Karla Winnekins worries about the lingering effects of Campylobacter on her daughter, Durand High senior Brianna Winnekins. Credit: Craig Lassig

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Brianna Winnekins plans to join the U.S. Air Force next spring if her health is restored after she and nearly 40 other Durand High School students and staff were sickened from a raw-milk illness outbreak earlier this fall.

Brianna, a high school senior and manager of the football team, was hospitalized for four days when she became ill after a Sept. 18 potluck dinner for the team where unpasteurized milk was served.

Altogether, 38 people associated with the team, including many football players, were sickened from the outbreak, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Twenty-six of the illnesses were laboratory confirmed to stem from Campylobacter jejuni, a harmful bacteria sometimes found in unpasteurized milk or undercooked meat and poultry.

"The cause of the outbreak was determined through an epidemiologic study, and confirmed by laboratory testing, to be raw milk served at a potluck dinner," the Department of Health Services said in a statement.

State officials said it was one of the largest raw-milk illness outbreaks they've seen, but they have refused to release the name of the farm that supplied the milk or who brought it to the potluck dinner, saying it was an isolated incident and there was no further threat to the public.

Campylobacter causes gastrointestinal problems including bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping, vomiting and fever. Symptoms usually last about a week and range from mild to severe.

Complications can include meningitis, urinary tract infections, reactive arthritis (rare and almost always short-term) and, rarely, Guillain-Barré syndrome, an unusual type of paralysis, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Campylobacter infections can be fatal, resulting in an estimated 124 deaths a year, the USDA says.

Brianna, who wants to be a physical training leader in the Air Force, says she's experienced pain in her hips and knees, leg weakness, and numbness since being hospitalized. At one point, her temperature shot up to nearly 104 degrees.

Doctors haven't said that Brianna's pain and numbness, which began the second day of her hospitalization, stem from her Campylobacter infection. But her mother, Karla Winnekins, says Brianna never experienced any such problems before the infection.

Now, she worries about her daughter's future if the Air Force won't accept her because of what's happened since the raw milk illness.

"Enlisting in the Air Force has been her dream for the last two or three years. This could affect it," Winnekins said.

About nine others were hospitalized from the outbreak, according to parents. Some of those sickened had high fevers and bloody diarrhea, the state Health Department said.

Tristan Casey, who just turned 16 and is a member of the football team, is still feeling the effects. A high school wrestler, he lost 11 pounds and had Shiga toxin-producing E. coli bacteria that can also be found in raw milk. E. coli infections can lead to kidney damage and other serious health issues, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

"It was a parent's worst nightmare to see their child like this. He looked like he had been beat up, knocked down, so pale. He looked terrible, and so did the other kids," said his mother, Cindy Casey.

"I want answers, and I am not quitting until I get answers," she said.

The potluck dinner is a tradition before Durand High School football games, and this one was no different except that raw milk was served, according to the parents.

Chocolate syrup was added to the milk. The rest of the menu included chicken Alfredo, desserts, Kool-Aid and water. Served by some parents of the players, the dinner lasted for about an hour at a church near the school.

With the exception of limited, incidental sales, state law prohibits the sale of unpasteurized milk to the public because it may carry bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses.

Wisconsin has been at the center of a national debate over raw milk, with advocates saying the law should be changed to give people access to fresh, unprocessed milk direct from the farm, while opponents say there are no health benefits from the unpasteurized product that can't be obtained in a safe way from consuming pasteurized dairy items such as yogurt.

With pasteurization, milk is heated to a high temperature to kill pathogens.

At least some of the adults and students at the Durand dinner, including Brianna, didn't know that unpasteurized milk was served.

"I was furious when I heard that raw milk was brought in," Casey said.

Brianna said she drank two glasses of milk at the dinner. She and the other students and faculty began to feel ill over the weekend. Monday morning, students were calling the school to say they were too sick to attend classes.

Brianna was admitted to Chippewa Valley Hospital in Durand that Monday, Sept. 22. She was badly dehydrated and had a fever that kept getting worse, Karla Winnekins said.

"To say it was a scare ... that's an understatement," she said.

"I have talked with quite a few parents, and there are still kids having diarrhea symptoms and not gaining weight back," she added.

The outbreak was bad enough that the high school canceled a Sept. 27 football game against Amery High School because too many players were sick, the Eau Claire Leader Telegram reported.

Some of the players lost so much weight, "they looked like skeletons," Brianna said.

The potluck dinner wasn't a school sanctioned event. The coaches didn't know what the menu was until they showed up, and they didn't know raw milk was served, according to Durand Schools Superintendent Greg Doverspike.

Going forward, "I think we are going to strongly suggest that parents no longer host potluck-style team meals," Doverspike said. "And as a school district we are going to have discussions with our coaches about not attending these."

Department of Health Services officials say they've concluded their investigation, but said they will not release the name of the farm that supplied the raw milk until a report is issued in December.

"I believe we will have the information in that report," said agency spokeswoman Stephanie Smiley.

Across the country, there's been a disturbing trend of health agencies not releasing the names of businesses tied to food-borne illness outbreaks, said Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in the cases but does not yet have a role in this illness outbreak.

"Whether they intend it or not, it looks like the agencies are being protective of a business, vs. letting the public know that things are transparent," Marler said.

State Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection officials have assisted in the investigation, taking milk samples from the farm's bulk milk tank six days after the event, and manure samples used to identify the bacteria strain.

Through a process known as genetic fingerprinting, state Laboratory of Hygiene tests showed that the bacteria that caused the diarrheal illnesses, stemming from the potluck dinner, was the same bacteria strain found on the farm.

"As part of the investigation, DHS interviewed all of the football team members (ill and well) and coaching staff to assess illnesses and ask questions about things they may have been exposed to in the days before becoming ill. In a comparison of the interview responses from ill and well team members, consumption of raw milk was the only food item associated with illness," the agency said.

Some of the families affected by the outbreak have already faced thousands of dollars in medical bills. School officials say the district isn't responsible for the bills because the potluck dinner wasn't held on school property and the food didn't come from the school.

Casey said she's hopeful the unnamed farm's insurance will cover the medical bills because the farm shouldn't have supplied the unpasteurized milk for the dinner, especially without telling the students, coaches and parents.

"You know the consequences that can happen when you do something like this," Casey said.