Back in February, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) published a study targeting raw milk as dangerous and unsafe for human consumption. The media jumped on it in typical fashion. You may have seen headlines like this:
“Raw Milk Causes Most Illnesses From Dairy, Study Finds.”
- USA Today“CDC: Raw Milk Much More Likely to Cause Illness.”
- Food Safety News“Raw Milk is a Raw Deal, CDC Says.”
- LiveScience
While two of these headlines are technically accurate – raw milk is responsible for more illnesses than pasteurized milk when the number of people who consume each is taken into account – the concern they convey about the risk of drinking unpasteurized milk is dramatically overstated.
I’m going to break this series into three parts. In this first article, we’re going to examine what the research really says about raw milk safety, and compare the risks associated with drinking unpasteurized milk with other foods and activities. In the second article, we’ll explore the benefits of drinking raw milk from several different perspectives: nutritional, health-related, social, environmental and ethical. Finally, in the third article I’ll make recommendations and provide guidance on finding a safe and responsible raw dairy producer in your area.
This series is called “Raw Milk Reality” because, as is the case with other hot button issues like vaccination and homebirth, propaganda and hype have overshadowed facts and common sense. If you only saw the headlines from the CDC and FDA reports, you’d be left with the impression that raw milk is a dangerous food and anyone that consumes it or gives it to their children is reckless and irresponsible. The purpose of this series is to present the other side of the argument, and give you the bare facts without bias or hyperbole so you can make an informed decision about whether unpasteurized milk is a good choice for you and your family.
I’m not here to convince anyone that they should drink raw milk. That’s a decision each individual has to make on their own by weighing the potential risks against the potential benefits. But to do that, you need an accurate understanding of the risks (which we’ll cover in this article) and the benefits (which we’ll cover in the next.)
Just how “dangerous” is raw milk? A little perspective…
Before we do that, however, let’s put the current discussion of unpasteurized milk safety into a wider context. Foodborne illness is a concern for many types of food. According to the most recent review of foodborne disease outbreaks in the U.S. in 2008 by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), seafood, produce and poultry were associated with the most outbreaks. Produce is responsible for the greatest number of illnesses each year (2,062), with nearly twice as many illnesses as poultry (1,112). Dairy products are at the bottom of the list. They cause the fewest outbreaks and illnesses of all the major food categories – beef, eggs, poultry, produce and seafood.
According to the CDC, during the period from 1990 − 2006, there were 24,000 foodborne illnesses reported each year on average. Of those, 315 per year are from dairy products. This means dairy products account for about 1.3% of foodborne illnesses each year. That’s not exactly an alarming number, considering that more than 75% of the population consumes dairy products regularly.
It’s also important to note that the outbreaks and illnesses associated with dairy products are generally mild compared to other foods. According to the CSPI report above, approximately 5,000 people are killed every year by foodborne illness. From 2009 − 2011, three high profile outbreaks involving peanuts, eggs and cantaloupe alone accounted for 2,729 illnesses and 39 deaths. (1) Yet there have only been a handful of deaths from pasteurized dairy products in the last decade, and there hasn’t been a single death attributed to raw fluid milk since the mid-1980s, in spite of the fact that almost 10 million people are now consuming it regularly.
The takeaway is that thousands of people are killed each year by foodborne illness, but they’re dying from eating fruits, nuts, eggs, meat, poultry, fish and shellfish – not from drinking unpasteurized milk.
Why the CDC report can’t be taken at face value
The CDC report claimed that unpasteurized milk is 150 times more likely to cause foodborne illness than pasteurized milk, and such outbreaks had a hospitalization rate 13 times higher than those involving pasteurized dairy products.
According to senior author of the CDC study, Barbara Mahon:
When you consider that no more than 1% of the milk consumed in the United States is raw, it’s pretty startling to see that more of the outbreaks were caused by raw milk than pasteurized.
But can these claims be taken at face value? No.
There are several problems with the CDC report:
- First and foremost, the CDC doesn’t include the dataset they used, so we can’t analyze how they reached their conclusions. Fortunately, the CDC data for foodborne illness, as well as data from other institutions and peer-reviewed studies, are readily available online.
- There are about 24,000 foodborne illnesses reported each year. Yet by the CDC’s own admission, this represents only a tiny fraction of the true number of foodborne illnesses that occur. In 1999, CDC scientists used an estimate of the overall prevalence of diarrhea and vomiting to calculate the “true” incidence of foodborne illness as 76 million cases per year! Put another way, 99.97% of foodborne illnesses go unreported.
- A food vehicle was identified in only 43% of the reported outbreaks and only half of these were linked to a single food ingredient. What this means is that the true prevalence of foodborne illness that can be attributed to a particular food is much higher than what is reported. It also means that the data linking specific outbreaks with specific foods is such a tiny sample of the total that even small errors or biases in the reporting of outbreaks would seriously skew the results.
- To calculate the number of people that drink unpasteurized milk, the CDC used an older, lower estimate (1%) of the number of people that drink raw milk. This is curious because a FoodNet survey done by the CDC itself in 2007 found that 3% of the U.S. population – about 9.4 million people - regularly consumes raw milk. That number is likely even higher today with the growing popularity of raw milk. (In 2010 alone, raw milk sales increased by 25% in California.) Why did they do this? If you’re a cynic, you might conclude that they used the lower estimate to exaggerate the risk of drinking raw milk.
- They combined data from outbreaks and illnesses associated with “bathtub cheese” (i.e. Mexican-style Queso Fresco made illegally at home) made from raw milk, and raw fluid milk. Queso Fresco is inherently more dangerous than raw milk, and is associated with more serious outbreaks and illnesses. Again, this distorts the data and makes raw milk seem more dangerous than it really is. (Note: commercial, properly aged raw milk cheese has never been implicated in a disease outbreak.)
(For a more detailed analysis and critique of the CDC report, see this article from the Weston A. Price Foundation.)
In light of these weaknesses, I decided to conduct my own analysis using a more comprehensive data set including the CDC foodborne disease outbreak surveillance tables, an online outbreak database published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), public health reports such as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly (MMWR), a CDC line list produced in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to CDC by the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), and peer-reviewed studies in the scientific literature (2,3,4).
I purposely excluded outbreaks associated with Queso Fresco cheeses, because we are concerned here with the safety of raw milk and not raw cheese made in a bathtub, which I would never eat and would never advise anyone else to eat. I chose to focus on the most recent data available, from 2000 – 2007, since unpasteurized milk consumption increased significantly over the last decade.
I also included two notable outbreaks in California that were missing from both the CDC and CSPI databases: a large outbreak of campylobacteriosis in 2006, involving over 1,644 illnesses among prison inmates that was linked to pasteurized milk produced by an on-site prison dairy and another campylobacteriosis outbreak in 2007, that caused 8 illnesses following consumption of commercial raw milk and/or raw colostrum. (5,6)
What does this more reliable, peer-reviewed dataset tell us about the safety of raw milk?
The chart below lists all outbreaks and illnesses associated with unpasteurized milk from 2000 − 2007. Click the link to display the chart.
There were 37 outbreaks and 800 illnesses from unpasteurized milk during from 2000 − 2007, with an average of 100 illnesses per year. The estimated U.S. population as of today is approximately 313,500,000. Using the CDC’s own 2007 FoodNet Survey data indicating that 3% of the population consumes raw milk, we can estimate that approximately 9.4 million people drink unpasteurized milk (as I said above, the number is likely higher because of the explosive growth in the popularity of raw milk over the past 5 years, but 2007 is the latest reliable estimate we have).
This means you had a roughly 1 in 94,000 chance of becoming ill from drinking unpasteurized milk during that period.
Now let’s compare this to pasteurized milk, as the CDC did in their study. The chart below lists all outbreaks and illnesses associated with pasteurized milk from 2000 − 2007. Click the link to display the chart.
There were 8 outbreaks with 2,214 illnesses, with an average of 277 illnesses per year. According to the CDC FoodNet survey, 78.5% (246,097,500) of the U.S. population consumes pasteurized milk.
This means you had a roughly 1 in 888,000 chance of becoming ill from drinking pasteurized milk.
According to these data, it’s true that you have a higher chance of getting sick from drinking raw milk than pasteurized milk. But the risk is 9.4 times higher, not 150 times higher as the CDC claimed.
Perhaps this is a good time to review the difference between absolute and relative risk. When you hear that you have a roughly 9 times greater (relative) risk of getting sick from drinking raw milk than pasteurized milk, that might sound scary. And indeed it would be, if we were talking about the absolute risk moving from 5% to 45%.
But when the absolute risk is extremely small, as it is here, a relative 9-fold increase is rather insignificant. If you have a 0.00011 percent chance of getting sick from drinking pasteurized milk, and a 9.4 times greater risk of getting sick from drinking unpasteurized milk, we’re still talking about a miniscule risk of 0.00106% (one one-thousandth of a percent).
But to truly gauge the risk, we should ask how serious these illnesses are. An “illness” in these data can mean everything from an upset stomach to mild diarrhea to hospitalization for serious disease. One of the reasons most foodborne illnesses go unreported is that they are only a passing nuisance. When is the last time you had a bout of diarrhea that you suspect was caused by something you ate? Did you report it to your doctor or the county public health department? Probably not.
The statistic we should be more concerned with is hospitalizations for serious illnesses such as kidney failure and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) caused by unpasteurized milk. This does happen, and children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable and more likely to experience a serious illness. That said, hospitalizations from raw milk are extremely rare. During the 2000 − 2007 period, there were 12 hospitalizations for illnesses associated with raw fluid milk. That’s an average of 1.5 per year. With approximately 9.4 million people drinking raw milk, that means you have about a 1 in 6 million chance of being hospitalized from drinking raw milk.
To put this in perspective, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, you have a roughly 1 in 8,000 chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident if you live in the U.S.. Therefore, you have a 750 times greater chance of dying in a car crash than becoming hospitalized from drinking raw milk.
The risk of dying in a plane crash (1 in 2,000,000) is orders of magnitude lower than dying in a car accident (1 in 8,000) – and yet most people who are afraid of flying don’t hesitate to get in their car. But as unlikely as dying in a plane crash is, it’s about 3 times more likely than becoming hospitalized (not dying) from drinking unpasteurized milk.
As I said earlier in the article, there has not been a single death attributed to drinking unpasteurized milk since the mid-1980s. There were 5 stillbirths attributed to an outbreak linked to bathtub-style Queso Fresco in 2000 in North Carolina. These were the only deaths during the 2000 − 2007 period I analyzed.
How does the risk of drinking raw milk compare to other foods?
Now let’s put some of these abstract numbers into perspective.
According to the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly (MMWR), from 2006 − 2008 there were an average of 13 outbreaks and 291 illnesses per year associated with shellfish and mollusks. According to the CDC FoodNet Survey, about 5.7% of the population (17,869,500) consumes shellfish. This means you had a roughly 1 in 61,000 chance of becoming ill from eating shellfish. That’s about 1.5 times the risk of becoming ill from drinking raw milk (1 in 94,000).
The risk is even greater – and more serious – if you eat raw oysters. 7.4% of people who eat oysters consume them raw (1,322,343). There are 15 deaths a year on average attributed to raw oyster consumption. This means you have about a 1 in 88,000 chance of dying from raw oysters. In other words, you have a greater chance of dying from eating raw oysters than you do of getting sick from drinking unpasteurized milk.
What about other more commonly eaten foods? Check out the chart below, from the 2008 CSPI report. It shows the relative incidence of foodborne illness from 1999 – 2006, adjusted for consumption.
As you can see:
- Seafood caused 29 times more illnesses than dairy
- Poultry caused 15 times more illnesses than dairy
- Eggs caused 13 times more illnesses than dairy
- Beef caused 11 times more illnesses than dairy
- Pork caused 8 times more illnesses than dairy
- Produce caused 4 times more more illnesses than dairy
I hope this helps you understand the true risk of drinking unpasteurized milk within the context of other risks most of us take on a daily basis without a second thought. Of course, the next question that naturally arises is why someone might be willing to take any additional risk with raw milk - however miniscule it is on an absolute basis – when pasteurized milk is readily available.
In Raw Milk Reality: Benefits of Raw Milk, I’ll address that question by exploring the benefits of raw milk from a variety of perspectives.
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{ 232 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, awesome article!
This is going to be huge for the raw milk community!
Uh oh, crossing the street is associated with dying. Will this be the next public health campaign?
Great article!
Wow, that is what I call thorough. You must have done quite a bit of research for this article. Thanks Chris!
Been feeding my toddler raw milk from grass fed cows, so I really appreciate the clarification you put on these studies.
Hi Chris
I really appreciate your post about raw milk. I love products made from raw milk like raw milk kefir yogurt butter cheeses. I make and drink homemade kefir daily also my daughter( I do not drink unfermented milk) I would like to ask you about types of raw milk I do not buy cow only sheep and sometimes goat one. I have found that sheep milk is even more nutritious than goat one. We have good sources both of them, they are on pasture on mountain so What kind of milk would you suggest sheep or goat one?
Thanks
Because I’m in early pregnancy I have switched from raw milk to low-temp pasteurized organic local milk. Do you have an article that comments on drinking raw milk when pregnant? Also I would like to know your opinion on benefits of low-temp pasteurized organic local milk and wondering if you think that this might be a better option for pregnant women vs. raw milk.
Thank you!
Mandy: that’s a decision that only you can make, based on your risk tolerance, values and priorities. I think low-temp pasteurized organic milk is a good alternative if you’re concerned about the risk, however small. I don’t recommend that people drink pasteurized milk without fermenting it first (either as yogurt or kefir), however.
Hi Chris,
Thank you for the permission to make my own choice. I’m in the process of understanding my own “risk tolerance, values and priorities” when it comes to drinking raw milk when pregnant. Are there any articles you have written or research you can point me to explaining the benefits and risks of drinking raw milk vs. pasteurized when pregnant. I hope you don’t think that I’m asking you to sell me on drinking raw, I simply curious and want to learn more and value you as a resource on this subject.
Thank you.
Do you think low-temp pasteurized cream from grass-fed cows should also be fermented first? I wasn’t sure if the high fat content made it a better choice than low-temp pasteurized milk for use in smoothies, while still getting the nutritional benefits.
Hi Chris:
Thank you for this article. A few years ago, my husband just about bit my head off when I suggested we drink raw milk. He’s just read this and is now looking forward to the second part. This is the kind of evidence he needs!
Thanks for the article, I look forward to the rest of the series! One of my main talking points for raw milk is Yes, it can be dangerousm but so can many other foods that are sold at the grocery store. (As a consequence of reading food born illness surveys, I no longer eat deli meat!)
There has been an outbreak related to raw milk cheese, in 2010.
http://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/ucm232748.htm
Hey Chris – love your podcast and blog! Thanks so much for this information, I really like that you include the references and data to backup your points for nerds like me who like to geek out on that stuff.
We just found a local farm near our house that sells raw milk (pastured meats and eggs yay!) so I am looking forward to your recommendations on how to identify safe and responsible raw dairy in the third part of this series.
This was very well done. Also, my Mother remembers having milk on the farm – but they boiled it in order to kill any bacteria, etc. I think boiling is a lot safer (and does less damage).
On the contrary, boiling, at 100 degrees C for minutes is worse than pasteurizing (at around 75 degrees for seconds).
Seriously why would they think boiling is better than pasteurizing? All you’d get is scalded milk.
Hi Chris, thanks for sharing your perspective, and some useful links.
It’s a tricky issue for sure, and people seem to feel very strongly about it! I’m curious to see your post on the benefits, because based on my research I’ve only found one major study that supports potential benefit, and even the authors did not conclude that their findings support raw milk consumption. I also think it’s telling that the CDC, WHO, CSPI, etc. all caution against raw dairy consumption. I respect the diligence of your research, but I also respect their conclusions as physicians, scientists, and experts in infectious disease.
That said, I think this bizarre crusade to “bust” raw milk producers is totally misplaced and a waste of resources. Their facilities should certainly be held to high hygienic standards, but as you mentioned, when it comes to food safety, I think our priorities should be elsewhere.
I was talking with a pediatric infectious disease specialist about this topic recently. We are both into local, sustainable, smaller farm practices, and he said he wouldn’t be surprised if benefits of raw milk emerge as more research is done. However, he said he would not give raw milk to small children (and definitely not to pregnant women), because the organisms associated with raw dairy illness tend to cause especially severe complications in children, such as renal failure, sepsis, and meningitis (and miscarriage or stillbirth in pregnant women), and it’s just not worth the risk, as small as it is, especially since the benefit is still largely theoretical (again, I’m excited to see what you’ve found here). Maybe I’ll email him your interpretation of the data and see what he thinks. For now, he’s hoping we can work towards better pasteurization methods, higher pressure and lower temp or even other technologies that might emerge, so we can hopefully preserve some of the “good stuff” while still eliminating pathogens. Maybe if studies back the benefits there will be a larger push in this direction?
Again, thanks for providing links and studies to chew on. I like lurking here, because even though I often disagree with your interpretations and conclusions, I always appreciate having some actual evidence to ponder and lively discussion that challenges our assumptions about health and nutrition. I’ll stay tuned for more…
There is a clear double standard in the CDC, FDA and CSPI recommendations. The CSPI chart I included in the article shows very clearly that other types of foods – especially seafood and raw fish – cause orders of magnitude greater numbers of illnesses each year. Why do they not caution against eating those foods? The anti-raw milk efforts are far, far out of proportion with the actual risk posed by drinking raw milk, which was the main point of this article. If they truly have the interest of the public at heart, why focus so much on raw milk and not on other foods that cause greater numbers of (and more serious and life-threatening) illnesses?
I do not conclude from this information that the CDC or CSPI do not have the interest of the public at heart. My guess is that, from a public health perspective, this issue is somewhat easier to tackle – it is easy enough to greatly reduce one’s risk of dairy-related infectious illness by just choosing to consume pasteurized milk products. It’s easy for them to just hammer home the pasteurization message, especially since from their perspective there are no major nutritional benefits to raw vs. pasteurized. The vastly larger issue of overall food safety in everything from our eggs to our cantaloupes, is a more systemic issue and one that the organizations you mention are certainly trying to address, at a policy, healthcare, and public level.
In terms of raw seafood, the official food safety recommendations suggest cooking seafood before consumption, and it is definitely the recommendation for immunocompromised populations such as people living with HIV, but you’re right that they don’t come out against raw as definitively. Perhaps the pattern of consumption is at play here, such as the fact that milk tends to be a product of daily consumption, or that children tend to consume more milk relative to adults and relative to their seafood consumption? They also take on the bulk of the illness statistics from raw milk. Personally, I probably wouldn’t give my 2-year-old raw fish or raw oysters anyway, and I wouldn’t eat them everyday. I view raw milk similarly.
