Raw Milk Tycoon Earning $30M a Year Admits He Has Put Children in Hospital While Calling Himself a 'Pioneer'

Mark McAfee has turned raw milk into a multimillion-pound business by promising customers it can heal them, even as he admits the product has hospitalised children.

The founder of California's Raw Farm earns around £22M ($30M) a year from unpasteurised milk and cheese, supplying a wellness market that now reaches more than 10 million Americans.

Federal and state regulators have linked his dairy to at least 233 illnesses across eight outbreaks since 2006, with at least 40 people taken to the hospital. An in-depth investigation published by ProPublica on 9 June 2026, and later carried by CNN, set out how he has dodged serious sanctions for nearly twenty years.

A Pioneer Who Concedes the Harm

Speaking to the ProPublica reporter before she toured his farm near Fresno, McAfee made a striking admission about the children who drink his milk. 'I've put a couple kids in the hospital, and they have been sick, but they recovered,' he said. 'But here's the thing: I'm a pioneer. And I'm going against the grain here. I'm climbing a mountain they say you can't climb.'

He frames the danger as small and far outweighed by what he calls raw milk's healing properties, a claim mainstream science does not support. The US Food and Drug Administration warns that unpasteurised milk cannot treat or cure disease and carries a far higher risk of foodborne illness. McAfee disputes that framing and argues the government has simply refused to fund the research that would vindicate him.

His farm screens each batch for salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter and listeria, then diverts anything that fails. He has conceded, however, that flagged milk was at times routed into cheese, which research shows can still harbour harmful bacteria even after the usual 60-day ageing period.

Two Decades of Outbreaks and Court Battles

The pattern began in 2006, when a 7-year-old boy drank McAfee's milk and developed an E. coli infection so severe that doctors placed him in a medically induced coma. His mother reported the illness, the state issued a recall and quarantine order, and she later sued; the dairy settled. Now an adult, he lives with permanent kidney damage.

The legal trouble deepened over the following years. After McAfee shipped raw milk across state lines using a pet food labelling loophole, the Department of Justice secured a permanent injunction in 2010 ordering the farm to stop. Regulators kept finding violations, and in 2023 the two sides agreed a consent decree requiring independent audits. Between 2023 and 2024, regulators tied the farm to one of the largest known raw-dairy outbreaks in decades, with more than 170 people falling ill from Salmonella, a connection McAfee rejects.

In early 2024, FDA inspectors documented that the farm had a 'standard practice' of turning milk suspected of carrying pathogens into cheese, and the agency told him to stop. That February, regulators linked Raw Farm cheddar to an E. coli outbreak across five states. Paul Panelli, who bought the cheese in Newport Beach, and his wife Julie both fell ill, and her infection required several kidney surgeries. The family's lawsuit against Raw Farm remains active, with the dairy denying responsibility in court filings.

Beyond the outbreaks, the dairy has issued recalls more than half a dozen times after pathogens surfaced in its products, and regulators say the true illness count is almost certainly higher because many people recover at home without ever being tested. His cheese has nonetheless reached hundreds of shops, from independent health-food stores to chains such as Sprouts Farmers Market.

A Political Shield Under Robert F Kennedy Jr

McAfee's fortunes shifted when Robert F Kennedy Jr became the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, a raw milk customer, had campaigned against what he called the government's suppression of the product and, in office, said he was advocating for it. In January 2026, federal prosecutors quietly withdrew their effort to enforce the court order against the farm, offering no public explanation.

The reprieve did not end the illnesses. On 15 Mar 2026, the FDA linked Raw Farm cheddar to a fresh E. coli outbreak, reporting seven confirmed cases across three states with a median patient age of three years and two hospitalisations; ProPublica later reported the toll rose to nine cases and three hospitalisations. The agency asked the company to pull the cheese, and it refused, issuing a recall 18 days later that it briefly labelled as performed 'under protest'. Three federal health employees later told ProPublica that political appointees had softened the original consumer warnings about the cheese.

Pressed at a Congressional hearing on 16 Apr 2026 over whether he should tell Americans to avoid raw milk, Kennedy declined. 'Every product can contain contaminants,' he said. 'What we do is inform the public, and we let people make the choice.'

A month before that exchange, Representatives Thomas Massie and Chellie Pingree had introduced the Interstate Milk Freedom Act, which would bar federal interference with raw milk sold between states where it is already legal.

McAfee, for his part, says his sales have never been higher.