six months to help with constipation.
Doctors were able to save her life. Now Brooklyn’s mom hopes her family’s ordeal can spare others from making the same near-fatal mistake: Giving her daughter raw milk.
“I’m going to hate myself to the day I die for having allowed that to happen,” she said.
Brooklyn’s story
Emily Marris desperately wanted a third child at 48, and Brooklyn was that “miracle baby,” she told ProPublica.
Brooklyn was born 7 weeks premature and had a low birth weight and underdeveloped lungs. She spent the first month in the NICU.
This contributed to a huge effort from Emily to “detoxify” the family’s home, from getting rid of synthetic materials to eliminating ultra-processed food.
But when Emily started a new medication for chronic pain that could pass through breastmilk, she needed to find an alternative to breastfeeding. Organic infant formula had too many additives, she found, and store-bought cows milk left Brooklyn constipated.
She turned to a Facebook group, where moms gushed about the benefits of raw — meaning unpasteurized — goat’s milk. One mom recommended a farm only 10 miles away.
Emily picked up a jug that day, noting it was still warm to the touch. Brooklyn took well to it, and her bowel movements became more regular. So it continued for six months, until the vomiting started.
At the hospital, Brooklyn developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious condition where blood vessels become damaged and cause clots, hurting organs like the kidney. It’s most commonly caused by E. coli bacteria.
Brooklyn received dialysis for a number of days, and recovered. But the progress she’d shown before she’d gotten sick had halted.
Brooklyn walked with a slight limp and couldn’t sleep through the night. Doctors warned she’d likely face long-term kidney issues and wouldn’t be able to ever drink alcohol.
The real danger of raw milk
Even though at the time she thought she was making an educated decision, Emily knows better now and is racked with guilt. “I’m the one that gave it to her,” she told ProPublica. “Just how stupid could I be?”
Raw, unpasteurized milk is growing in popularity. In a 2023 study, 4.4% of Americans reported drinking it in the past year, while 1% said they drink it weekly.
But any “claims related to improved nutrition, prevention of lactose intolerance, or provision of ‘good’ bacteria from the consumption of raw milk have no scientific basis and are myths,” researchers say.
There’s a reason pasteurization — heating milk to destroy harmful pathogens — was invented over a century ago.
“Prior to pasteurization, there was significant illness from consumption of raw milk,” Dr. Uzma Syed, a board-certified infectious disease specialist and Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, previously told The Post. “We have been fortunate to have a significant decline in these infections and illnesses in the general population due to safer milk production and consumption.”
Some studies show up to a third of raw milk has pathogens, even if it’s from a healthy animal or the milk appears to be of good quality. That can happen due to contamination, since bacteria lingers everywhere from the cow’s udders to the farmer’s hands.
And that contamination can be lots of things — including cow feces.
In fact, people are 100 times more likely to get a foodborne illness from drinking raw milk compared to pasteurized milk.
In addition to E. coli, anything from campylobacter to salmonella, listeria, and bird flu can be found in unpasteurized milk. These are especially dangerous to kids, older adults, pregnant women, and anyone with a weakened immune system.
In California, only licensed farms can sell raw milk, though unlicensed farms like the one Emily bought from can also sell it, as long as it’s labeled as pet food. After a state investigation was opened, the farm owner told them the milk was for pets only and claimed that it was advertised as such.
Days after Brooklyn got sick, a six-year-old who’d drank milk from the same farm also got deathly ill. Emily joined this second family to sue the farm owner and the business, alleging hey had negligently sold the families contaminated raw milk that was presented as “fit for human consumption.”
The case is ongoing. Baker told ProPublica that the farm will “fully defend against the allegations by Plaintiffs.”