I also think that for experts in infectious disease, the evidence of benefit will probably have to be pretty strong in order to turn the tide of consensus away from pasteurization.
I agree that the absolute risk is small, and I definitely agree that there is no need to demonize, or legislate against raw milk. Raw milk consumption is a choice and I respect that you are looking to the data in making that choice. I am very much about small dairy farms (when we were in your neck of the woods we used Straus, and loved it) and think they are in fact, an important part of improving food safety. And I am looking forward to seeing what you’ve found about raw milk benefits.
That is of course what I will address in the next post. Note that there are also ethical, environmental, social and health considerations as well.
It’s not just raw fish. Cooked fish and shellfish are responsible for many times more illnesses each year than dairy, even when adjusted for consumption.
I think you’re right about raw milk being an easy target, and that people are particularly sensitive to it because it’s a food consumed by children.
Follow the money. Pasteurization is what makes the modern factory dairy system feasible. Without it, people would be back to doing business with the LOCAL dairy farm, who would be directly accountable to his customers for producing a safe, quality product. And a lot of big companies that are currently between farmer and producer would go under. Expect to see some sort of crusade against pastured meat as buying direct from the farm catches on, too. There’s a LOT of money in the factory-food system, and people like us are a huge, huge threat to those who wish to keep raking in that money.
“I do not conclude from this information that the CDC or CSPI do not have the interest of the public at heart. My guess is that, from a public health perspective, this issue is somewhat easier to tackle – it is easy enough to greatly reduce one’s risk of dairy-related infectious illness by just choosing to consume pasteurized milk products. It’s easy for them to just hammer home the pasteurization message, especially since from their perspective there are no major nutritional benefits to raw vs. pasteurized. The vastly larger issue of overall food safety in everything from our eggs to our cantaloupes, is a more systemic issue and one that the organizations you mention are certainly trying to address, at a policy, healthcare, and public level.”
It’s about minimizing and eliminating competition. It’s about money, not health. The large dairy operations benefit from this. Starting with the rise of urban dairy producers, they had to do something about their main competitors: smaller-scale dairies. To compete with them in a free market was not practical, so government gets involved to enact *mandatory* pasteurization laws in the States. If it was about health and safety, it would be more about education and promotion of cleaner practices; not about pushing for laws that crush specific businesses in the industry.
Do you believe the “official story” about hemp, as well? Would you be surprised to know that hemp was a major competitor to the timber industry, especially in paper production? Would you be surprised to know that one of the men who spearheaded the anti-hemp campaigns had financial ties to the timber industry? Would you be surprised to know that “marijuana” was a Mexican slang word borrowed by propagandists in their campaign against hemp and cannabis?
Do your own research and don’t fall for the “argument from authority”. Just because an institution has a fancy three- or four-letter acronym, doesn’t give any extra merit to their claims.
I read recently and I think it was on the Bovine that from 1986 until about 2006 there were 89 confirmed deaths from drinking pasteurized milk and one suspected death case of drinking raw milk. Apparently there was an outbreak in the American Midwest I think that took quiet a few lives from consuming pasteurized milk. I did not see this in the stats you uncovered. Comments Appreciated
There was a huge–thousands of people–salmonella outbreak from pasteurized milk in the Chicago area in the early 1980′s. Friends of ours were among the infected.
Chris clearly stated his stats were from 2000-2007. He did mention a breakout in the 1980′s as well. May very well have been the very one you have posted. Good to know the details on that by the way. Thank you.
You have to realize that no one with money in the dairy industry is interested in doing research proving that raw milk is healthier or more nutritious that the pasteurized milk they produce. The research that has been done tends to be old, and therefore disregarded, as scientists are wont to do. The story of why pasteurization was used to solve the problem of dirty and unhealthy cows in city dairies is complex, but be aware that high quality raw milk was used in the Mayo Clinic in the early 20th century therapeutically – see http://www.realmilk.com/milkcure.html.
As a retired dietitian (now reformed) I can vouch that health professionals are brainwashed into believing notions like how dangerous raw milk is. Actually the benefits of high quality raw milk far outweigh the dangers, as many raw milk drinkers will attest. The best protection against the pathogens that are all around us is to support a healthy immune system, which keeps them at bay. Unfortunately our modern Western diet doesn’t offer much support.
Really an awesome post Chris. It is absolutely amazing how big of an issue this has become. I greatly enjoy buying my raw milk from an Amish farm in PA.
I agree with others that this appears to be a thorough article with respect to defending the right of people to sell and consume raw milk.
I find it interesting that Chris is adept at providing articles that seem to excite raw-dairy advocates as well as paleolithic diet advocates. When a paleolithic oriented article is presented, it seems that all participants are into “paleo”. And now we will find out who is interested in being able to continue consuming raw milk, as those will probably provide almost 100% of the comments here on this article.
Personally, I’m all for the freedom to eat what one chooses and I hope the government takes no further steps to prevent us from eating the healthy, natural (or unhealthy, unnatural) diets that we choose. I happen to exclude dairy from my diet except for some butter, and follow a paleolithic diet, but it’s only because my body reacts poorly to dairy products, plus the fact that I really think it may be unwise to consume products that were naturally meant only for the young of other species. I’m guessing that according to the logic of paleo-diet advocates, our species just hasn’t been doing that very long. Probably less long than we’ve been agrarian?
So pasteurized or raw, I don’t really consider dairy products especially nutrient-rich and without negative risks. For me it’s just a matter of degree. If I had to drink milk, I would choose the less processed, and more sustainably, locally grown product – the raw version.
Very needed topic for an article. Great to read such quality and clarification Chris. I hope you address the A1/A2 issue as well. Thanks.
thanks so much for this. it’s great to have a thoroughly researched article that you can point people to that have concerns with drinking raw milk.
I have been drinking it for years, and drank it all the way through my pregnancy. I am not a big milk drinker, but use it to make kefir, and yogurt. and in a cup of rooibos chai tea it is quite nice:-)
I know my dairy farmer, (we live in Vancouver Canada), I know where my milk comes from, and feel so safe with the products they provide. I think that was what made me feel very safe to continue using it throughout pregnancy.
Thank Chris for putting some numbers behind a common sense approach to consuming raw milk. If we followed the same CDC/FDA reasoning to evaluate the risks in other things we do, we would not do anything for fear of harming ourselves and our children. I believe raw milk has demonstrated benefits for health, and we should be allowed to assume the very tiny risk that goes with it. One thing that could be compared to this is the CDCs mandate for vaccines for our children – how risky are those vaccines compared to raw milk? Why are we expected to accept that risk, but in states like mine – New Jersey, we are not allowed to make the choice to buy raw milk for our children?
Of course you meant minuscule (2nd last para).
Chris, how can I thank-you enough for this post? Can’t wait to read the next two! Bravo! I am a huge fan of raw milk and have consumed it safely for many years. I wish that everyone who believes the mainstream’s warning that drinking raw milk is “like playing Russian Roulette” would read this series. It is important to understand that EVERY food has risk and it is our right and our responsibility to make our own choices. I am involved in a Farm To Table event happening next month at the dairy in Central Oregon where my husband and I own our herd share. It is important to know your farmer! One of our event goals is to bring awareness of our diminishing food freedoms and access to the foods of our choice from the sources of our choice. The struggle to preserve these rights is worthy of civil disobedience! I will send the link to this post to many. Thanks!
Hi Chris,
Thanks for this article!
I’ve been drinking raw milk from a grass-fed herd here in Northeast Indiana since 2009. Actually, just this morning they had an article in our Fort Wayne (Journal Gazette) newspaper about the very farmer, Mark Grieshop, I purchased my cow from (it’s illegal to buy the raw milk here but you can buy cow share) and his work to provide a healthy local source of milk.
I travel to this dairy, about 30 miles away, biweekly to pick up my milk. I talk to my farmer and I see my cows, usually out on lust green pasture. I have no connection to the milk purchased at a grocery store. They tell me it’s “safe” but is it? Going to the farm allows me to see that the cows are healthy, see what they eat and how they are treated. Mark is also very vigilant in contacting his shareholders if milk is not perfect.
There will never be life without risk, what a dull life that would be, right? I guess what I have learned is that I have increased my chances of dying even more since I also eat rare beef, raw oysters, and occasionally cross the street:)
Thanks again for the excellent (as always) posts.
Been looking forward to a raw milk post from you for a while; many thanks. Just wondering about the plane crash stats and how that ends up being 3 times more likely than raw milk related hospitalization.
Highest Regards,
Josh
It’s in the article. You have a 1 in 6 million chance of being hospitalized from drinking raw milk, according to the 2000-2007 dataset I analyzed. You have a 1 in 2 million chance of dying in plane crash, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Therefore your risk of dying in a plane crash is 3x greater than your risk of being hospitalized from drinking raw milk.
Of course these are just broad generalizations. If you fly a lot, your risk might be higher, or if you don’t fly at all, your risk might be lower. These estimates don’t take any subjective factors into account, either – such as the sanitation procedures followed by the farmer you obtain raw milk from. The purpose isn’t to be exact (which is impossible), but to give a rough idea of comparable risks.
Chris I agree with most of your analysis because I did almost an exact copy of it in discussing the issue with a friend recently. However, one critique I would have in comparing raw milk to plane travel is that it is very easy to count deaths from plane travel and much, much harder to collect data about hospitalizations from raw milk.
For example, it is incredibly easy to determine the cause of death of someone in a plane crash. They died when the plane hit the ground and there is not much debate. In contrast, if someone shows up at the hospital who is sick, there are an incredible number of things that must happen before that sickness is scientifically tied to contaminated raw milk. You must determine the person drank raw milk, is sick from bacteria that could live in raw milk, find the source of the raw milk, test the raw milk for the bacteria, and show that your raw milk testing sample is representative of the batch of milk that the patient drank. I would hope you could recognize that it is quite possible and probably likely that not all the data on raw milk hospitalizations is reported.
But generally, thanks for the article backed up by research, logic, math, and sources. It’s the first raw milk article I’ve come across that uses these standard techniques in a legitimate way, so keep it up.
Michael
Michael,
I agree it’s not an apples to apples comparison. In addition, the 1 in 2 million estimate is obviously a broad generalization and isn’t adjusted for the frequency of air travel for each individual. The purpose was to simply give a very rough idea of how the risk of drinking raw milk compares with other risks that people voluntarily take on a regular basis.
While what you say is true about hospitalizations from raw milk, it’s also true of illnesses and hospitalizations from other food vehicles. So it may very well be that the relative risk of hospitalization from raw milk vs. other foods would be no different if it were possible to accurately determine a food vehicle in all hospitalizations caused by foodborne illness.
Thanks for your comment.
On the other hand, state and federal agencies are likely to tie an illness to raw milk if they even have a thin thread with which to do so–and often without properly investigating other possible sources of infection. That happened within the past year with one of the CA raw milk dairies. The state plastered it all over the news that several people had gotten ill from raw milk…but the real culprit turned out to be bagged salad–that the news articles plainly stated had been ruled out. And, of course, the raw milk dairy had its milk impounded for two weeks, tons of bad press, and not even an apology from the state at the end.
It appears to me that your numbers are incorrect in your paragraphs, as is your descriptions of the illnesses. You really aren’t being very honest here. For a more detailed descriptions of the risks involved, I would encourage you to visit Bill Marler’s website (he’s the nation’s foremost foodborne illness attorney, who made his name during the Jack In the Box scandal). http://www.realrawmilkfacts.com
To be clear: the risk from drinking unpasteurized milk is small. But the illnesses entailed are far more severe than what you seem to suggest here. We’re talking very scary hospitalizations, multiple organ failure, need for kidney transplants due to HUS, etc. The issue isn’t whether or not you are going to DIE, the issue is whether or not you will get sick, and how sick these pathogens can make you.
I don’t understand the need to turn a blind eye to the risks involved.
Some of the data I used came directly from Marler’s analysis, and I’m familiar with his work. It doesn’t change anything I’ve written here. The outbreaks from peanuts, cantaloupe and eggs between 2009-2011 caused 39 deaths alone. There have been only a handful of deaths associated with pasteurized milk and no deaths from raw milk (excluding Queso Fresco) in the past 15 years. Furthermore, although there have been a few cases of serious illness, there were only 12 hospitalizations due to raw milk in the period of 2000 – 2007.
Rather than making appeals to authority and generalized statements, which are not very convincing, I’d like to see some actual data that support your claims.
As I said in the article, the risk of becoming ill from drinking raw fluid milk is small, the risk of developing a serious illness is even smaller, and the risk of dying is so small it’s almost inconsequential.
Thanks for the information, Chris. I drank raw milk prior to becoming pregnant but the one place locally that I knew to buy it stopped selling it suddenly. I knew there was some risk so I felt a little hesitatant giving it to my 3 year old but after reading this post, I feel much better that it is an acceptable risk for my family. I’m hoping to find another source near Tacoma, WA soon. Thank you for all you do.
Try http://www.realmilk.com There are two sources listed for Tacoma, WA
Janeen, If you have a Marlene’s natural foods by you they do have raw milk there. The brand is Dungeness Valley Farms from Sequim. Hope this helps you out some.
I appreciate what you are trying to do here, I really do.
I’m glad you don’t go so far as Sally Fallon to say raw milk kills pathogens or that babies should drink raw milk formula…
Congratulations on coming out of the raw milk closet!
I understand that raw milk can indeed kill pathogens. I have heard of experiments where good-quality raw milk has been inoculated with known pathogens, allowed to sit, then retested and none of the pathogens remain.
Lynn,
There has been considerable discussion on this topic within the raw milk community, but as Chris is the myth buster here I am sure he can talk about it in greater detail…Chris?
My former sister-in-law had a baby boy a couple of years ago, and even though she **lived and worked on a farm that produces high-quality raw milk from pasture-fed Jersey cows, which she and her whole family drink daily** she was feeding him store-bought formula. He kept vomiting it up, though, and finally she switched to feeding him raw milk … and he stopped vomiting. He’s a thriving, beautiful boy.
Maybe babies spit up so much because they are being fed bad food. It’s probably not a “natural” habitual behavior.
I’ve been drinking raw milk from that same farm for 4 years, and have never had any illnesses from it. I also went on the raw milk diet 2 years ago, for three weeks, drinking this milk, and had no problems.
I scuba dive, climb mountains, and mountain bike but I have never seen my mother the microbiologist more animated than when I told her I was eating cheese made from raw milk. For about 15 minutes she railed about the dangers. I don’t remember her arguments. I had recently gotten a case of food poisoning from raw vegetables…I think. It’s hard to trace down causes. It all depends on the bacteria what the gestation period is before getting symptoms. Anyway I threw out the cheese. Obviously I am not going to tell anybody not to drink raw dairy products.
When switching to grass fed beef, free range chicken, and wild fish we tend to improve our chances of not getting a food born illness. Interestingly switching from pasteurized dairy to raw dairy increases our chances. When it comes to improving our food system raw dairy is not where I am going to make a stand.
Chris, does raw milk destroy pathogens like Sally Fallon-Morell of the Weston A. Price Foundation claims? What are the myths and truths regarding this claim?
I’ll be covering this in the next article.
While I am also in the camp of allowing people to do what they want to without their own bodies, I believe in the phrase “don’t poop where you eat.” Cows defecate, and they carry all kinds of pathogens in their feces. A producer may do their absolute best to prevent the cow from contaminating their milk, but once they contaminate, then the person who drinks the feces contaminated milk can have the option of dying or suffering from lifelong renal failure. Maybe you can address this in another post.
I find the logic of this post to something like swine flu hasn’t killed millions of Americans so we should import H1N1 pigs. Increasing the number of raw milk producers may increase the number of E Coli infected strains of milk..
You seem to have missed the point of this post. Cows defecate wherever they are. Water contaminated by cow poop then runs off into nearby spinach crops, which people eat and get e.coli from. This happened in California recently. Should we stop eating spinach?
It’s possible to use proper sanitation methods and produce raw milk with less risk of illness than other more common food commodities. And in fact, the statistics I outlined in this article suggest that is what’s happening in most cases.
Cows don’t *eat* their own feces. They also avoid grazing where they or other cows or animals have defecated, which is why grazed pastures look lumpy (not mowed) – grazing animals naturally avoid eating grass around piles of poop.
Staying healthy isn’t about absolutely avoiding certain pathogens anyway, it’s about managing risk *when* exposed, because pathogens of some sort are always present. Healthy cows on properly managed pasture have very little routine exposure to pathogens – enough to develop immunity, but not enough to get sick. Their immunity shields consumers of their milk.
I agree with Angel. There are many dairy producers in my family, and every good farmer knows that pasture rotation is of the utmost importance. A responsible dairyman will rotate his herd to new pasture every single day, which is pretty easy these days thanks to the invention of portable electric fencing. The best way to determine if your raw milk is safe is to know your farmer and be familiar with good farming practices, so that you can ask the right questions.
My grandfather sold raw milk for decades all around his county, and never ever had any problems.
Yeah “don’t poop where you eat.” How about this one: “don’t milk your cow where it poops?” Do you have any idea how cows are milked in a traditional small farm? They are taken to a milking shed that is cleaned after each milking and are milked.
You have to pasteurize industrial milk because the risk of contamination is so high. You couldn’t industrially produce raw milk, that is when you would have high increase of illnesses.
I was kind of getting to that point. But after doing some extensive reading, I have also concluded that udders can be infected too. E. Coli is transmitted by feces, but campylobacter can come from the udder of a clean cow. Also, a small amount of bacteria is enough to get people sick so assaying bacteria does not necessarily eliminate the possibility. In the end, it all comes down to risk assessment and I don’t mean to make anyone paranoid about raw milk, but pasteurization is not altogether evil either. I do not see a huge risk to getting raw milk from a small farm, and I am certainly less inclined to eat raw oysters in months that don’t end in -er, but at the same time, I buy most of my dairy at the store using light pasteurization with culturing because I do not see an overwhelming benefit from store bought raw milk.
Oh yeah, I would never buy raw milk from a store. I go straight to the farm and buy it about 20 mins after it came out of the cow. Plus, I trust the farmer because I drink the same milk that he, his wife, and all of his 9 kids drink. And $3.00 a gallon isn’t a bad selling point either!
Yes, we also get our raw milk from a local dairy farmer, and the whole family — mom, dad, nine kids — all drink it themselves.
Most of the complaints about “raw milk” that people are making here, are regarding factory-farm milk that is on its way to the pasteurization facility. In other words, it was never meant to be consumed without pasteurization. That affects everything about it, and how it’s handled, etc.
