Udder Milk Lawsuit and the Legal Fight Over Raw Milk Sales

The Udder Milk lawsuit grew out of a 2017 public health emergency: a New Jersey woman who drank the company’s unpasteurized products was infected with a rare, antibiotic-resistant strain of brucellosis, and within weeks three states had ordered the unlicensed delivery service to stop selling raw milk. The CDC told every customer from the previous six months to seek immediate antibiotic treatment. New York fined the company $3,000 and then went to court to force it to name its farmers and its members. The company refused, and the fight over those names became the core legal dispute.

What Udder Milk Was

Udder Milk sold unpasteurized dairy products through an online ordering system and delivered them to drop-off points in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. It claimed to have been operating since 2005 and offered milk from cows, goats, sheep, and camels, at prices from $10 per gallon for cow’s milk to $13 per pint for camel milk.¹

The company described itself as a co-op and a “private membership association.” It had no identifiable physical business address, and no entity called “Udder Milk” was registered with the secretaries of state in either New Jersey or New York.¹ Its general manager, identified only as “Moaz M.,” declined to name the farms supplying the milk.²

The Illness That Started It

In late September 2017, a woman in northern New Jersey fell ill after drinking Udder Milk products. Testing confirmed she was infected with Brucella abortus RB51, a rare, antibiotic-resistant strain of the bacterium that causes brucellosis.³ RB51 is a live, weakened strain used to vaccinate cattle against brucellosis; vaccinated cows can, in rare cases, shed it in their milk. Before this case, it had been documented only once in a domestically acquired human infection linked to raw milk, in Texas in July 2017.⁴

The strain resists some of the front-line antibiotics normally used against brucellosis, and it does not show up on standard blood tests, so doctors have to know to look for it.⁵ Untreated brucellosis can become chronic, causing arthritis, heart problems, enlargement of the spleen or liver, and neurological complications including meningitis. In pregnant women it can cause miscarriage.⁶

Cease-and-Desist Orders in Three States

The confirmed infection set off a rapid enforcement response:

New Jersey’s Department of Health issued a cease-and-desist order on November 9, 2017, directing the company to stop all sales of unpasteurized milk. State Epidemiologist Dr. Tina Tan said selling or distributing raw milk for human consumption is illegal in New Jersey.¹
Rhode Island issued its own cease-and-desist order on November 15, 2017.⁷
New York followed on November 17, 2017. The state’s Department of Health, Department of Agriculture and Markets, and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene jointly warned consumers not to buy raw milk from the company and named illegal drop-off locations in New York City and on Long Island.⁶

Investigators reported that as of late November 2017, attempts to reach the operators had been unsuccessful and the business appeared to be continuing to operate.⁷

The CDC’s Blanket Advisory

On November 21, 2017, the CDC took the unusual step of telling every person who had consumed Udder Milk products in the previous six months to seek immediate medical care and begin antibiotic treatment, even if they felt healthy. The advisory covered residents of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.⁸

Patients were instructed to tell their doctors specifically about possible RB51 exposure, since standard brucellosis treatment would not work. They were told to check for fever daily for 30 days after last exposure and to watch for symptoms including muscle pain, fatigue, and joint swelling for six months. Pregnant women who may have drunk the milk were told to seek care immediately because of the miscarriage risk.³

Dr. William Bower, who led the CDC’s brucellosis investigation, said the broad advisory was necessary because the company had not cooperated with investigators, leaving officials with no way to identify or directly notify potentially exposed customers.⁸ The company’s use of member-only websites and shifting delivery locations further frustrated efforts to trace its customers.³

The New York Fine and the Court Fight Over Member Names

Beyond the cease-and-desist orders, the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets fined Udder Milk $3,000 for illegal distribution of raw milk. The company paid. New York then demanded the names of every farmer who supplied Udder Milk and the names and contact information of every food club member. The company refused. As of mid-2018, the state was pursuing that demand in court.⁹

Udder Milk launched a GoFundMe campaign in 2018 to cover legal fees, raising $8,421 of an $11,000 goal. An attorney for the company said he was considering a countersuit against the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets and wanted to depose the woman who had become ill. He publicly questioned the state’s position, asking, “We have a right to bear arms, but we don’t have a right to feed ourselves?”⁹

Supporters said the company’s owners, Muslim immigrants, feared that publicly challenging regulators could jeopardize their immigration status or citizenship, and they largely declined public comment. Advocates argued the enforcement response was disproportionate given that political context.⁹

Where the Milk Actually Came From

A later CDC investigation traced the RB51 strain to a Pennsylvania dairy identified in published research only as “dairy A.” Testing by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture in December 2018 found that a single cow at that dairy, designated cow 122, was shedding two distinct RB51 strains from different quarters of its udder. One matched the 2017 New Jersey case linked to Udder Milk; the other matched a separate 2018 case in New York. Between 2016 and 2018, the dairy had distributed raw milk to 19 states through a cooperative arrangement. The infected cow was pulled from milk production, and later testing of the dairy’s bulk milk came back negative for RB51.⁴

Pennsylvania public health officials later suggested that the brucella vaccine given to cattle, rather than the raw milk itself, was the original source of the strain that infected the New Jersey woman.⁹ That is consistent with the CDC’s finding: RB51 is itself a vaccine strain that vaccinated cows can shed.

Why Udder Milk’s Sales Were Illegal

Udder Milk’s operation ran afoul of state and federal law. In New Jersey, selling or distributing raw milk for human consumption is flatly illegal; only the sale of raw “pet milk” is permitted, and that requires registration with the state Department of Agriculture.¹⁰ New York does allow raw milk sales, but only directly on the farm by a producer who holds a specific permit and submits to quarterly pathogen testing.¹¹ The company’s delivery model, with drop-off points in New York City and on Long Island, met neither requirement.

At the federal level, the FDA has banned the interstate sale of raw milk since 1987.¹² Because Udder Milk sourced from Pennsylvania and delivered across state lines into New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, the operation also likely violated federal law.

1
Food Safety News. New Jersey Orders Udder Milk to Stop Illegally Selling Raw Milk
2
Shorthand. American Milk: The Raw Deal
3
CIDRAP. CDC Issues Raw Milk Brucella Warning in 4 States
4
CDC. Brucella Abortus Strain RB51 Infections Associated With Raw Milk
5
Pennsylvania Department of Health. Health Advisory: Brucella Abortus RB51
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New York State Department of Health. Advisory Not to Buy Raw Milk
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Food Safety News. CDC Says All Udder Milk Customers Need Medical Treatment
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CDC. Contaminated Raw Milk
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The Complete Patient. The Udder Milk Fiasco
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Real Milk. Real Milk Legal Map
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New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. Raw Milk
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FDA. Food Safety and Raw Milk