America 's food police are patrolling and arresting suspicious French dairy products , which are either delicious cheese or a bacteria-laden menace . You decide . The Los Angeles Times reports that Food and Drug Administration rules could effectively ban age-old recipes for cheeses like Roquefort , St. Nectaire , Morbier and Tomme de Savoie . According to Washington 's Righteous Cheese shop manager , Peter McNamara , imported soft cheeses of all kinds are especially hard to come by . `` There 's a lot of confusion ( over the rules ) ... getting hold of any soft cheese is really a pain , '' McNamara said . The FDA says it is not aware of a cheese shortage . The food safety agency 's concern is with the cheeses ' two main ingredients : raw milk and bacteria . Too bad for foodies , the FDA does n't care that bacteria makes cheese . Since bacteria like E. coli and listeria kill people , all bacteria must be bad , right ? Well , the problem is our bodies are teeming with bacteria , even the dreaded E. coli , according to the World Health Organization . Although we have plenty of non-toxigenic E. coli in our intestines , the toxic kind kills . The FDA is testing for all kinds and giving out failing grades to cheeses that had too much of the non-toxigenic E. coli as well . While non-toxigenic E. coli wo n't kill consumers , if a food production facility has it on the food , the FDA , after a long review process , determines it must be filthy . According to FDA spokeswoman Lauren Sucher , `` The current level is in line with standards around the world , and FDA expects that properly manufactured milk products , whether made from raw milk or pasteurized milk , should not be affected . '' Presumably France does not agree . In this case , the FDA made a new rule in 2010 to reduce the amount of allowable E. coli by 90 % . But field officers had n't been enforcing it until recently , according to the American Cheese Society 's executive director , Nora Weiser . The fact that the French producers of Roquefort can trace their production lineage back a millennium does n't seem to matter to the FDA . Earlier this year , the FDA similarly proposed banning wood-board aged cheeses because of bacteria . It later backed off . French cheese makers are n't the only ones on the front lines of the FDA 's war on raw milk . The FDA also has launched raids of Amish farms to wipe out the scourge of raw milk .
FDA rules target bacteria in French cheese . The bad kind of E. coli bacteria is the culprit . There is confusion over the rules , says a cheese shop manager .