I’m 64 years old. I started buying raw milk four years ago, when I was 60. I’d never tasted it before. My dad was a milkman, and a shop steward for the Teamsters. Some old folks used to tell him how much they missed the taste of milk the way it used to be, before pasteurization. He would always dismiss their claims, and say it was dangerous. He told me these people didn’t make sense.
What part of the chicken do you think the egg emerges from? I’ve kept chickens and it’s sure not their wingtips. And chickens are much dirtier critters than dairy cows (I lived on a dairy farm as a kid, before modern factory dairies)
Nearly finished 5 weeks on raw milk only. Here in Australia it can be bought as organic bath milk.
Feel great, don’t want to go back to solid food’s as this is just so convenient.
Many cravings have gone, and I no longer desire coffee.
I am doing it because of an articel by Dr J E Crewe from the 1920′s about the milk cure used at the Mayo Foundation, now the Mayo Clinic. Specifically to reduce the size of my enlarged prostate. Unbelievably this is exactly what it has done !! Very hard to believe something so simple will do what my urologist says can only be rectified by surgery…………….. but that is what has happened…….
David, that’s amazing!
I’m not surprised, though. The medical profession doesn’t want anyone to stop using its products and procedures.
Hi David, thats amazing! and sorry to butt in here…I am also from Australia and was wondering where you purchase your raw milk from?
Natalie, I’m also in Australia. Many health/natural foods shops sell ‘bath milk’ (aka raw milk), and it also can be found at many farmer’s markets.
Thanks Chris!
As you deal with a lot of chronically ill patients, how much greater do you think the risk of consuming raw milk is for these people? Do you recommend avoiding raw dairy to these people?
From talking to a friend of mine who worked at raw milk dairies for years, the diet of the cattle is very important to the safety of the milk. He advised me to only ever consume raw dairy products from 100% grass-fed dairies, and to avoid those who even use grain just to get the cattle in the barn. (Grain-feeding leads to a more acid environment in the cow’s digestive system, which encourages more acid-resistant bacteria who can more easily survive our very acid stomachs to make us sick.)
Hi Chris,
All you’ve shown is that with your modified data, people who drink raw milk are one order of magnitude more likely to get sick instead of two orders of magnitude with the CDC data.
The fact remains that there is no way to get rid of these harmful pathogens other than pasteurization. As others have mentioned, these pathogens are nasty and can lead to organ failure, especially in children.
Great article Chris, your thorough attention to detail in the analysis of these things is always appreciated.
On a slight tangent from this subject, I have used kefir applied topically to clear up tinea, in myself and others and it works more effectively than anything I’ve ever come across, including some of the very potent OTC pharmaceutical creams/sprays, tea tree oil and lemon myrtle oil.
Many years ago, i was prescribed a to[ical cream called Calmurid for dry, cracked skin on my heels. The active ingredient was lactic acid – the exact stuff produced by kefir and other lactobacilli- though I did not know that at the time.
Amongst all the information you could ever want about kefir on Dom’s Kefir Insite, he recommends it for skin conditions, and I put 2+2 together.
Quite likely the ancient luxury of a “milk bath” was a kefir/fermented milk one also.
Kefir is amazing stuff.
You can also get kefir cheese, made in NY state, from raw milk, of course (and aged 60 days as per USDA rules) at kefircheese.com. Interesting story there about getting a gov grant to start the process and how they almost lost it because they were using raw milk. The grant was approved but their project was the only one NOT made public.
As Kris says, if you were a cynic you might think that was more than just some clerical omission…
Thoughtful research Chris, well done. I like your specific answer to homestead and suggest they try less appeal to authority and generalizations. Are you a fan of tragedy and hope, Andrew Grove, Jan, Brett and the gang? I imagine you’ll be approached about a show if you haven’t already.
Thanks again
Okay, so raw milk is at least 9.4 times more risky than pasteurized milk. Got it.
9.4 times next to nothing is still next to nothing. Chris, you can lead them to water, but you can’t make them drink. Jesus some people.
If I have a choice between two products, one of which is maybe 10 times more likely to make me sick, I’m going to choose the one that is less likely to make me sick, if all else is the same. That seems like the obvious thing to do.
Now presumably Chris is going to say that all else is not the same, but we’ll have to wait for his next article to see why, so I’m sticking with my summary so far.
Ten times negligible is still negligible. The point about a risk being negligible is that you can take it out of the equation when balancing costs and benefits.
I have heard that there is beneficial bacteria in raw milk which is killed off during the pasteurization process. I’m not very learned in the field of bacteria and the roles that good and bad might play in all this, but would it be plausible to suggest that since there is beneficial bac., couldn’t it over-crowd or even consume any bad bacteria that might contaminate the milk? Whereas with sterilized milk, bad bacteria could get in it and grow unhindered by anything?
Maybe it’s a fallacy to suppose that good bacteria could act like an “independent immune system” for the milk, but I have heard (and seen for myself) that in the case of ourselves, good bacteria on the skin lends a measure of protection – like a barrier, against bad bacteria infiltration. Could the same be said of raw milk, which has live beneficial bacteria and enzymes in it too?
So basically what I’m wondering is, could the good bacteria/enzymes in raw milk do either or both of the following: Prevent dangerous bacteria from thriving. Kill dangerous bacteria somehow?
I will be covering this in more detail in the next article in the series.
I eat a fair amount of local queso fresco where I live in Mexico. My image of “bathtub cheese” (a term I’ve never heard before – yuk) will probably keep me from eating it now more than the fear of getting sick from it. Bummer, I used to love that stuff.
Okay, so the chance of getting sick from raw milk is 0.00106%. Got it.
Nice job Chris. I also thought the CDC report on raw milk illness was fishy. At the same time, I’m fairly convinced that raw milk is more likely to make you sick than pasteurized milk, which your analysis confirmed. I don’t know why this issue gets so politicized and distorted.
Its funny how the position of the US government, the industrialized diary industry, and many brainwashed Americans is that Raw Milk will kill you or at least make you so sick that your organs will fail. In other countries Raw Milk is perfectly ok to consume, you can even buy it out of vending machines in France!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WkyM_z7ZoA
Thanks for doing some research and de bunking some myths.
but we get it from a family not a big farm, and they are very clean, and use sterilized jars. Keeping it cold all the way home is important as well.
We took the plunge last September and have only used raw milk since then. I had surgery in August to remove and diagnose ( I knew ) severe endometriosis. My gut was severely eaten up with lesions as well as my bladder. So, I did not tolerate any dairy products until I became so laden with gut pain that I drug out my copy of Nourishing Traditions and went on a rampage : Fermenting all kinds of food. My gut quit hurting and I got so much better, that I can enjoy cold raw milk now on occasion. We make butter every week from the thick, rich cream. ( There have been a few times we tossed the milk or just cooked with it when the cow ate some onions
Hi Chris,
I really wanted to get into raw milk, but just when I moved to Oregon where it’s legal, a small farm that sold raw milk and did everything so well (or so they thought) got an e coli contamination and one of their kids is in the hospital with kidney failure and on dialysis. That totally cured me of wanting to drink raw milk or feed it to my son. I think that the risk of dying is super low, but there are other things than death than make it a not-so-good option. I’m super bummed about it. Do you know if there’s any way to kill e coli and salmonella without heat? I heard that freezing for 2 weeks kills pathogens, but some research didn’t convince me it kills e coli. What do you think?
Thanks!
Joanna.
If you’re concerned finding a vat pasteurized (lower-temp) alternative from grass-fed cows might be a good idea. Down here in the Bay Area St. Benoit produces a milk like that – we use it to make yogurt with.
Well done. It is quite useful to do side by side probability comparisons. Thank you.
Chris, are you going to talk about the history of pasteurization? Maybe because I’m Canadian, but I’m a little protective of pasteurization, in the way one is protective of one’s old gently misogynistic grampa
.
Pasteurization is a thing which makes sense, and for once isn’t coming from a malicious place. It makes sense in the way that Jewish prohibitions about eating cloven-footed things and shellfish make sense. Back in a more primitive time (in terms of technology) it was harder to keep things safe. Back when factory farming was a tiny baby, and they started doing things like shipping food across the state, people *were* getting really sick and dying. Why? Because raw milk can go bad if it’s left just sitting around for a week. But we have refrigerators now. And you’re likely getting your milk from somewhere an hour or so away, not three days away in the summer heat. So it’s not the same kind of risk. It’s not the same kind of choice between dead milk or spoilt milk.
(This kinda reminds me when I first started buying better quality meat and it kept rotting in the fridge. I didn’t realize how much I depended and meal planned based of preservative content in my dead meat, until I started having to throw out whole chickens that went green on me. You handle raw milk differently than pasteurized milk. Not even more carefully exactly, but it is alive and that’ll catch you up to begin with.)
But it helps to be able to see it from their point of view. The last time raw milk was common, a lot of people died. Why risk it? When you can show people what’s different and answer their fears, instead of just calling them stupid (I’m not saying you are, Chris. I <3 you, totes.), you can convince more people.
Plus, Pasteur was a ruddy genius. He didn't invent germ theory, but he basically beat it into people's heads. He proved and explained the science of fermentation, so we can all explain why sauerkraut is bubbly.
Iunno, like the vaccine debate, I just get really tired when conversations split into two factions. We can both be right and both be missing something.
I must disagree. My understanding is that clean, raw milk does not “go bad”, it simply starts to sour or “clabber” and many primitives without refrigeration drank this type of milk rather than the sweet or fresh milk we have become accustomed to. I also understand that most of the world that drinks untreated milk either ferments it purposefully with a culture or allows it to sour on its own from the bacteria present in the milk. Pasteurization became a necessity in the early 1900′s because of the “swill” or “distillery” dairies that fed their herds spent grains and mash from liquor production. That dangerous milk was a pale blue, and calcium carbonate (chalk) was added to make it white. These cows were sick, and so would you be drinking that milk without treatment to kill the pathogens. Not only that, they were hand milked over open buckets and not by family members careful not to cough over them! Everyone must understand that from a pasture-based operation with a properly managed healthy herd and good sanitation in the milking parlor (esp. with refrigerated bulk tanks and stainless tubing), raw milk is perfectly safe. This describes the dairy in Oregon where I get my raw milk via a herd share. It is tragic what happened at Foundation Farm, and I am curious to know their mistake with the E. coli contamination. No news since the April outbreak. Please do not think that modern day factory-farmed CAFO dairy cows eating citrus peel cake, bakery waste, gum IN the wrappers, and GMO grains doused with broad-spectrum sub-therapeutic antibiotics will give us a safe beverage to drink right from the udder! It is interesting to note that industrial agriculture seems to have a very short memory. Once again conventional dairies are feeding their herds “spent” grain waste in the form of corn leftover from ethanol production. How did we forget? Cattle = ruminants = herbivores = grasses, forbes, legumes… Milk to be consumed raw must be produced under a different set of rules!
Lynn, you make great points here. I don’t know what it takes for clean raw milk to go bad, if it ever does. I’m sure at some point you wouldn’t want to eat it, lol.
I’m keenly interested in the history of pasteurization but I don’t know much yet. Where did you get your information?
I often think about primitive people consuming raw milk. I’m sure they would have stopped consuming it if people were getting sick. They were pretty smart like that. And yet, milk-consumption survived, so they must have done well on it. But the time before pasteurization was a time when people liked to mess with what was natural, as you mentioned the type of feed they were given on distillery farms. Obviously, this causes problems. I don’t think milk is inherently dangerous–I think people make it dangerous.
I learned a lot of the history from, “The Untold Story of Milk” by Ron Schmid, ND. I have also asked myself this question: if raw dairy was inherently dangerous, why did mankind continue to drink it? It is not without considerable effort tending cattle, goats, sheep, camels, water buffalo…
Exactly! And funny–last night after I asked you about your info, I was searching my library catalog for a book about pasteurization, and that one came up, so I put it on hold. I’m so excited to read it!
Well written, but you have not changed my thought about pasturized vs. raw. I do agree that organic is better but I will never drink raw or serve it to my family.
As I said several times in the article, my intention wasn’t to change anyone’s mind. My intention was to present the fact in an unbiased way so people have the information they need to make up their own minds.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57432601/calif-officials-recall-raw-milk-from-fresno-dairy/
” Raw milk from a Central California dairy is being recalled after tests confirmed bacteria called campylobacter was found in its raw cream.
State health officials say at least 10 people have fallen ill after consuming products from Organic Pastures in Fresno County between January and April. None were hospitalized”
Yep, it happens. No doubt about that.
I’m waiting for more info on yesterday’s recall before I pass any judgement. In Nov. 2011, Organic Pasture Dairy products were recalled (for one month with hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in sales) the State found no E. coli anywhere on their farm or in their dairy products, even samples tested in the houses where people got sick. CEO Mark McAfee is an expert in food safety and certified in HAACP management. After the recall was lifted last December, Mark said, ” “It is hard to improve on perfect … zero pathogens ever found in 10 years of testing.” I am wondering how over a four month period campylobacter could have escaped undetected in what were probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of tests? Let’s wait and see….. As Chris says, it can happen.
Here is a link to the CDFA report about the Organic Pastures recall and outbreak in November 2012:
“Environmental samples collected at Organic Pastures yielded E. coli 0157:H7 isolates that had PFGE patterns indistinguishable from the patient isolates. Organic Pastures raw milk consumed by the case-patients was likely contaminated with this strain of E. coli 0157:H7, resulting in their illnesses.”
http://www.marlerblog.com/case-news/final-report—organic-pastures-raw-milk-linked-to-2001-e-coli-outbreak/
Thanks for the link. I always want to learn more and better understand the complexities of this issue. I am, perhaps obviously, a layperson and not a scientist. I now understand there’s not often a “smoking gun” but rather enough epidemiological evidence of a food causing an illness that experts agree it “likely” to be the cause. I still would want to read this from other than Marler or CDFA, hear another opinion. Which brings up the question: Why only these 5 children, and not hundreds, or even thousands, sickened? I ate salmon ceviche with a couple last summer and experienced mild nausea for about 15 minutes. They both got very ill and could not go to their jobs for days. The bacteria (Pasteur) or the terrain (Beauchamp)? Could it be there are foods in the grocery store that might contain these “isolates” and if they weren’t ingested by kids who drank raw milk, they never would have become a “cluster” and their E. coli story never would have made the news? I am curious, but it might be more science than I can comprehend….
What were the “environmental samples” tested? Was it soil? Manure? Swabs from equipment? The article does not indicate that it was *FOOD*samples – an important distinction. To prove positively that it was raw milk which caused illness, it is necessary to test unopened packages of food from the same batch consumed by the people who got sick. Contaminated food can make people sick; but sick people can contaminate food as well – which is why it is important to find unopened food from the same suspected batch.
As far as the environmental samples showing identical genetic patterns with patient isolates: did the lab run positive controls? Did they take samples from people who consumed the food but did not get sick – of which there were thousands, it seems. Perhaps anyone – even healthy people – eating food from the farm would produce matching isolates. Doesn’t *prove* the raw milk made some ill.
…and that particular outbreak was eventually found to have been cause by another food entirely NOT Organic Pastures’ milk. But, of course, that was after OP’s milk was on recall for weeks, they lost a ton of income, and had their name and product dragged through the mud.
Heather,
Which outbreak at OPDC are you referring too? There have been several and none of them have been linked to another food. Please site your source of information. The CDFA has all of the reports on its website and you can look at realrawmilkfacts.com for their table covering all raw milk outbreaks since 1998 I believe. If you are referring to the latest ecoli outbreak in fall of 2011 at OPDC, I linked to the CDFA report above.
Heather,
I can’t tell you how tired I am of the BS that surrounds the OPDC raw milk outbreaks. The one in 2006 was not caused by another food. People believe this because that is what Mark McAfee told people. News flash—he lied. Then Sally Fallon spread the lie. In the 2006 outbreak 6 children became ill and they lived sprinkled throughout California. The only the common food they consumed was OPDC products. They searched the cows and soil 2 months after the fact and did not find the matching pathogen
In 2011, the outbreak was a ditto to the 2006 outbreak—6 children sprinkled throughout California. This time they searched the farm immediately and found the matching pathogen in the poop where the calves were housed. It is speculated that the pathogen was dragged into the milk room from dirty shoes.
I’ve had several people commenting on my Facebook page over the last year or so about how people didn’t used to refrigerate milk, and therefore the refrigeration of the milk causes the lactic acid bacteria replication to slow down, and that it can’t “out-compete other cold-insensitive bacteria, including potentially pathogenic organisms.” Here’s the link to Todd Caldecott’s post on The Bovine, with links to studies showing this outcome:
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/breast-feeding-ayurveda-and-the-first-principles-of-raw-milk-nutrition/
Very few people I’ve talked to agree with this, and I’m on the fence. But I can’t help to agree that people didn’t refrigerate milk until the modern era, that they did consume it warm, and that they typically fermented it to keep it from souring and used it in that form a great deal.
I think about that, too. How the E. coli could be growing faster in the fridge than the beneficial bacteria. Culturing my milk into yogurt makes me feel better about it.
Great article, and thanks for taking the time to do all the research in a meaningful way!
I do have one question on the numbers. It seems to me that there is another level here that is not included, being the frequency of consumption. People drinking raw milk would normally (
I assume) drink that milk on a daily basis, batch after batch. Very few other food sources are consumed as frequently. For instance, who eats raw oysters every day? So isnt there another level of analysis that explore per batch of food, how the risk compares? If a person drinks raw milk 365 days a year and consumes raw oysters 4 times a year, and the risk of getting sick from oysters is still significantly higher, doesn’t adjusting for that make oysters tremendously higher still? What if a person only drinks raw milk at the same frequency as eating raw oysters, what happens to the numbers then?
thanks!
Thank you for doing this analysis. Best article I’ve read on this topic yet. I’m actually shocked at what the risk of dying in an auto accident is. Yikes! It’s nice to know that my risk of getting sick from raw milk is much, much less. I had kidney failure from E. coli when I was a kid (had a remarkable recovery, fortunately). It would suck big time if lightening were to strike me twice, but these statistic do put me at ease. My raw milk farmer has a stringent protocol for milk safety, which should reduce my risk even further.
Thanks again. Can’t wait to read the rest of the series, and I’ll definitely be linking up to them on my blog.
Also interesting, if I did my math correctly, based on your data driving in a car is about 8x more dangerous than being a pedestrian, both of which are fairly dangerous if you ask me. If people don’t want to risk giving raw milk to their children, why risk putting them in a car? Just a thought.
Ladies and gentlemen – a little perspective here, and perhaps a little history. Louis Pasteur born 1822, died 1895 invented the pasteurization process. Do you REALLY think that for the thousands of years prior to his little miracle discovery that people were dying in droves, by the hundreds and thousands around the globe from drinking unpasteurized milk? Oh, yes, and what about all the families that were raised on farms between Pasteur’s discovery and the regulations which were passed banning the sale of unpasteurized milk? Were those families decimated, destroyed, annihilated by the consumption of a little bacteria in raw milk?
