E. coli sickens two children who drank raw milk from Whatcom County dairy

Two children have been sickened in another episode of E. coli infection, this time from drinking raw milk from a Whatcom County dairy.

A 5-year-old boy from Issaquah was still hospitalized with the illness Thursday, while an 8-year-old girl from Snohomish County was recovering at home, said state health officials and a spokeswoman for a store that sold the milk.

The unpasteurized milk came from Grace Harbor Farms, a small dairy in Custer, north of Bellingham. It is sold by PCC Natural Markets and Whole Food Markets.

All of the milk had been pulled from store shelves Thursday, but officials warned consumers to discard any Grace Harbor Farms milk that they still have. DNA analysis showed that E. coli from both of the sickened children were the same strain, said Kathryn Smith, an epidemiologist for the state Department of Health.

The infections comes on the heels of a nationwide outbreak from fresh spinach contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. About 180 people in the country were sickened, including at lease three in Washington state.

All county health departments in Washington have been notified of the Grace Harbor milk contamination. Diana Crane, a spokeswoman for PCC, said warning signs have been posted in all of the company's eight stores. A representative of Whole Foods, based in Austin, Texas, could not immediately provide information about the stores' actions beyond pulling the milk.

Grace Lukens, co-owner of Grace Harbor Farms, said the milk that sickened the two children was bottled Sept. 12 and had a pull date of Sept. 26. She said the dairy normally produces about 100 gallons of raw cow milk and 100 gallons of raw goat milk, plus some pasteurized milk, each week. The Community Food Co-op in Bellingham also sold the raw milk, she said.

Lukens said state agriculture inspectors took swabs from the dairy's milking facility Tuesday, trying to pinpoint the contamination source. The bacteria E. coli O157:H7 live in the intestines of cows and can be present in the animals' feces.

At least 18 people were sickened last December by raw milk from Dee Creek Farm, near Vancouver, Wash., including three children who were treated in intensive-care units. A state health official said that outbreak stemmed from poor sanitation at Dee Creek Farm.

Unpasteurized milk is legal to sell in Washington, though it is outlawed for sale in many other states.

In the meantime, many grocery stores in Washington have begun restocking fresh spinach, after federal health officials said last week that the vegetable is safe to eat if it was grown outside three California counties — Monterey, San Benito and Santa Clara — that were the epicenter for the E. coli outbreak.

"The public can be confident that spinach grown in the nonimplicated areas can be consumed," the agency said.

Representatives of QFC, Safeway, Fred Meyer, Haggen, TOP Food and PCC all said Thursday that their stores are carrying fresh spinach or will begin selling it in the next few days. All said their spinach is from growers in Washington or Oregon.

Warren King: 206-464-2247 or wking@seattletimes.com