Lamakers fall ill after drinking raw milk

There is no proof yet that it was the raw milk, but a number of lawmakers fell ill after drinking raw milk at the South Carolina state legislature this week.

The state’s Bureau of Public Health has launched an investigation.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that during announcements in the House chamber Thursday, Republican delegate Scott Cadle from Mason invited lawmakers — and anyone else who wanted to “live dangerously” — to sample raw milk that he had brought from a Mason County dairy.

A handful of lawmakers who drank the raw milk later got sick, though there’s been no evidence that Cadle’s milk was the cause.

“There’s nobody up there that got sick off that milk,” said Cadle, who was home sick with a stomach bug Monday but returned to work at the state Capitol on Tuesday. “It’s just bad timing, I guess.”

Cadle, who is running for Mason County Commission instead of re-election to the House, would not say where he got the raw milk — only that it came from a neighbor’s dairy.

“I got a place to get it, and I’m not going to tell where I got it,” Cadle said. “It was free.”