Indeed, Pasteur’s discovery has probably led to more disease than it has cured. We have become a virtually sterilized society where we use hand sanitizer every time we open or close a door, we carry it in our pockets and purses. We do not wish to attract germs. Does anyone know how vaccinations work – they give you a miniscule amount of the disease you wish to avoid so your internal immune system can combat and destroy it an prepare itself for the real onslaught. We are so sterilized with all our drugs and cleansers that our bodies can’t build up immunities and THAT is why we are sick! THAT is where the superbugs are coming from!
Chris, will you be addressing the A1/A2 beta casein issues in your next artilcles. My understanding is that raw milk or slow vat pasteruized milk for health reasons should come from A2 cows, as opposed to A1 cows.
The following statement is not true, and you know why it is not, Chris:
“According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, you have a roughly 1 in 8,000 chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident if you live in the U.S.. This means you are about 12 times more likely to die in a car crash on your way to pick up your raw milk than you are to get sick from drinking it.”
I really like your blog for great data and info, but please don’t use similar tricks like they use in studies you criticize.
If you’re going to essentially accuse me of lying, you should have some data to support your critique. According to this table on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s website, the risk of dying in a motor vehicle accident is 1 in 7,700 for the general population. So, please tell me how my statement is untrue. Comparing risk is always imperfect, because such comparison’s don’t take things like frequency of activity into account. Someone who drives 100 miles a day has a much higher risk of dying in a car accident than someone who drives 10 miles a week. Likewise, someone who drinks raw milk every day has a higher chance of getting sick than someone that drinks it once a month. But these estimates for risk are what are used in the scientific literature and in the CDC and FDA reports, as well as in the critiques of raw milk by attorneys like Marler. I don’t see why they aren’t appropriate to use here as long as they’re based on accurate data.
Finally! The article I’ve wanted to write, it I only had unlimited time. Now I don’t have to because he explains it all. I am going to be linking this all over the place! Thank you.
Chris:
What you are glossing over with your modified data mining and interpretation is the fact that children are disproportionately likely to be extremely sickened by raw milk (kidney failure). In the latest e.coli outbreak in Oregon from raw milk from Foundation Farms, 19 people are sick with e.coli, 15 of the cases are under 19 years old and 4 of the children have been hospitalized with kidney failure. According to a member of the herdshare, at least 4 of the farmers own children were sickened and one with HUS.
This is a 48 household herdshare.
You can always find statistics to argue a point. In this case you have a roughly ten percent chance that a child per household will experience kidney failure from complications of ecoli 0157:H7. You have an approximately 40% chance that someone in your household will get sick from ecoli 0157:H7 contaminated raw milk.
This is just the latest outbreak. I can guarantee that if you look at the outbreak statistics for raw milk you will find that children are disproportionately represented. Pasteurization is the only method to prevent illness from e.coli, salmonella and listeria.
It is only a matter of time before a child dies from drinking raw milk. So far this hasn’t happened because modern emergency medicine has brought these HUS children back from the brink of death.
I didn’t gloss over anything and I didn’t do any “data mining”. I’m using the exact same data that all of the anti-raw milk activists use. In fact, I’m using the most comprehensive data set possible because I also included data from two outbreaks (one from pasteurized milk, the other from raw milk) that weren’t included in the CDC line-by-line data, which was obtained using the Freedom of Information Act. How is that “data mining”?
You continue to ignore or distort the point of the article, which is that the absolute risk is very, very small. Do people get sick? Yes. Do they get very sick? Yes? Is there a chance a death could occur? Yes. But as I said, these risks need to be weighed against the potential benefits of raw milk and compared with other risks that people take every day of their lives. This includes parents putting their children in cars, which is a much higher risk activity than giving them raw milk.
Using a single outbreak to estimate the risks of getting sick from raw milk is not sound science. That is an inadequate sample size to draw any conclusions from. To come up with a reasonable estimate, you have to use data from a longer period of time and average out the numbers. This is what pro- and anti-raw milk advocates do because they understand that it’s not appropriate to use a single case like this and extrapolate from it.
How people respond to the data, and how they determine whether the benefits are worth the risk, is their prerogative. If you think raw milk is not worth the risk, that’s your decision. But you have not challenged any of the actual data in this article.
Chris, your article does not contain any science, only statistics to argue a point. You didn’t like the CDC statistics, so you put together your own data set. Your main argument is that the risk of getting sick is small compared to other risks in life like riding in a car. The comparison is a bad one because, like you mention in your article, “99.97% of foodborne illnesses go unreported” so “the true prevalence of foodborne illness that can be attributed to a particular food is much higher than what is reported.” You can not talk about absolute risk with your data because the actual data is incredibly incomplete.
The point Kristen raises is that these illnesses (e coli, etc.) can give a healthy adult an unpleasant experience like throwing up which would not be reported, but they can also leave an infant or small child with serious complications like organ failure. You haven’t provided any commentary on how the statistics are skewed to heavily affect the very young and very old. I think this is an important point that merits being in the discussion when one makes their own personal choice.
You can’t really make that assumption. Due to bias in reporting, as I said in the article, it’s likely that far more raw milk illness gets reported than illness caused by other foods.
This is the first article in a 3-part series. I will be commenting on the increased risk for young and old in Part 3, where I discuss a framework for how someone might go about choosing whether to consume it or not.
The data set I used is not “my own”. It’s the CDC’s own data, along with additional, peer-reviewed data to form a more complete picture. I made it clear why the CDC’s data were problematic, and why I made the choices I did. I was not “data mining”.
The article does contain science, in the form of links to peer-reviewed articles published in scientific journals that were used in my research. There will be more of that in Part 2, as well, when I discuss the benefits of raw milk.
I am not making any assumptions. That 99.97% figure comes from your article and applies to all foodborne illnesses not just raw milk. I am just pointing out the flaw in your analysis. As you say, we should present the bare facts without bias so that people can make their own informed decisions. If you believe that there is bias in reporting the statistics, then all of the data should be thrown out. That is the scientific method.
The main argument of your article is that the overall absolute risk is small compared to other activities. There is an error in your analysis because you only compared the reported illnesses from drinking raw milk which are 0.03% of the actual illnesses.
Let’s look at the numbers and please let me know if you see an error in my analysis. It is more important to be accurate than it is to be right. We have 100 reported illnesses per year from raw milk. We need to take into account that 99.97% of foodborne illnesses go unreported in order to have a comparison against other activites like auto fatalities. So that means that we can calculate that there are 3,333 total illnesses per year from drinking raw milk (unreported and reported). Now consider that 9.4 million people consume raw milk.
That means we have a ONE in 2820 chance of getting sick from drinking raw milk. This number should be compared against the ONE in 8000 chance of dying in a car accident, or ONE in 65000 chance of getting killed while crossing the street.
Once again, I’m just showing the facts based on the statistics. You are more likely to get sick drinking raw milk than you are to be killed in a car accident.
I think you may have missed my point. You’re assuming that an equal percentage of illnesses from all foods get reported. But as I said in my criticism of the raw milk data, it’s likely that’s not the case. Consider two scenarios where someone becomes ill from eating a contaminated food:
- they reflect on what they’ve eaten recently. Since they’ve only had foods they imagine to be safe like produce, nuts, etc., they assume it had nothing to do with food and was perhaps a stomach flu. This is a foodborne illness that will go unreported.
- they reflect on what they’ve eaten recently, and it turns out they’ve had raw milk (or raw seafood, or chicken, or things that are considered to be risky). They suspect foodborne illness, and go to the doctor. It gets reported.
The same phenomenon can happen in public health clinics where people are questioned about suspected foodborne illness.
This means that the percentage of illness caused by raw milk that is reported is likely much higher than the percentage of illness caused by other foods. So you cannot extrapolate as you have, because that assumes that the percentage of reported and unreported illness caused by each class of food is the same.
To simplify, say you have 100 reported illnesses and 900 unreported illnesses in a year for a total of 1,000 illnesses, with 10 reported raw milk illnesses. It’s tempting to say that there are really 100 raw milk illnesses each year (10% of reported > 10% of total). But say that 50% of raw milk illnesses are reported, whereas only about 10% of illnesses caused by other food are reported. That would mean there are only 20 raw milk illnesses out of the 1,000 – not 100 as the 10% estimate assumes.
There is also the question of frequency of consumption to consider. As another commenter pointed out earlier, most people that drink milk drink it daily. Yet dairy products account for only 1.3% of reported illness. Fish consumption causes far more illnesses than dairy; yet few people consume it every day. Once or twice a week is probably a more reasonable estimate. If these risk numbers were adjusted for frequency of consumption, it’s likely that some foods like fish would be even riskier than they already are.
You are making hypothetical arguments rather than using the numbers that you provided. There is no evidence to support the claim that illnesses from raw milk are reported at a higher rate than other contaminated foods, only conjecture. In fact, since milk is a food that is consumed frequently for many people, this would not be a likely suspect, it would be the out-of-ordinary foods that they would consider to be the likely suspect. Logically, if you don’t ordinarily get sick, but then suddenly you become sick, you would first consider what was out of your normal routine to find a cause. Most people wouldn’t routinely eat shellfish, but they might routinely drink milk.
You can do all sorts of hand-waving arguments, but the fact of the matter is that the high majority of foodborne illnesses go unreported. This is indisputable. This applies to raw milk as well since most raw-milk induced illnesses don’t end up in the hospital for adults. Usually it is a case of stomach flu-like symptoms. Because of this you cannot use comparisons like the numbers you are putting out. The best estimate of the ratio of unreported illnesses versus reported illnesses is 97.7%. You have to extrapolate like this to make these comparisons against absolute risk examples like auto fatalities. You have to compare apples to apples. Let’s leave out the bias and argue facts and numbers. You should say that you have a 1 in 94,000 chance per year of getting sick from raw milk AND reporting it AND attributing it to raw milk. Otherwise you should say that you have a 1 in 2820 chance per year of getting sick from consuming raw milk. This is according to the statistics you provided. If you consider the CDC statistics, the numbers are much higher.
The frequency of consumption issue is another issue that isn’t supported by any data. We don’t know how much milk each person consumes. You could argue it both ways. Consider that you only add a little milk to your coffee every day, but you have a fish meal once per week. That’s pretty equivalent in terms of weight.
The problem I have with this article is that you claim to be only presenting the facts, but your analysis is objectively biased.
There is another area of bias in outbreak data — outbreaks need two or more people. Small operations are less likely to be involved in an outbreak because there are fewer people consuming the product. Raw milk operations tend to be small…
Forget the detractors like Kristen and Joe. I still accept Chris’ point that the absolute risk in consuming raw milk products is very low. I consumed raw milk for years in a family that never had any upset stomach symptoms, so none could be blamed on raw milk. It’s not just luck though. Whereas people may be able to consume puss-laden pasteurized milk their whole life and never show a sign of disease that can be traced to that milk, people can come down quickly with illness if they drink milk that is full of e-coli. So the solution, if you care about quality (and that’s the main reason for consuming raw milk these days), is to qualify your source, just as you would for organic veggies, free-range meat, etc. Most proponents of raw milk here are claiming they buy from a local source. It might behoove them to to visit the milk source just once and watch the operation, and question the dairyman. Get them talking about cleanliness, sanitation, refrigeration, containers. You might come away with enough information to decide whether you want their milk, or wish to look elsewhere. Or you might help educate them. But regardless, you will probably lessen your chance of coming down with a sickness from the milk you drink. Raw milk is not all the same, no more than organic produce is the same. The reason people are into alternatives is that they have an ability to discriminate. Keep those abilities sharpened! It’s what helps you guarantee quality. It’s not just a “USDA Organic” or “Unpasteurized Raw” label. Just by being discerning you will probably move yourself into the very safest category in terms of having a risk from the raw milk you drink. Don’t expect all dairies to be the same and contribute equally to the statistics. Foundation Farms is an exception. But it doesn’t mean that another farm can’t actually be worse next week. And it doesn’t mean that Foundation Farms hasn’t already cleaned up it’s process. As I stated when I first replied to this article, I really don’t consume raw milk, or hardly any dairy product. But I support people’s right to produce and consume raw dairy. If you believe in the healthy benefits of raw dairy products, it’s best to inspect the dairy you use, unless you have some individual-dairy statistics attesting to the safety of it’s product over time, especially if you have small children.
With Foundation Farm, what do you think happened? They seemed to have been very, very careful with their raw milk. And yet, one child almost died of kidney failure and was on dialysis. Even if chances of getting organ failure are close to 0, if it happens to your child, it does not matter, it’s still 100% for you. I would like to know what happened in these cases where raw milk got someone sick. Could it be avoided 100%? With spinach etc, yes, it can be avoided 100%. E.Coli does not live in spinach, it comes from runoffs from animal farms, etc. How does E. Coli get into the milk in the first place?
Glenn, you can choose what you want to believe and that’s fine. But when you base your argument on statistics, as this article is based on, you have to look at the actual numbers to draw fair comparisons. We don’t have actual statistics for food-born illnesses, so comparing them to something like auto fatalities (which we do have actual statistics for) does not hold water.
Let’s look at the numbers in a more fair way. All of these numbers are taken from the article.
We have 100 reported illnesses per year from raw milk. We need to take into account that 99.97% of foodborne illnesses go unreported. So that means that we can estimate that there are 3,333 total illnesses per year from drinking raw milk (unreported and reported). Now consider that 9.4 million people consume raw milk.
That means we have a ONE in 2820 chance of getting sick from drinking raw milk. This is a more fair comparison against the ONE in 8000 chance of dying in a car accident, or ONE in 65000 chance of getting killed while crossing the street.
I agree statistics can be distorted and misleading Joe. My input to which you are replying is directed at those who wish to consume raw milk. From all I’ve read about opinion and arguing with facts, people tend to keep believing what they originally believed. So I’m not trying to change minds as much as let people go on their way, happy with their way of life. For the raw-milk-believer, I’m saying “Look, you can fortify your safety if you do certain things.”
Another thing that isn’t mentioned so far in this article is what happens in the home after the milk is brought in? But it could be substantially instrumental in producing the statistics that are showing even a small danger in raw milk. For instance, a bottle of milk left on the counter that is pasteurized has to start from almost zero to culture bacteria. A bottle of milk left on the counter (or table) that contains raw milk and some small amount of bacteria is more dangerous than the pasteurized counterpart (yikes, a play on words!). Kids are notorious at leaving things out. Parents that want to be responsible with the use of raw milk should be warned that the safety of the milk is more precarious. Who knows how many gallons of milk come from raw dairies with an entirely safe level of e-coli within, but are turned into dangerous foods by the families that don’t keep the milk refrigerated. Our stomachs are nothing but germ killers. They work fine. But any stomach can be overloaded chemically, especially when fats are combined with sugars, where the fats delay the acid-exposure, and the sugars feed the microbes. Kids are notorious for overindulging on sugars, not just as a dessert.
I think people who eat raw (not just dairy) need to be aware of basic physiology, and basic food preparation — way more than people who eat purely factory food which is dead and bacteria never grow on the stuff.
So I’m providing guidelines to those who aren’t going to change their habits just because Chris happens to get some (possibly) valid criticism. I’m trying to help them live better. It takes all sorts of information to make a balanced forum, where people can see all the reasoning out there and still make their choices. I know people tend to stay in the same rut because they already did a lot of research just to get there. I’m not trying to move them much, just help them be “rut-happy” if you will, and let them understand that not everyone is scared to hell of unpasteurized food, and there are safer ways to obtain and maintain it.
Glenn, I’m not saying that statistics can be distorted and misleading. I’m pointing out the fact that the risk comparison in this article is not accurate. Please go back and read what I wrote and let me know what you feel is misleading.
The whole intent stated in the article is to present the unbiased facts so that educated choices can be made, and this portion of the article is heavy on statistics. I do think you have good advice and insight into choosing a raw milk supplier.
Thanks, Joe. I appreciate that you are pointing out that the risk comparison in this article is not accurate. I agree with you. I also agree with Chris that, due to a lot of negative press on raw milk, the 99.97% figure could be a bit high in the case of unreported raw milk sicknesses. And you don’t need to modify this figure much, (like just by -2.0 or -3.0 percent) and you suddenly have raw milk sickness again as less likely than dying in a car crash, a risk that probably 99.9% of all Americans is willing to take.
But even if we take your figure of a 1 in 2820 chance of getting sick from raw milk in any given year, that amounts to about 1 sickness per person every 8 years. And that is considering that people stay ignorant of how to care for the milk once they have it in hand, and all dairy sanitary procedures stay as they have in the past, in spite of the added pressure from the government.
I really believe, considering how we’ve seen that government agencies work hand in hand with big Ag and big Pharma to promote their agendas, that there is a good chance that there has been distortion of the statistics that Chris says he gets straight from the CDC. If you read again Chris’s list of “several problems with the CDC report” and allow for the points he makes, you can easily see that the water surrounding the CDC statistics is very muddy. There are so many cases where a CDC employee, building a CDC statistic from one outbreak, could say the responsible food is “unknown” (the usual case) and not press to investigate further, but the same person, when investigating another outbreak, where a lead question might be “do you consume raw milk in your family”, and getting a positive answer, might have a very high chance of attributing the sickness to the raw milk, even if it may have had a different origin. Admittedly this is conjecture. But what is not conjecture is that we are dealing with the statistics of a biased government here, whose agencies are abetting large corporations. Why should these statistics be any more accurate in their recording than those already proven to have biased FDA drug approval decisions, which statistics are later found to have been intentionally distorted by the drug companies who’s drug was approved?
I see that Chris is trying to make his case IN SPITE of taking the statistics right out of the dragon’s mouth, and then he makes some qualifications to show how PROBABLY the statistics are even more favorable toward raw milk than the actual numbers. As someone who is sick of how our government cheats people to serve industry, I can easily be swayed by his statements of probability. And I think those statements are an important and relevant part of his point of view.
On the other hand, you are trying to make a point by looking just at the statistics, and the chance of distortion from “actual” to “reported” cases. You are granting no leeway to any of Chris’s comments about distortion in the other direction in order to make your point. I understand you are adamant on this little issue of relative risks, but if we give you a “win” on this issue, what is your feeling about advising people to drink, or not, raw milk?
What is it, once you’ve made your point that “one is more likely to be sick from raw milk than to die in a car accident”, that you would like us to decide?
Early in this discussion you stated: “You have to pasteurize industrial milk because the risk of contamination is so high. You couldn’t industrially produce raw milk, that is when you would have high increase of illnesses.” So we see that the big milk industry can’t compete for this special product called raw milk. Only the small dairy can take the precautions to deliver it to the public. And the dairy industry wants to shut down the raw dairies. And the people WANT raw milk. For an issue to persist even though there is strong resistance, there must be a VALUE in raw milk. Value well worth paying extra for, and risking occasional upset stomach’s to obtain. This article doesn’t even touch on the value question. But the value is there, and is regarded highly, or there would be no dispute.
So on the subject of “Raw milk reality: Is raw milk dangerous?” what is you point of view? Are you saying “yes” or “no”? What do you wish people to conclude from this article? You say at one point “The fact remains that there is no way to get rid of these harmful pathogens other than pasteurization. As others have mentioned, these pathogens are nasty and can lead to organ failure, especially in children.” That statement seems to be an attempt to bias this audience, and technically, is inaccurate.
The pathogens you speak of are only “nasty”, or a risk, when in great numbers. As Gregory Barton mentions in his post today, milk, as well as many other foods (and your municipal water supply), go out on sale even when testing shows there is an acceptable level of pathogens present. Acceptable means that the pathogens will not cause harm because the human stomach can handle a certain number of them. That is what the “expiration date” on products help insure though: that the pathogens don’t multiply to an unmanageable number before you ingest the product. If you just start looking at expiration dates you will realize it takes quite some time before pathogens can multiply to a dangerous level. The more likely to be contaminated foods are the ones that are in the refrigerated sections of stores. But they still comply to standards and have expiration dates. This is how our whole food/water/drug system works. And people rarely get sick from ingesting foods from our system. Children eat dirt all the time and usually only benefit from the additional flora ingested. Pathogens are only “nasty” when a food is LOADED with them, either from a gross contamination during processing, or from sitting around too long. Pasteurization is a great thing to rid a food of pathogens down to near zero. But it also harms the nutrition of the food. People want to receive the vitamins and enzymes and microbiotic life that foods originated with. So lets remember that an article on “dangers” is, at best, only half the story. People here need to keep thinking that if there are dangers, regardless how miniscule, are there also benefits that may offset the dangers, and may they FAR offset the dangers. This article is only on the dangers of raw milk. It is not trying to be the whole story.
Joe, Woopsie, I divided that 2820 for some reason by 365! My bad. Meant to divide by 2 to show the average chance one has of being sickened from raw milk. On average, a person will need to consume raw milk for 1,410 years before they are sickened by a dose of it. A few people will be sickened the first year, for sure, and some may live 2820 years, but on average they will get through at least, well, SEVERAL LIFETIMES without being sick. You made your point, but if you look at it this way, the risk is still a non-issue.
You make some great points, Glenn. We live in the real world and I agree that our government is anything but trustworthy. I don’t trust the statistics any more than you or anyone else here, but they are the only numbers that we have to go by. I’m a scientist and one of the things that I was taught is that if you have a potential bias in your data, you have to throw out the whole thing. You can’t pick and choose data or throw out certain data points or else your work is not objective and is actually harmful to the community. The argument that raw milk numbers are skewed in the data is not something that we can use to modify the data. If we truly believe that, then you have to discount all of the data and we are left with a religious debate (no empirical data).
I’m not trying to cause a stink here to promote pasteurization, rather I see a case of misused statistics and I feel obligated to point out the unfair comparison especially since Chris has been adament about presenting the facts in an unbiased fasion. Basically, his numbers are way off and therefore his analysis that uses these numbers for support is way over the top. You’re still more likely to not get sick by a wide margin, but let’s use the correct numbers.
If you’re asking about my personal viewpoint, I personally would be comfortable drinking raw milk, but I would not be comfortable giving it to my children. Even if the nutrients are twice as dense, the risk is simply not worth it to me because of the chance of kidney failure. This is part of the story that these statistics don’t show. The likelihood of children getting sick is much higher than the likelihood of adults getting sick and these risk numbers don’t make the distinction between adult or child.
In regards to the level of pathogens and thresholds for food safety, yes it’s proven that trace amounts of pathogens are normally present in our food and are no problem at all. It’s only when our immune systems get overwhelmed by the pathogens that we get outwardly sick. The point about pasteurization that I was trying to say is that it is the only method that we have for reducing the number of pathogens. Raw milk is inherently safe. It’s only when enough external pathogens contaminate the milk that we might have a problem. Most adults can deal with these pathogens with a bout of diarrhea or throwing up. However, infants and children and those with compromised immune systems have a much harder time dealing with these pathogens. They can get so sick that their kidneys shut down. These children would be dead if not for modern acute care like dialysis and transplants.
Thanks for the clarification Joe. I’m at peace with what might have been a difference. You are right that a scientist must throw out the conclusion this article takes from the statistics cited. It’s a lot of detail, but the margin of error makes the statistics not reliable for comparison with other causes of sickness or death that have a far lower margin of error. What I think remains that is significant is that the chance of any one person getting sick from raw milk is still almost as unlikely as dying in an automobile accident (won’t happen in this or our next lifetime!), and that is a risk we all (virtually) are willing to take. And the actual likelihood may be debatable, but even your best adjusted, devil’s advocate “guess”, based on unreliable statistics adjusted for unreported cases of 97.7% is still turning out to be something that people seem ready to face. So as far as the “spirit” of Chris’s presentation goes, I see his point of view as upheld. He may have merely chosen a poor example for one comparison.
I appreciate hearing your personal feelings on raw milk consumption.
Your last statements about the risk to children is well made. I happened to have fed my kids raw milk with no adverse reactions, and in fact with no knowledge of the risks. Some of this “faith” comes from my being raised by parents who were both raised on raw milk and I never heard a tale of milk-borne pathogens. That milk was home grown, probably chilled only by an ice box, if that, and probably also fed to the churn, the cats and the pigs after sitting around for more than a day! Then there was heavy use of buttermilk too, which I’m assuming is a cure for some of the potential harm within the milk, just as probiotic inoculants are a cure to poor cultures in our gut. Buttermilk is not part of our current “culture”.
This whole little subject of protecting the children brings to my mind the idea that if parents want to be extra safe with raw milk, they could take in a new supply before the old supply is exhausted, feed the kids on the remainder of the old milk, and test the new milk on themselves. If they don’t have an upset stomach by the next day, let the kids consume the new milk. Not much extra effort here, but this alone might take care of the chance of childhood kidney failure, etc. Still, I think the most important advice I could give parents feeding children raw milk is:
“Don’t keep using the milk if anyone left it out of refrigeration for more than a half hour. It wasn’t microbe free when it was delivered as pasteurized milk will be, so you are contributing to the risk by using it after it’s warmed. Don’t trust your kids to handle it. They may forget to return it to the cold.”
I’m not trying to cause a stink here to promote pasteurization, rather I see a case of misused statistics and I feel obligated to point out the unfair comparison especially since Chris has been adament about presenting the facts in an unbiased fasion. Basically, his numbers are way off and therefore his analysis that uses these numbers for support is way over the top. You’re still more likely to not get sick by a wide margin, but let’s use the correct numbers.
So far, you have raised one issue with my numbers, which I have addressed (as has Glenn). That does not change the basic thrust of this article. Furthermore, even if the risk of getting ill from drinking raw milk were 1 in 2,800, which I don’t accept for the reasons I mentioned, that is less than 3 times more than the risk of dying in a car crash. Those illnesses may include things as mild as an upset stomach and a little diarrhea. The risk of becoming hospitalized with a serious disease is still orders of magnitude lower than the risk of dying in a car crash. Do you dispute that?
You are discounting the idea that raw milk numbers are skewed, yet accepting as fact the estimate for total foodborne illnesses each year – which is just a guess not based on any culture-confirmation or other empirical data. That’s a double standard.
If you want to stick with only empirical data, then we should be discussing safety numbers based on reported illnesses adjusted for consumption. That’s what this article does.
Meant to say that there was a 10% chance that a child in your household would experience HUS/kidney failure. Data from: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/05/more-illnesses-linked-to-raw-milk-from-or-farm/
Great article Chris. In the raw milk books by Gumpert and Schmid, the glaring obvious aspect that distorts the statistics is the government agents hear a victim drank raw milk and their investigation is over. Other possible suspects are dismissed immediately and the raw milk has to be the culprit so why look further much less matc hthe pathogen. Thus, raw milk is probably even less dangerous than the statistics show.
Exactly. Follow-up the story of the Organic Pastures outbreak earlier this year–which turned out to be salad, not raw milk. This is not even the first time this has happened to Organic Pastures–another time it was spinach watered with sewage runoff, but the outbreak was originally blamed on raw milk. When the real culprit is found, does anyone at the fedgov alphabet soup agencies bother to move the tallies from the “raw milk” column to the appropriate one? To find out that they are not so conscientious wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Chris, until you have sat in a pediatric intensive care unit with your child’s hands tied to the bedrail, chest tubes coming out of both sides, on a ventilator to breathe, a kidney dialysis port to clean the blood and another port for feeding and medication, you have no idea what you are talking about. When raw milk is contaminated there is tremendous suffering.
You are obviously a WAPF follower. You are using your credentials to encourage people to feed their children raw milk. God forbid someone listens to your spin about the low risk and gives contaminated raw milk to their child and they become severely ill.
So far this year there have been 6 raw milk outbreak and 152 illnesses. This includes 6 or 7 kids with kidney failure. When cow shit gets in the milk, bad things happen. For God’s sake, there are so many other immune building foods besides raw milk. If you want to take risks with your own child, go for it, but don’t encourage others to make the same choice.
I’m not encouraging others to do anything. I stated clearly in the article that it’s a personal choice. It’s horrific that children have become ill from drinking raw milk, and as a parent I can imagine the pain and suffering that would cause. It’s understandable that someone who has a child that has been sickened by raw milk would feel strongly about it. Yet kids (and adults) also get sick from pasteurized milk, and a number of other foods. Kids have died from other foodborne illnesses. Is that not equally terrible?
This is analogous to the decision on whether to vaccinate and how to give birth. Homebirth critics speak as if there is no risk in giving birth in a hospital (which is wrong). Advocates of vaccination speak as if there is no risk in vaccinating their children (which is wrong). There are risks associated with either choice. Sickness, accidents and death – as tragic as they are – are all part of life.
Raw milk also involves some risk, but many parents (myself included) believe we should have the right to choose whether that risk is acceptable to us or not.
While 6 outbreaks and 152 illnesses is tragic, it is still a very small percentage (about 1 in 62,000) of the 9.4 million people that drink raw milk. The risk of a serious illness is 1 in 1.34 million. Do you dispute these numbers? If so, please tell me how. Otherwise, we’re talking about a personal decision about risk. You’ve made it clear where you stand, and I respect that. But other parents have examined the risk and made a different decision. That’s their prerogative, just as they are free to choose homebirth and not vaccinating.
(FYI I’m not a “follower” of WAPF. I have a similar perspective on nutrition and health, but I don’t agree with everything they put out there. I rarely do in the case of any institution or organization.)
Chris Kresser: “(FYI I’m not a “follower” of WAPF. I have a similar perspective on nutrition and health, but I don’t agree with everything they put out there. I rarely do in the case of any institution or organization.)”
WAPF: http://www.westonaprice.org/childrens-health/diet-for-pregnant-and-nursing-mothers
Diet for Pregnant and Nursing Mothers
Written by Weston A. Price Foundation
January 10 2004
Cod Liver Oil to supply 20,000 IU vitamin A and 2000 IU vitamin D per day
1 quart (or 32 ounces) whole milk daily, preferably raw and from pasture-fed cows (learn more about raw milk on our website, A Campaign for Real Milk, http://www.realmilk.com)
4 tablespoons butter daily, preferably from pasture-fed cows
2 or more eggs daily, preferably from pastured chickens
Additional egg yolks daily, added to smoothies, salad dressings, scrambled eggs, etc.
3-4 ounces fresh liver, once or twice per week (If you have been told to avoid liver for fear of getting “too much Vitamin A,” be sure to read Vitamin A Saga)
Fresh seafood, 2-4 times per week, particularly wild salmon, shellfish and fish eggs
Chris Kresser: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/5-primal-superfoods-for-fertility-and-pregnancy/#ixzz1uy7IQEPN
With this in mind, here are the top 5 “superfoods” I recommend for fertility, pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Liver. Ounce for ounce, liver is one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. It’s loaded with fat soluble vitamins like retinol (pre-formed vitamin A) that are crucial for reproductive health, and difficult to obtain elsewhere in the diet. Liver is also a great source of highly absorbable iron, which helps prevent miscarriage and maternal anemia, and B12, which is required for proper formation of red blood cells and DNA. Liver is also a good source of bioavailable protein, zinc, and folate.
Egg yolks. Like liver, egg yolks could be considered “nature’s multivitamin”. But they are especially rich in a nutrient many people have never heard of: choline. Studies suggest that 86% of women don’t get enough choline in their diet. This is significant because choline helps protect against neural tube defects. It also plays an important role in brain development, helping to form cholinergic neurons and the connections between these neurons that are so crucial in the first few years of life.
Cold-water, fatty fish*. Seafood is the exclusive food source of the long-chain omega-3 fats EPA and DHA. DHA is particularly important for fertility and pregnancy. It is preferentially incorporated into the rapidly developing brain during pregnancy and the first two years of infancy, concentrating in the grey matter and eyes. It’s also crucial to the formation of neurons, which are the functional cells in the brain, and to protecting the brain from oxidative damage. Salmon, mackerel, herring and sardines are excellent sources of DHA.
Cod liver oil. Yep, grandma was right! Cod liver oil is a sacred fertility and pregnancy food that fell out of favor during the last couple of generations, but is making a comeback. It’s one of the highest dietary sources of vitamin A, which we discussed above. It has more vitamin D per unit weight than any other food. Vitamin D is crucial to fertility and pregnancy, and studies show that up to 50% of women are deficient in it. Vitamin D promotes proper development of the bones, especially during the 3rd trimester when the fetal skeleton begins to grow rapidly. Cod liver oil is also a good source of the long-chain omega-3 fats EPA and DHA.
Grass-fed dairy. While dairy is not strictly a Primal food, it’s a great choice for fertility and pregnancy for those who tolerate it well. Dairy is rich in saturated fat, which is especially beneficial for fertility. It’s also a good source of the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, K2 & E) and a healthy, natural trans-fat (not to be confused with artificial trans-fats, which are harmful) conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Fermented dairy products – like yogurt and kefir – are also great sources of beneficial bacteria. This is important because a baby’s first exposure to bacteria is in his/her mother’s birth canal, and the mother’s gut health has a significant influence on the lifelong health of her baby.
Your top 5 are their same top 5.
You may not follow their recommendations as far as dosages to a T, but do you promote their nursing and pregnancy recommendations in your Healthy Baby Code as completely your own? You should at least give credit where credit is due…for their influence on you and your family’s nutrition. Are you a member of WAPF? Do you not feed raw milk kefir to your family or have said on your podcast how raw milk was so nourishing for your pregnant wife? Are you not speaking at the WAPF conference this coming November?
Claiming to be an unbiased ‘researcher’ delving into the raw milk data is disingenuous, Chris. It’s about as unbiased at Ted Beals, M.D.’s work, quoted by Beth below, which is very similar to your article here.
I said that I agree with much of their approach to nutrition. Did you miss that? Apparently so. I have also given credit to them on multiple occasions on my radio show and in my writing. And yes, I’m speaking at their conference. Does that make me a “follower”? No. It doesn’t interfere with my ability to think critically, or to disagree with them when I think they’re wrong.
Where is my “bias”? What do I have to gain from clarifying the data on raw milk safety? I don’t sell it, I don’t make money from it, I don’t have anything to gain from it. Period. I’m just a person that drinks raw milk, believes in its health benefits, and have determined through my own research that its risk has been overstated.
That is not bias, that is discernment and judgment.
I don’t think any one group or organization can claim they discovered the health benefits of milk, eggs, butter, cod liver oil, seafood etc… People where enjoying these nutrient dense food sources for thousands of years well before the birth of Weston A. Price and the WAPF organization founding in the late 1990′s. The important factor is not the messenger but rather the message itself and that the message gets out to as many people as possible from as many sources as possible. The end game is to help as many people as possible enjoy a healthy active life for as long as possible.
Kristen P: This is a good point “Claiming to be an unbiased ‘researcher’ delving into the raw milk data is disingenuous, Chris.” I’m not saying it is true. In fact you are making some strong assumptions and then this conclusion. You are seeing a connection between Chris and WAPF (speaking engagement), and you are seeing similar recommendations, and assuming collusion. That is not fair. Intuitive, possibly right, but not proven, and therefore not fair in my mind.
The reason I’m saying your point about claiming to be an unbiased researcher is good is this: people who are circumspect know the WAPF has a bias. It is not just an organization which spreads the word on ways to health. They reap their funds from small dairy, fish, egg, and meat companies which tend to run more “sustainable” businesses than the large Ag companies of the USA. So their word is slanted to favor those foods. For instance, in your cited WAPF article on foods for a pregnant mother or nursing mother, in the list of recommended foods, “fresh fruits and vegetables” comes in dead last. Lumped together like that, and right before the list of foods to avoid. Now I understand this is not a diet, with daily quantities of each item to consume, but the typical person reading this list will tend to chose foods from the top of the list first and try to work downward, but will regard foods at the end of the list with less respect. What will happen, if a mother treats this list in that way and disregards a proper intake of the last items on the list, is she will likely become constipated on day 2, and remain constipated for as long as she eats this way. Not only that, short of taking heavy loads of supplements, she will probably be way short on enzymes, minerals and many vitamins, not to mention roughage and microflora to keep her gut and therefore her immune system healthy! This is not the best example I have, but it is a good example of how WAPF distorts guidelines for healthy living in favor of the products of it’s sponsoring organizations, the small meat/dairy companies, which don’t care about vegetable sales.
As a result of your warning, (and I’ve given similar warnings to other health guru’s) I would advise Chris to be aware that being connected to the WAPF in any way, even via a speaking engagement, will tend to raise a flag in the minds of those of us who are looking for as unbiased sources as possible. This doesn’t say that Chris doesn’t do his own research, and that research is uninfluenced by the WAPF. I am not saying that his speaking before a WAPF audience makes him undependable, but I think it is important that he declare these things to his readers, and probably give a little extra qualifications and proof of his difference from the WAPF when he writes articles that might align with the WAPF bias.
What I would like to see as an example of that type qualification in Chris’s followup articles on Raw milk would be some discussion of milk as a food from a paleolithic diet point of view, since this is one point of view Chris has also written on before in a positive light. I think this is important because a Paleo diet is not totally in agreement with diet items that WAPF emphasizes. At this point in time, I believe for Chris to maintain credibility with his already secured audience, it is important for him to state exactly how he differs from the WAPF on issues concerning foods that they promote heavily. That will give me a greater level of trust in his “Medicine for the 21st Century”. I admit, this is just me. But I’m trying to help Chris remain credible, and the time to start is when the first item of question arises. I know there are those out there who think the WAPF is the cat’s meow. I say they have not done their research. It is a marketing tool, used successfully by certain purveyors of food. The WAPF helps companies sell food. The food happens to be healthy food, but one cannot live on WAPF marketed foods alone. Never do they give guidelines for how to weight your diet. They just push the foods of their sponsors, just as Madison Avenue companies push the foods of their clients.
For instance, the last workshop given by the WAPF regarding raw milk was on April 19, 2012 in Temecula, CA. It was titled “Raw Milk: The Benefits Abound”. Here’s the thumbnail they show:
“Come learn how to build and nourish your immune system by drinking raw milk!
Organic Pastures Dairy founder, Mark McAfee, will share the benefits of drinking raw, organic, unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk combining colorful PowerPoint slides, free raw milk samples and high energy speaking to enlighten and inform. Armed with truth and knowledge, your health will never be the same again. Join the 50,000 raw milk consumers in CA who have made this choice and have never looked back.”
This is claimed to be distributing “truth” but it sounds a lot more like a sales pitch to me.
Thanks again for raising a warning flag, Kristen. I wonder what the Organic Pastures Dairy speaker had to say regarding contamination risks. I wonder if anyone even asked a question. In my experience, WAPF audiences are very “faithful” people.
I think Chris covered this already above, so not sure why the need for such a lengthy post? If you have a thing against WAPF than that is your right/opinion. Chris is just discussing the topic regarding the safety of Raw milk.
No, SC, Chris did not cover this as probably Kristen, and definitely myself would wish him to cover it. It’s so simple. Let me lay it out for you.
If Chris really has no monetary or contract ties to the WAPF, he can very simply declare what his significant differences are with the aims of that organization – here and now! If he has ties, he will make some claims like he did above, but he won’t state his differences, as that will either break a contract he has with them, or cost him his chance to speak at their functions.
As Chris stated above, in his reply to Mary McGonigle-Martin “(FYI I’m not a “follower” of WAPF. I have a similar perspective on nutrition and health, but I don’t agree with everything they put out there. I rarely do in the case of any institution or organization.)”
I’m claiming that any unbiased researcher can state their perspective on health and compare themselves to other organizations and points of view. Chris does this all the time. He does it every time someone submits a comment questioning his point of view. He states his reasons for his difference with them. So lets ask him to state his differences with the WAPF line. To give us a few of their articles, quoted verbatim, and then state where he differs. If he can put it in print, we might want to accept him as unbiased, with respect to the WAPF at least. If he won’t do this, I say we are allowed to see him as helping to maintain the WAPF bias, possibly to avoid a financial loss or to increase a financial gain.
Per Kristen’s statement above, she already seems to assume Chris is aligned with the WAPF and will parrot their line. I am open minded. I’ll give him a chance to prove his independence from that organization by stating his differences in a significant way. The sooner the better. You would be willing to do the same, wouldn’t you? Are you a member of the WAPF? Simple question.
No, I am not a WAPF member. Even if Chris was a member which he said he is not, it would have no bearing on the information he is presenting regarding raw milk. He is simply stating some points to consider. These points can be disregarded, disputed or debated. Read the information and make your own decision on whether you feel raw milk is safe relative to the benefits. Obviously, Chris agrees with WAPF that raw milk is nutrious and safe relative to the risks. He has been upfront regarding his personal and his family’s consumption of raw milk.
Glenn,
I never said I wasn’t a member of WAPF. I am. This involves paying an annual membership fee ($30, if I recall). In return I get 6 issues of the WAPF journal. It has some interesting articles in it, some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t. I have tremendous respect for Chris Masterjohn, who is a frequent contributor. I also support much of the work they do in terms of nutrition education and advocacy for breastfeeding and natural child-rearing.
I receive no money from the WAPF. I’m not being paid to speak at the conference (though they do reimburse for travel expenses, which I won’t be incurring in this case since I live very close to where the conference is this year.) I have no “contract ties” with them, whatever that means. I think you have a vivid imagination when it comes to the WAPF. As far as I know, they don’t have people under “contract”. And if they uninvited me to speak at their conference because I disagreed with them on something, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. I’m not employed by them, nor do I represent them. I have nothing to gain by promoting their approach when I agree with it, nor anything to lose when I disagree with it.
I don’t feel the need to list where I agree and disagree with WAPF, because I don’t feel a need to defend my credibility. My blog, radio show and other activities establish whether I’m credible or not far more than what you or I say or don’t say. Just as Lynn said.
That said, if you’re familiar with WAPF claims for the benefits of raw milk, you will see where I disagree to some extent in my article on raw milk benefits on Friday.
Chris… did not mean to mis-quote you on the WAPF mebership. Like I said, either way it’s a non issue.
Chris, SC and Lynn –
I only suggested Chris make some statements about his differences with WAPF to help clear his name from what Kristen seemed to be asserting: That he was somehow aligned with them, or promoting purely their viewpoint. I’m looking forward to his statement of some of these differences along with all the other new information he provides in his upcoming article.
For me, when someone suggest that I am no longer believable, that becomes the priority, over and above the subject at hand. So that’s how I began treating my input on this forum once the question was raised by Kristen.
I am all in favor of Chris making it clear that he is not some kind of pawn of the WAPF so we can continue this discussion normally. He has done a lot of that in his reply to me.
SC, you are right that even if Chris is a member, it should have no bearing on his ability to come to his own conclusions regarding raw milk. Membership was never my focus. I raised the question of contracts or other financial ties because that is far more important to keeping one’s free agency.
What the average person does not understand about WAPF is that the dues you pay as a member is only part of their income. They receive considerable money from what they call “sponsors”: companies that pay for booths at their conferences. Companies pay to be “sponsors” and those same company’s products are then touted by the WAPF speakers at these conferences. I’m not saying the generic product, like “beef” or “raw milk” is touted. I’m saying the specific products of a company. So if Organic Pastures Dairy is a sponsor at an event for example, the WAPF speaker can be expected to push their products, even if those products were found tainted in a recent outbreak of e-coli. It is a way to advertise product. It is far from the origins of Price and his research. The average WAPF member thinks the organization takes their membership dues, and uses it to help spread the word on eating more natural foods. But the members are actually just being used, because their donations toward membership has the effect of making “believers” and “supporters” out of them. They have, in their minds, joined a “cause”. WAPF puts on the face of “representing the little farmer” and members jump on the band wagon. A lot of this started when vegetarians and vegans and the low-fat proponents (which were some very big food industry companies) were giving the animal product producers a really hard time, for example with commercials selling low-fat foods. For WAPF to support local meat and dairy farm products that are raised more naturally seemed a logical thing to do. As it happens though, it turned into big business. And this is my only problem with WAPF. They are functioning as an advertising arm of an industry (not a huge and unhealthy industry, but an industry all the same), and claiming to be something else. And some of these “small” farms are now quite large businesses, and they really enjoy having a non-profit organization help them advertise.
Please read Kristen Papac’s post which follows this. She is a past WAPF member who has delved farther into seeking truth and has found information which she never would have been provided by WAPF. It might behoove us all to delve into her blog. WAPF is not about research, except to help sell product of sponsors. It is not about truth, if that means the whole truth. It is about enough truth to sell product, but no more, and no negative-side truth. That is NOT truth.
Please read the WAPF mission statement, found under their “About Us” tab on their main page: http://www.westonaprice.org/
That is where they have their chance to convince the member that they are just a knowledge dissemination organization. In this mission statement they say “The Foundation is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism.” Well, it is commonly accepted that the most nutrient dense foods are vegetables. But vegetables are never an item for discussion at a WAPF conference. Why is that?
Weston Price considered the intake of raw vegetables very important, and went so far as to recommend a lacto-vegetarian diet to his family.
The mission statement concludes with “PLEASE NOTE: The Weston A. Price Foundation is NOT a trade association.”. Why do they need to put this in if they don’t resemble a trade association? It’s all just a sales pitch, masked as enlightenment. It’s too bad we can’t see their income statement, isn’t it? As Kristen says, “Sally Fallon-Morell has probably made a lot of money off this organization”.
Notes:
There are several ways to determine “nutrient rich”. Here are a few, and the WAPF doesn’t push these foods, though their charter says they want to restore nutrient dense foods to the human diet:
1. Anti-oxidants contained —
http://www.generationsoforganic.org/news/latest-news/the-top-12-organic-foods-highest-in-antioxidants/
2. Total nutrient mix —
http://www.generationsoforganic.org/news/latest-news/the-top-12-organic-foods-highest-in-antioxidants/
3. Life Extension Foundation’s ANDI score —
http://blog.lef.org/2011/11/most-nutrient-dense-foods.html
First off, I am a WAPFer and a raw milk drinker for many years. I therefore have “bias,” and I also enjoy excellent health. I feel compelled to comment about your perception of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Its purpose is to, “disseminate the research of nutrition pioneer Dr. Weston Price, whose studies of isolated nonindustrialized peoples established the parameters of human health and determined the optimum characteristics of human diets.” Read Dr. Price’s, “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” to get an understanding why the Foundation promotes the foods it does. The Foundation is a membership-driven organization and does not, “reap their funds from small dairy, fish, egg, and meat companies” nor is it a “marketing tool.” The Foundation has also been accused of taking money from Big Ag, from the meat and dairy industry. My understanding is that through membership fees are they able to remain a functioning non-profit organization. Personally I am thrilled Chris is coming to speak to us in November, apparently he is able to put aside his differences and disagreements with some of the Foundation’s recommendations. I don’t agree with everything coming from the Foundation either, much has been learned in the years since Dr. Price’s book was published. If a presenter had to agree 100%, I’d bet there’d be no speakers at all. I think the focus should be on what we have in common – finding our individual paths to optimal health. That takes discussion, forums, and yes, disagreements and debates. One last comment: I can’t imagine Chris needs your help to “remain credible.”
Thanks for your reply Lynn. You admit you have a bias. I have no complaint with how you operate! Stay healthy. Seek out alternative points of view to help balance your bias. Be happy we are all here on this earth communicating. It enriches the learning experience.
Glenn,
I just want it made clear that I have not claimed to be unbiased in this matter of raw milk. I used to feed it to my children and family. My husband had very strong objections to feeding raw milk to our children. I ignored him because I was strongly biased because of my involvement in WAPF. Unlike Chris, I did not know how to do a cost/benefit analysis. My husband did, and he tried to talk with me about his concerns, but I was one of the “faithful”.
I believed their propaganda that raw milk miraculously kills pathogens…to the point that it makes it safe for children to consume. Even if they are not promoting that argument anymore, it is still a prevalent belief in WAPF culture and they haven’t exactly clarified the already muddied water. You can read about my frustrations with WAPF on my blog linked to above.
As for WAPF’s funding, it appears that Sally Fallon-Morell has made a lot of money from her WAP Foundation. I could be wrong about that and I have not the paper documents to prove this yet, so I cannot speak of my theory publicly. Many of my old acquaintances in WAPF would definitely fall under the category of “believers”. In fact I wrote a post about leaving WAPF’s group think mentality.
As for Mark McAfee, I have a select few words for him and none of them are pretty. The latest example: Currently his Organic Pastures is under recall for Campylobacter and he has told his consumer base to keep right on drinking his raw milk they have stored up. He is an excellent salesman.
SC,
Why attack Glenn? He writes a lot but seems to be able to entertain both sides of an argument which is more than I can say for you. He writes a lot, so what?
Best,
Kristen
I would not classify my post as attack oriented unlike your posts regarding WAPF. Seems like you are trying to use Chris’s post as an opportuntiy to attack WAPF. I don’t recall Chris mentioning WAPF in his article.
Kristen,
I can just say it is great to have someone around who’s seen both sides of the WAPF. I’m sure your eyes are far wider open than any of us who have only been outside it, or are still inside it. Thanks for your insight. If I were going to have to trust someone to represent to me what was the meaning and value of the WAPF, it would be someone who has been there and back, like yourself. Stick around! Money can hardly buy your experience, and it probably can’t buy your silence either. All the best.
Glenn,
You are my new BFF. When can we meet for drinks? Lol.
More seriously, there are a few of us ex-WAPFers out there. It’s been a wild ride for sure. It’s been a heartbreaking to see the ugly side of people you once idolized or thought were caring people, but also a time of great personal maturation. I’ve learned to not cry over people who would definitely not cry over me. I’ve gotten a lot of support, but support from a caring stranger is the best kind. It’s nice to feel heard.
I thought that no one was my guru before this whole mess, including what has been written here, but now I truly know the meaning of that statement. I am in total control of my health and the health of my family now, and with that comes great responsibility.
If you want to talk further, you can contact me via Facebook or Twitter (@kikiphotog).
All the best,
Kristen
Important for “her” perspective for mine and yours not so much.
Um, that would be because the outbreak turned out to have nothing to do with raw milk and McAfee knew it. CDFA jumped the gun, big time. The reason McAfee has a megaphone the size he does is that CA’s approach to raw milk regulation excludes small dairies, chokes all production into a couple of dairies big enough to afford complying with the regs, and drives the price through the roof. In the past half dozen years, we have moved back and forth between the St Louis area and the San Jose area a few times. In SJ, I have to do business with Organic Pastures or Claravale–there is no one else. I do business with Claravale, but I think even their farm is too big and not local enough. When I was in St Louis, I bought my raw milk from a local farmer, whose operation I could visit by driving an hour out into the country. The farmer brought the milk into the city once a week, so it was her we talked to every time (MO allows direct farmer-to-customer sales of raw milk ONLY), and I bought both my milk from her and free range eggs, as well, both produced in conditions I approved of–and for 25% of the price either commands in the Bay Area. But, aside from requiring direct sales, the MO government stays out of the matter (generally, anyway–the AG had a burr under his saddle a couple of years ago about off-farm deliveries, but he lost in court)
If you want to know what Mark McAfee has to say about raw milk risks, search his name on you tube. He’s not a quiet man!
So WAPF gets their funding from “small farmers”, etc. I would like to see evidence that it gets most of its funding from anything much but individual membership fees and donations. Frankly, I’ve lived in farm country most of my life (not now, but 36 out of 40 years so far, I’ve lived in the rural Midwest). Small farmers hardly ever have money to blow–or much to donate. I’m lovin’ the slow food/whole foods/traditional food/WAPF movement because it might be the one thing that can finally save the real American family farm (not the modern “family farm” where they have 1000′s of acres of GMO corn on contract to ADM or Cargill or whoever)
WAPF and associated orgs, such as the FTCLDF, are poking the powers that be with a pointy stick in some tender spots…and the poked are trying to find ways to slander the poker into oblivion.
Being a dairy goat farmer in the tropics this is a topic close to my heart.
Raw milk is not pathogenic in itself. It is only contaminated raw milk that is problematic and that depends on the pathogen with which the milk is infected, of which there are many.
There are two ways milk can be contaminated:
i. in the udder of the goat (or cow) by reason of infection; or
ii. in the handling of the milk from milking to cheese making. Farms are inherently dirty places. Even if you follow the best practices (as I endevour to do), you can’t stop the occasional hair falling into the milk bucket and you can’t stop the animals pooping in the environment.
We do a weekly CMT test for all of our milking does. CMT is the California Mastitis Test which tests for somatic cells in the milk. Each udder of each doe is tested. There are four grades of result:
i. clear, slight, medium, which indicate either subclinical mastitis or the end of a lactation period (around 30 to 40 weeks of milking) and
ii. high, which we treat as clinical mastitis.
Only the milk of does with a “high” result is destroyed. The “subclinical” milk goes into the pot to make cheese along with the ‘clear’. We do a very slow semi-pastuerization: one hour to reach 165 degrees F on a very small flame and, upon reaching 165 degrees, the heat is extinguished immediately.
Every CMT test reveals at least one or two does with a “slight” result in at least one udder. That means that our daily milk batch always has a chance of being infected. In the rare cases where the doe tests “high” the infected milk could be mixed with the unifected milk for a few days before it is detected and eliminated. This is one reason that I prefer to do the pasteurization.
Nonetheless, a lab report on our cheese reports no staphylococcus aureus, no salmonella, no lysteria monocytogenes and bacillus cereus at only 2% of the guideline limit. You can see a copy of the report on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/luludaisy
We also have many customers who, by special request, purchase raw milk. None of them has reported any illness after drinking it. On the contrary, one is convinced that the raw milk has ‘magical properties’, so much so that I’ve started to try the raw milk myself for yogurt.
Great post, Chris.
Readers may be interested in the perspective provided by this rebuttal to the most recent CDC report on the subject:
http://www.westonaprice.org/press/cdc-cherry-picks-data-to-make-case-against-raw-milk
as well as this research done by pathologist Ted Beals:
http://www.realmilk.com/real-milk-pathogens.html
Here’s Beals’ other article on the pathogen-killing ability of raw milk:
http://www.realmilk.com/documents/PathogensinRawMilk.pdf
It’s in response to a white paper I wrote to provide readers with information about the peer-reviewed literature on the topic. I asked Beals for citations on his general conclusion and have waited nearly two years for a response.
The bottom line is that a choice for raw milk cannot be free if consumers are not informed. The urban legend about Mark McAfee spiking his milk with pathogens and those pathogens disappearing does nothing to help consumer choice. That was the big discussion here:
http://www.ethicurean.com/2009/07/20/raw-milk-mem/
There have also been strange situations where consumers thought their farmer had one type of practice (e.g. grass fed) only to end up in an outbreak with pictures from the state about dirt pens. These situations are an affront to free choice. I wrote a buyer’s guide to help consumers analyze their farm:
http://www.traditional-foods.com/sourcing/raw-milk/
Amanda
I agree that the claim that raw milk kills pathogens cannot be supported by the current data. On Friday I will be publishing an article about the potential benefits and advantages of raw milk, and while there is some very limited data suggesting that certain pathogens are less likely to proliferate in raw milk, it’s not solid evidence at all.
Thanks for the link to your guide. I will include it in Part 3 of this series where I discuss a framework for evaluating whether raw milk is a good choice for you and your family, and how to minimize risk.
Awesome, Chris!
I was thinking of the fact that so many families consumed raw milk in the good ol’ days and didn’t get ill. I asked my husband, and he hypothesized that maybe there are new, more virulent strains of e coli and other bacteria which did not exist before the age of intensive monocultures and CAFOs, that what used to be safe is no longer safe. Thoughts?
Hey Glenn, I couldn’t respond to your last comment in order for some reason, so I’ll add my thoughts here.
While you may be at peace with the spirit of Chris’ argument, that’s your opinion and you are entitled to it, but please don’t attempt to speak for everyone else. I don’t see how you can conclude that other people are comfortable with the risks as well. I am certainly not comfortable with the risks. The 1 in 2800 number isn’t the worst-case scenario, it is the most fair comparison. If you use the CDC data then the 1 in 2800 number becomes much worse. Also if you take into account that children are more likely to be sickened, that is an issue that should be considered by many families. It is an important point that wasn’t even mentioned in this article. For example take a look at the latest outbreak in Campylobacter from Organic Pastures a few days ago. Six of the ten people sickened are under 18. In the e coli outbreak in Oregon, 15 of the 19 were under 19 years old.
Fortunately your children grew up without any problems. Count your blessings. Mary McGonigle-Martin’s child wasn’t so lucky. How long ago did your children grow up? Were there as many CAFO farms and e coli outbreaks back then as there are now?
When you have outbreaks like this, no amount of “safe-handling” is going to avoid the problem. And your idea about rotating to a new batch of milk to avoid kidney failure is way too little too late. The genie is already out of the bottle at that point.
Joe: “Also if you take into account that children are more likely to be sickened, that is an issue that should be considered by many families. It is an important point that wasn’t even mentioned in this article. For example take a look at the latest outbreak in Campylobacter from Organic Pastures a few days ago. Six of the ten people sickened are under 18. In the e coli outbreak in Oregon, 15 of the 19 were under 19 years old.”
Thank you for making that point and your data analysis above. I get frustrated with the comparison to automobile travel aside from data analysis because in most cases automobile travel is necessary. The gov’t lawmakers, enforcers, and safety experts have made the automobile industry highly regulated when it comes to the safety of our children. Here in CA, you can’t even leave the hospital without showing the nurse a properly installed car seat for your infant.
What is the raw milk industry doing about PROPER education about raw milk safety? Mark McAfee’s RAWMI? That seems like a joke because he has had 6 recalls in the past 6 years. The gov’t is focused on crackdown and recalls. Who loses in the meantime? The children.
On further reflection, the point of my post, above, is:
i. There is no standardized product called raw milk. One of the reasons that people are against raw milk is that it is not regulated, so it could contain anything.
ii. From my experience, all raw miilk will probably contain some pathogens. The question is degree.
iii. The “less than one in a million” chance of sickness statistic indicates that most of the time the pathogens won’t harm you.
If you’re still concerned, what’s the solution? Test! Buy a bottle of CMT solution and test your raw milk. If the milk is dangerously infected you’ll probably find out within a few seconds.
Correction. There many standards for raw milk. The Raw Milk Association of Colorado, for example, gives a Seal of Excellence to those who follow its standards:
http://www.rawmilkcolorado.org/dairy_standards.php
Is there any way to know the statistics of the fermented raw milk versus raw milk? Is raw cheese, raw butter, etc ever caused kidney failure?
I’ve never seen any statistics on fermented dairy. According to the CSPI, there has never been an outbreak associated with commercial, properly aged raw cheese. The outbreaks associated with raw milk cheese have been from “Queso Fresco” style homemade cheese.
[quote=Chris]
So far, you have raised one issue with my numbers, which I have addressed (as has Glenn). That does not change the basic thrust of this article. Furthermore, even if the risk of getting ill from drinking raw milk were 1 in 2,800, which I don’t accept for the reasons I mentioned, that is less than 3 times more than the risk of dying in a car crash. Those illnesses may include things as mild as an upset stomach and a little diarrhea. The risk of becoming hospitalized with a serious disease is still orders of magnitude lower than the risk of dying in a car crash. Do you dispute that?[/quote]
Yes, I raised an issue with your numbers and you haven’t acknowledged that the absolute comparison examples in the article are bad comparisons. You’ve provided a very weak hypothetical phenomenon as justification for EXCLUDING ALL OF THE UNREPORTED ILLNESSES FROM YOUR COMPARISONS. Furthermore, your comparisons are all done in terms of ABSOLUTE RISK. This is very misleading. Glenn also recognized this point when he said: “I appreciate that you are pointing out that the risk comparison in this article is not accurate. I agree with you.” And why shouldn’t he agree? Your numbers are clearly wrong.
I didn’t come up with the ratio of reported/actual foodborne illness. In your own writing: “In 1999, CDC scientists used an estimate of the overall prevalence of diarrhea and vomiting to calculate the “true” incidence of foodborne illness as 76 million cases per year! Put another way, 99.97% of foodborne illnesses go unreported.” I do not believe that you have adequately addressed this unfair comparison. If you don’t accept the 97.7% ratio, then what do you propose to do, make up a number? How is that going to benefit the analysis? Do you think it’s still appropriate to exclude all of the unreported illnesses, which is admittedly the vast majority? Don’t you think that it makes a difference when you say that “you are about 12 times more likely to die in a car crash on your way to pick up your raw milk than you are to get sick from drinking it” even though it would be more fair to say that you are about 2.5 times more likely to get sick from drinking raw milk (1 in 3200) than you are to die in a car accident (1 in 8000)? I agree when you say “The risk of becoming hospitalized with a serious disease is still orders of magnitude lower than the risk of dying in a car crash.” I’ve never disputed that since there would be very few serious illnesses that go unreported.
[quote=Chris]
You are discounting the idea that raw milk numbers are skewed, yet accepting as fact the estimate for total foodborne illnesses each year – which is just a guess not based on any culture-confirmation or other empirical data. That’s a double standard.
[\quote]
I’m not discounting the idea that raw milk numbers are skewed. In fact, as I stated earlier, if you believe the numbers are skewed against raw milk, then you can’t use any of the data. If they are skewed, then you can’t use the reported statistics! The stated intent of this article is to “give you the bare facts without bias or hyperbole so you can make an informed decision about whether raw milk is a good choice for you and your family.” You have chosen to accept these statistics, not me. You argue that the absolute risk of getting sick from raw milk is extremely small. I’m pointing out that the numbers that you use to calculate absolute risk of getting sick are grossly understated since they don’t include the vast majority of the illnesses. I also am showing you a more accurate comparison by including the 97.7% estimate of the ratio. This is not a double standard, this is a fair comparison.
[quote=Chris]
If you want to stick with only empirical data, then we should be discussing safety numbers based on reported illnesses adjusted for consumption. That’s what this article does.[\quote]
We can discuss only empirical data if you want to stay away from the estimate of the unreported/reported illnesses. In my opinion, this is the most fair and accurate thing to do. That means we can’t argue the absolute risk of getting sick from raw milk at all. We don’t have any data that shows the total number of illnesses from drinking raw milk. We can still compare the relative risks of drinking raw milk to other foods and to pasteurized milk which the article has done. But we can not compare raw milk safety against any other activities!
As the article stands now, it is incorrect. You need to either correct your numbers or take out the absolute risk comparisons with other activities. Maybe it doesn’t change the basic thrust of the article, or maybe it does. That’s up to the reader to decide. Regardless, the numbers have to be accurate.
Joe seems to have his own agenda. He keeps going on (and on) about the 99.97% of foodborne illnesses that go unreported and how this skews the comparison to car accidents. Do we report 100% of car accidents… every little scratch and dent? I don’t think so. I do not understand why keep ranting about it. In my mind unreported means not significant enough to report, be that food or car-related “injury”. I do not see why we should be concerning ourselves with unreported illnesses.
You say “you can’t pick and choose data or throw out certain data points or else your work is not objective and is actually harmful to the community…”. Yet, that’s exactly what you seem to be doing.
Thanks Chris for the clarification. I meant to distinguish between regular raw cheese and queso fresco statistics since I buy Organic Valley’s raw cheese at Whole Foods.
I really dislike that it seems health authors/bloggers can’t write an article and discuss raw milk without WAPF being dragged into it. No wonder more paleo writers don’t address the issue. Finally, Chris is providing an attempt to see if WAPF’s information is acurate. Bravo Chris. I’m looking forward to the rest.
FYI: Organic Valley’s “raw” cheeses are, “heat treated 158 degrees for 15 seconds.” and do not meet the pasteurization requirement of “a minimum of 161 degrees F for 15 seconds or more” and thus can be legally labeled “raw.” This plus other irritations with OV have led me to look elsewhere for truly raw cheeses such as Sierra Nevada Cheese Company. The milk used for their raw line of organic cheeses is heated to under 104 F which not only retains more of what we want from dairy but also results in more interesting flavor profiles.
@Lynn: I didn’t know that. I’ll look into Sierra. Thanks.
Chris, please address my comment above. You are claiming to be an unbiased researcher, yet your analysis in the article contains serious flaws. It has not been peer-reviewed and it is in a public forum. I am calling you out on your erroneous statistics which you claim as facts, not your opinion or conclusions.
Please correct your article or rename it Raw Milk Hyperbole because as it stands, it is not Raw Milk Reality.
Joe,
I’ve been thinking about your comments, and also attending to the many other obligations I have. While I don’t agree with all of your critiques, I do accept your point that it’s unfair to compare two activities with different levels of reported and unreported risks. i.e. if many illnesses caused by raw milk or other foods are not reported, and virtually all car accidents are reported, it’s not accurate to compare those two numbers.
Tomorrow or Saturday I plan to edit the article. In the case of raw milk illness, I will compare them only to other reported foodborne illness risk. In the case of hospitalizations from raw milk illness, I think it is still fair to compare them to motor vehicle accidents and plane crashes (although imperfect because such comparisons don’t adjust for frequency of travel/consumption). As you conceded, it’s likely that the vast majority of hospitalizations caused by raw milk are reported.
Beyond that, I have addressed your other comments and I maintain that the data and analysis in this article are sound.
I think you did an excellent job assessing the risks, but I found fault in your use of 2010 population numbers as a basis for estimating percentage risk based on 2000-2007 data for raw milk. It’s a minor issue, but it does skew the risk of illness lower amount by using a population figure that is larger than when the data were recorded. The 2010 census reported 308,745,538 people in the United States, and the 2000 census reported 281,421,906 people. I don’t recall any reason for dramatic shifts in the U.S. population, and a linear estimate would presume that the average population from 2000-2007 was 290,985,177, but it would be most accurate to specify a range (e.g. illness risk from 2000-2007 is between illnesses/308,745,538 and illnesses/281,421,906).
Chris,
I realize you are addressing the safety of RAW milk vs. industrial milk, but do you address anywhere the safety of milk in general, whether raw or pasteurized/homogenized. I’m thinking of Pedro Bastos’ work (See AHS 2011 presentation or this blog post: http://www.paleoplan.com/2011/08-15/pedro-bastos-on-dairy/) where he points out that milk is intended as a postnatal food to stimulate rapid growth. Industrial milking practices, which includes some RAW milk dairies, milk cows year-round outside of the roughly 5 months they would produce milk naturally, and therefore may introduce even more estrogen and other hormones into an already hormone-heavy substance.
Bastos raises concerns for me that ANY milk will be insuligenic and increase IGF-1, which may promote cell proliferation and cancer. Hormone levels, whether “normal” for milk or elevated due to year round milking raise other concerns.
To draw a parallel, I wonder if discussing RAW vs. pasteurized milk is somewhat like discussing white vs. whole wheat flour. Are we perhaps better off without it altogether?
Thanks,
Aubrey
Good point Aubrey.
I touched on the Paleo Diet exclusion in my comment back on May 9th. Chris has covered the paleolithic diet in the past and so I too would like him to revisit the subject of dairy in light of Paleo Diet guidelines some time in the future. I think it would make for an interesting investigation. Pedro Bastos has begun to delve into it, but I’m sure there are a lot of studies out there that reflect on this issue.
Thanks for bringing this up.
I’ve seen those mechanistic arguments, but most studies that look at actual humans consuming dairy in a free-living environment find that dairy (especially full-fat dairy) is associated with health benefits – not problems. When you consider that most of the people in these studies are probably drinking dairy from factory-farmed, grain-fed cows, that’s interesting.
My point exactly! Where are the studies showing full-fat, unprocessed milk from pastured cows, let’s go so far as even A2/A2 cows, is harmful to human health? I sent this question to Robb Wolf with the subject line, “Dairy-bashing.” Okay, so Paleo-man didn’t have domesticated animals to milk, they also didn’t have buckets, ropes, fences or could stay in one place long enough to develop a milking herd. Just because it wasn’t in the hunter-gatherer diet doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be consumed or was/is harmful. My understanding is that raw milk is the one and only food that can sustain human life for any length of time!
Hi Chris: Our organization is pro .food choice and that includes raw milk in Canada. As the name suggests our basic philosophy is Anti Corruption for the simple reason corruption is a major issue in accessing clean, natural home grown food as well as most of our modern social problems. We are gathering members as I write and will soon become a registered political party in Canada. Cheers on the good work and please help us out if you can. When we are successful in Canada the movement will spread as there is no shortage of corrupt officials in the world. Royce Hamer Leader
I grew up in a farming community in Germany. It was my job to go get milk from the neighbor’s farm every night when I was a kid. The milk was not pasteurized. Most nights nearly 1/2 the milk would be gone before I got home, so I’d have to go back and get more. I used to love drinking that milk. In the late 70′s we moved to Canada. No more milk straight from the cow. The first time I had milk from the store I spit it out, because it tasted strange, not like the milk I was used to. I haven’t had a glass of milk since.
In all the years that we were drinking raw milk none of our family members nor any of the neighbors who got their milk from the farm ever got sick. I really don’t know what the negative hype is all about. The cows our milk came from were kept in pasture during the day, walked through the upper part of the village back home, had their udders cleaned and were milked. They were fed and moved back to pasture in the morning.
Maybe it’s the way cows are kept today – in massive milking operations, up to their knees in their own excrement. They’re pumped full of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, growth hormones, etc. I could certainly see the milk from these types of businesses being contaminated with all sorts of ‘crap’.
If we kept our livestock the way it was supposed to be kept – outdoors in pasture – we probably wouldn’t have so many food-borne illnesses.
Hi Chris,
I apologize if the answer to this question is readily apparent, but somehow I’ve been unable to find it. Where do I locate the two follow-up articles which you mentioned you were going to write? I would really like to read them and share them on Facebook with my family and friends.
~Bernice
What a great discussion. The data is accurate and the tone is fair.
As fall all the debate about recalls and illnesses, I find in fascinating that in 2006 1600 people were sickened and seven were hopsitalized from campylobacter after drinking PASTEURIZED milk from a CDFA inspected creamery…The CDFA published no Press Release and there was no creamery shut down. The creamery resumed operations in three hours.
Suffice it to say that recalls and illness pronouncements are a huge political tool. A tool used in an attempt to destroy raw milk.
When people say that OPDC sickened six in 2011…that is not accurate. Five were listed in the PULSENET data base….but only two were hospitalized. Those two did not drink raw milk….they drank raw milk Kefir that their mom made at home with store bought kefir cultures.
So do not believe the stories or the news. The agenda against raw milk is huge. Raw Milk is dangerous to one group of people…the processors and their profits. To the consumer it is a GODSEND. It heals asthma and kids stop dying from asthma and GUT related disorders. Last year 4000 kids died from asthma…yet asthma is cured by RAWMILK. See the huge studies in EU ( PARSIFAL and GABRIELA ).
The most allergenic food in America is PASTEURIZED MILK!!! It has killed 8 kids since 1998. Not from bad bugs, but from dairy allergies.
Market dollar voting tells the truth of it all. OPDC is thriving when conventional dairies are dying. 28 dairies in Fresno CO are in bankruptcy right now. OPDC grew 29% this last year.
We are very very serious about pathogens and even have our own lab to test and do 12 each day. We are leading America to a better place..A place where immune systems work and kids thrive.
Processors and their buddies at the FDA suck and that is the truth. Their plan to sterilize our food so it is easier to distribute and lasts longer on a shelf…sucks.
At OPDC we produce real living food for people and the HUMAN GUT….not the shelf.
Mark McAfee
Founder OPDC
Mark, funny how you left out the fact that the 2006 pasteurized outbreak you refer to happened at a prison. There was a malfunction with the pasteurization equipment and of course many prisoners became ill. This was not a public health threat to the general public. You are so the master of spin.
As for talking about the 2011 outbreak and the kefir—spin again. Yes the mother made kefir with the RAW MILK SHE BOUGHT FROM YOUR DAIRY. If it hadn’t been contaminated with E.coli 0157:H7 (which they found the matching fingerprint on your farm) the kids would have never become ill. Stop with all the spin and fess up to the fact your milk made kids ill. Have you learned nothing from the 2006 outbreak? You don’t want to piss off the mother lion.
Gosh , Mary, pasteurization machines can break down any time , at any dairy, not just at ones that sell to prisons. Anyway, how is it germane that it was prisoners who were stricken? Are you implying that since they were in jail they deserve to be sick so the public shouldn’t be concerned about their health? Pasteurizers are not fail proof – which is particularly dangerous if you are drinking milk from sick CAFO cows – and therefore CAN be a danger to the non-imprisoned general public.
Mary,
One thing I have come to respect is mother lions and the love they have for their RAWMILK. Instead of attacking OPDC and me why don’t you attack a mother lion that loves raw milk. That would be a real fight….
Prison or no prison,…..CDFA did not bother to write a press release. They kept it all very quiet. That is pure bias. It was their embarrassment. Instead they wrote a very nasty press release filled with assumptions all about RAWMILK and OPDC. When CDFA had discovered their screw up and realized they could find no smoking gun at OPDC they paid us for the recall and signed a release and agreement to keep CDFA from being sued for a false unfounded recall. ( for anyone that wants to see the cancelled CDFA check and the release settlement agreement between CDFA and OPDC I would be glad to share it ). Lets all remember that the 2006 Spinach recall killed 3 and hospitalized 200. The CDFA recall of OPDC products happened in the middle of the Spinach recall. The DNA fingerprints associated with any sick kids and the OPDC recall could never be found at OPDC or in any of our products or cows. CDFA could prove no connection between OPDC and any sick kids. Nothing….it was all pure assumptions. Assumption that can not be used in a court of law. In a court of law…. “causation” can only be proven with facts.
You call it spin…I call it telling the rest of the story.
Ok lets get down into the dirt. If you want to talk about the whole truth. ‘
Why don’t you tell the world about your son. Did he ever have Ecoli 0157H7 ever detected in his body???
The answer is no. You also admitted to investigators that your son consumed lettuce!!! It is in the court papers.
There is no connection between OPDC raw milk ( which never tested positive with ecoli ) and Chris Martin.
Mary…lets all face it. What happened to your son is horrible. I never want that to ever happen to any child anywhere.
But….you have taken this illness ( which he has completely recovered from ) and made it a sick mission for your life. You deny any benefits to raw milk. You dig up 6 year old history….you can never let go.
Most of all….you give no credit to OPDC or raw milk for all the good things it does. Like….saving childrens lives that would have died from Asthma. 4000 children die from Asthma every year…yet Raw Milk Cures Asthma.
Where is the balance in your heart. You got a ton of money from our insurance company to settle this matter, because of Marlers scare tactics ( like a false video tape that he created and posted on the internet that he nearly got sued over ). Yet you persist in attacking OPDC and me. Why can’t you leave this alone and go on with life.
I thought we bought peace with you.
I am also a father lion for raw milk surrounded by tens of thousands of mother lions that love their raw milk and the health is has brought their children.
Mary….I prefer love and peace, but I will fight to protect peace and love. Can we just let this matter settle?
Can we just love our children and nourish their safety and health. I am very very glad that Chris is well. Perhaps you should be glad as well and stop the persistent super negative attacks.
Mark, once again you have your facts wrong. I think you need to check with your insurance company about the payout. Is it possible you have no clue? I will email you the correct facts.
For everyone that is interested. Pastuerized milk is listed as THE MOST ALLERGENIC FOOD IN AMERICA at the FDA website…to find this data, GOOGLE “most allergenic food in America” and it will pop up very quickly.
8 children have died since 1998 after consumption of pasteurized milk. This was perfectly pasteurized milk with no living bacteria left in it….the deaths occured because the Milk was dead…this a food that kills when it done right!!!
These are deaths that occured from consuming properly pasteurized milk…ie… “super-allergenic-food” and the paramedics could not get to the child fast enough to intubate, do CPR and push epinephrine. These are dead kids!!! Death by pastuerized CAFO milk!!!
Raw milk is known the world over as a “super non allergenic food” that stabilizes MAST cells and stops allergic reactions and reverses Asthma 9 among lots of other great things ). The EU raw milk studies are clear as crystal. PARSIFAL and GABRIELA are both peer reviewed and published. 23,000 kids that drank raw milk in EU studied for six years showed the dramatic decrease in Asthma, excema and allergies.
Breast milk is Raw Milk….breast milk is not sterile. Kids thrive on breast milk!! Bacteria are critical to life and immune system function. That is why all of the baby formula producers are rushing to add bacteria into baby formula.
When you pick on OPDC you are picking on an “educational-warrior”. We will teach and teach and teach…The truth is clear and it is just a matter of time before the big lie of dirty dead foods is uncovered completely for all to see.
Aubrey,
When you discuss milk…try reaching back more than 120 years and look at the tens of thousands of years prior to the last 120 years.
People that had access to raw milk ( and all the wonderful products made from it ) from all sorts of mammals had a decided advantage over those that did not. It created a protein and fat rich super food from grass, water and sunshine. People do not eat grass very well, we do not have four stomachs like cows. Where ever there was sun and grass, there was food if you had a milk giving mammal. Milk was a complete food and people stopped starving.
Super markets give anti-milk people all sorts of excuses and easy alternatives. Take away the super markets and people will pray for a goat or a cow in the back yard with some grass.
We forget history so quickly as humans on this planet.
Chris, I am reading this article. It is great. I was raised on raw cows’ milk. Have milked many a cow in my day. I drank maybe a gallon a day by myself.
Now I raise Nigerian Dwarf and Mini Nubian goats for raw milk.
Could you email me privately? I have a couple of questions.
thanks,
Peggy
Mark or Chris,
I am a huge fan of raw milk, fortunate to have a local source and have drank it for 4 years with beneficial effects. Question: those with autoimmune challenges have been told to avoid dairy because the proteins resemble gliadin. Would that be true with pasteurized milk only or also raw milk? I would think raw would be safe and pastuerized not because the heat denatures the milk protein? Any insight would most be most appreciated. Thank you.
Hi all,
In doing raw milk research I came across a Cornell University study of CDC illnesses regarding the years between 1972 and 2007. The data was shocking.
422,000 illnesses from pasteurized milk with 22 deaths. The CDC also failed to count 50 deaths from the pasteurized cheese listeria outbreak in 1985 at Jalisco Cheese Co in CA. So the real number was about 77 deaths from pasteurized dairy products.
11,000 illnesses were listed for raw milk and raw dairy products for the same time period…..and ZERO deaths.
It we assume that 3% of US citizens drink raw milk ( CDC data ). Assuming 330 million people in the USA, then the numbers are like this.
The rate of illness from pasteurized milk over the period is = .0012%
The rate of illness from raw milk over the period is = .0011%
They are practically identical.
The rate of death from pasteurized milk or dairy products is 77 souls….and none from raw milk!!!
I rest my case.
The only people hurt by raw milk is the Big Indistrial Monopolies that can not make any money off of raw milk. Raw milk must come from real farmers that care and work hard. Raw milk can not be faked or outsourced. It is true food and it is the greatest immune food on earth. You never mess with several million years of natural evolution and biologic selection. Raw milk is the perfect food to protect and nurture life. Man kind and its CAFO FOOD INC selfishness…not only kills milk and its living goodness but farmers that serve processors.
I must apologize for a math error I made in my last post. I went back and looked at the Cornell data one more time and my memory had not served me well. There had been only 1,100 illnesses associated with raw milk since 1973…not 11,000.
The correct math is more like this:
422,000 illnesses from pasteurized milk over 37 years for the USA ( 330 million consumers )….or about .0012% incidence of illness.
1,100 illnesses from raw milk over 37 years for the USA (9.9 million drinkers CDC data ) = .00011% incidence of illness.
That makes the incidence of illness for raw milk drinkers about 1/10 as much as pasteurized milk drinkers. I will take these odds anyday…especially when raw milk builds immunity and cures, IBS, Asthma and crohns.
Mark,
“Builds immunity”, so raw milk would be beneficial for someone with an autoimmune disease? Conventional wisdom (which is usually wrong) says to avoid dairy but then again they are referring to pasteurized. I am asking there is a big difference between the 2; raw milk being a living whole food and pasteurized being a dead food and possibly detrimental to ones health.
Thanks, Paula
Paula,
The total story is still to be told on raw milk and autoimmune disorders. However, the science is pointing towards this: When the body is missing its gut biodiversity ( we are too clean ), the body starts to attack itself. This is the socalled autoimmune disease response.
Suffice it to say that when your gut is well…you will be well. Raw milk contains the rare sources of vital missing biodiverse bacteria that is missing in the highly processed American diet. Add to this the mixed blessing of Antibiotic abuse of modern medicine and industry abuse and the gut does not have a chance.
My experiece in CA with 13 years producing raw milk and taking calls from thousands of consumers every year says this….raw milk rocks!! It stabilizes MAST cells ( reduces allergies and asthma ), it repairs the gut flora, it all but heals IBS quickly, helps excema dramatically in most people and kids, eliminates recurrent ear infections, reduced CRP values and inflamation and so much more.
The CDC and FDA are so backup against the wall on this that they just completely lie to the public. Their very own Complimentary and Alternative Medicine websites agree 100% with my statements.
Big pharma is laying in bed with the government agencies that regulate and protect their interests. FOOD INC is alive and struggling to protect its drug trade.
Pasteurized milk is listed as the MOST allergenic food in America at the FDA website.
There is a reason why raw milk sales in CA and nationally are skyrocketing and fluid pasteurized milk consumption is tanking.
mark
Thank you Mark for the validation. I love the way you spell out the truth. And cheers, I just finished my workout and was enjoying the best post workout “protein shake” I know of when I read this–16 oz of raw milk!
Met with PhD researchers at UC Davis. They run the Milk Genomics Research Lab. They say that raw milk will make a strong emergence in the coming years with the advent of better testing technologies and better production conditions. They also said this….Pasteurization is a 18th solution to a 18th century problem.
Consumer Dollar voting is taking care of pasteurized milk as we speak. The markets for liquid pasteurized milk fall at about 1% per year….regardless of the amounts of money spent to prop them up. Raw milk grows with out marketing or promotion…why? It is delicious and it is healing a crisis of the GUT and Allergies in America. Lies have a way of becoming known and the truth always gets discovered…it is a matter of time and the internet has rapidly accelerated this discovery.
“It is a delicious and it is healing a crisis of the GUT. . . ”
It most definitely is. Here I am almost 3 months later from our previous conversation and a steady, daily diet of raw milk kefir, along with raw cream and other healthy lifestyle choices and I am feeling amazing!! Lean, strong and healthy. We are fortunate to have advocates such as yourself Mark, paving the way. I have become a big fan of yours–I love your rebel style and I have become very involved in my local raw milk movement and am spreading the word in both my business and the community.
Mark,
What are your thoughts on A1 cows vs A2. Is your dairy A1, A2 or a combination?
What I have read on Mercola http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/09/the-devil-in-the-milk.aspx is that One of the major proteins in cow’s milk is casein, the predominant variety of which is called beta-casein. In older breeds of cows, such as Jersey, Asian and African cows (called A2 cows), the beta-casein contains an amino acid called proline.
In newer breeds of cows like Holstein (A1 cows), however, the proline has mutated into an amino acid called histidine.
This is important because beta-casein also contains an amino acid called BCM-7, which is a powerful opiate linked to negative health effects. Well, the proline that exists in A2 cows has a strong bond to BCM-7, which helps keep it out of the cows’ milk. The histidine in the newer A1 cows, however, has a weak hold on BCM-7, which allows it to get into the milk, and also into the people who drink the milk.
By drinking milk from A1 cows, which are the predominant cows used for dairy products in the United States, you’re exposed to BCM-7, which has been linked to neurological impairment, including autistic and schizophrenic changes,type 1 diabetes, an impaired immune response, autoimmune disease, and heart disease
Thanks,
SC
These points about A1 & A2 are important, but I was a little puzzled by now the strong bond of proline keeps the BCM7 from getting into the milk. So with some investigating came up with clarification:
BCM7 is an incompletely digested protein fragment, which results from the partial digestion of A1 milk (with histadine at position 67). With a healthy GI tract and healthy gut flora, these protein fragments are further broken down in the gut and don’t cause a problem. Hence a truly healthy person can probably tolerate A1 milk. If one has a leaky gut and/or abnormal gut flora, BCM7 may be formed from incomplete digestion and can enter the blood stream and cause havoc. If strong bond proline is at position 67 it prevents casein digestion from producing BCM7 even if digestion is impaired. Raw milk is very beneficial for healing the gut and encouraging healthy gut flora. Dr. McBride makes this point toward the end of this article on the GAPS Diet http://www.westonaprice.org/childrens-health/gaps
So the point seems to be that if one has leaky gut and/or abnormal gut flora then stick with A2 Raw milk only. If you have a healthy GI tract and healthy gut flora then A2 is preferred but A1 is still ok.
My take on the A2 concept is that two dead New Zealand pro A2 milk guys duped the world. The Devil is in the processing of the milk and the feeding of the cows and not the genetics. There is no support for their concepts. There are still allergies to pasteurized A2 milk and there is still lactose intolerance with pasteurized A2 milk.
I know all about the A2 corp. They tried to get me to sell all of the OPDC to them when they were in North America in 2003….they failed. I wanted to sell OPDC raw milk and not pasteurized.
See the OPDC position at our archived letters at http://www.organicpastures.com Mike Schmidt and others that lead the raw milk movement agree with me. Pasteurization changes all of the proteins and all of the enzymes not just one of them.
Feed the cows on pastures and stop processing it…that is the milk that humans have been drinking for 30,000 years. genetics are not the issue. The jury is still completely out on this. Many more studies need to be done to even consider this A2 logic.
A2 corp and A2/A1 issues are two separate issues. Just as is Pasteurized vs RAW. If you drink RAW milk that is A1, I think you owe it to yourself to look at the research the data is out there. Since you sell A1 milk and you just offered your opinion not any fact I will keep an open mind and in the meantime consume A2 Milk whenever that is an option. Here is a good read on the issue. http://fourfoldhealing.com/2009/03/10/march-2009-newsletter/
Raw milk will be unsustainable for a large population.
How will it be transported without contamination?
How will it be transported quickly enough to prevent widespread bacterial growth?
Will you be happy using sterilising agents (alcohol or Peroxides) on all parts of the supply chain?
There is no physical way you could produce raw milk on a mass scale with ZERO contamination in an economical and environmentally sound way.
It is far better for the environment for one dairy to process milk, than many small dairys. Just as its better for 30 people to travel on the bus, than all drive individual cars.
Sure raw milk might not be dangerous for YOU. But it would be if it was distributed on the same scale as pasteurised milk.
That is exactly the point. Distribution should be local by multiple farmers/dairies not super commercial dairies. Not ONLY is Raw milk not dangerous it is better for the consumer. Hey, let the chips fall as they may but selling raw milk being illegal is plain wrong.
Dear SC,
Four fold healing is written by Dr. Tom Cowan. Several years ago, Tom came to me at a conference and said this: ” If I had known now that A2 research is what it is….I would never have written the foreward to the book The devil in the Milk”.
Tom was even duped.
If you have never seen pictures of pasteurized milk please see the slide show of these pictures at http://www.rawmilkinstitute.org they will change your perspective 100%. Pastuerized milk looks like fine sand paper while raw milk looks like human blood or a well structured coral reef. The destruction is total and complete with high heat. The proteins are changed and the enzymes are gone. The cassein is literally toast.
The differences between A2 and A1 on one little amino acid is irrelevant. Although my comment is high level and not supported by studies, the A2 corp claims are not supported by any studies at all.
Why is it that our protein sensitive autistic consumers have no problem drinking OPDC raw milk and have severe reactions to A2 pasteurized….think about this. It is a huge scam.
There was no A2 genetic cleft 5000 years ago. Where is any evidence of this….there is nada…nothing to support this. Nothing. There was a change in processing and feeding 100 years ago.
http://rawmilkinstitute.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Raw-Milk-is-just-like-Blood-RAWMI.pdf Fascinating. I am totally enjoying the education I am receiving on this thread. “Toasted casein”, that’s a good one.
I would not drink A2 Pasteurized but would prefer A2 Raw over A1 Raw all day long.
I agree that the science behind A2 is poor. Mat LaLonde and I were discussing this recently.
Agreed but it still passes the smell test…why not play it safe until the jury is out if you have an A2 option plus the A2 cows typically have more cream than the Holsteins. Arguably, a better quality better tasting milk.
I agree, Mark. But there are some folks who have access to and have tried good raw milk but still have problems with it, but they often can tolerate goat milk (A-2). Those who have been getting raw milk, but then drop out may have a similar problem, but we don’t hear from them usually.
SC,
I agree….A2 nothing wrong with it at all as long as the cows are healthy, the pastures are green, the management is organic and the processing is 100% raw.
Same checklist on my end.
By the way…..
Dr. Kresser,
I do not understand the repeated statement made under your name on this comment thread. It appears to be a repeat comment. Is this a glitch?
Loved your presentation at WAP….packed full of great information.
Mark
I have asked my PhD friends at the Milk Genome Consortium research lab ( Dr. Bruce German PhD and Dr. Lemay PhD ) to give me their read on A2. After all, UC Davis claims to now have the patent privileges for testing A2 traits. For many years the ability to test was patented and even if you wanted to test…it was not possible. I have not ever been able to connect with the UC Davis division that does this testing.
If any one should know about A2…it should be the Milk Genomics people at UC Davis. We will see what they think.
Mark,
I wouldn’t bother checking with UC Davis, as they are licensed by A2 Corp to perform the tests. There are other testing methods available to test for A2 without using their “patented” methods.
SC
I was referred to this website by my rabidly loyal to defending the completely Snake Oil “benefits” of drinking raw milk wife. I will add some additional comments to the mix that I don’t think have been covered. It is my experience that most raw milkers don’t stop with just the milk. They all become poor man’s yogurt, sour cream, whey, butter and cream makers, right out of their less than sterile and often extremely messy kitchens, often fermenting things away here and there and then feeding them to their 2 and 4 year old daughters as if they are doing them some kind of favor. When the only possible clinically (at this time unproven) benefit of raw milk is not farting as much when lactic intolerant I can honestly say it’s the benefits that should be under the microscope here. I could claim eating my own feces never hurt me when I was a baby and made me able to kill a taco bell volcano Nacho later in life without any issues magically and that those feces are safer than a car crash… But come on people.. why risk anything for a benefit that cannot be any more proved than prayer? I stand before you all today with a 37 year old wife covered from head to toe in a rash with a 2 year old and 4 year old that both have had fevers over 103 and projectile vomited all over us and our house. My wife refusing to go see the Dr. because she fears addressing the concern that its the milk and not wanting to lend herself to the statistics that Chris holds so dear. could it be that the raw milk drinkers are so driven by their compulsory need to consume raw milk claiming it gives them magic abilities actually prevents them from reporting illness? So far the only born again believers in Pasteurization I am reading stories on got that way from losing a child. What a terrible game to play just to believe in homeopathic theory and conjecture. So I ask you Chris et al, is it OK to feed your children all of these things in the way I just described?
Stoney:
Thank you for posting your story and perspective. In CA one of the families in an outbreak at ODPC had made kefir and two of their young sons were greatly affected by e.coli. Kefir is raw milk sitting on a counter fermenting and it needs to be warm…perfect for e.coli 0157-H7 to proliferate.
I was your wife just a bit over a year or so ago. That is why Mark McAfee and I are contentious, I went to a raw milk rally for heavens sake! My husband was just as frustrated as you are that I gave it to our young children. I hope that your wife and children are okay. I hope you can convince her to get to a doctor. The children should definitely be seen ASAP. Projectile vomit is never a good thing!!!
Best,
Kristen
Thanks Kristen,
the symptoms were that of possible bacterial food poisoning which happened after visiting another Raw milk friend of my wife’s house whom also “home brews” all of the other dairy products you mentioned. The children’s bottles co mingled and they drank another cows milk. They also attended a VERY heavily populated restaurant this past weekend. The issues here are two fold. Its either the milk or products, or the lack of immunity from disease encountered by the other children or restaurant.
Didactic logic thereby proves the following:
The milk is dangerous or
The milk provides no immunity enhancements nor magical properties.
Take your pick Mark and explain. And before you ask my wife has been feeding hectoliters of this stuff to my kids. Shouldn’t they basically be bullet proof now if what you believe is true? And there it is… its just NOT factual. And by the way all, I assure you I am telling the truth. come to my house you can help me clean up the puke.
StoneyColdCreamy,
Typically with a foodborne illness you will have diarrhea. Do the kids also have diarrhea with the vomiting? If your kids have been ill like this for a few days, I would get your kids to the doctor. You don’t have to mention that you give them raw milk.
The description of your wife having a rash from head to toe sounds like the measles.
Stoney Cold…
How is your “love life” with your dear wife???
Love and support her. Her instincts are based on what she thinks is right and pro-biotic for your kids. Your anger towards her does not help at all.
What you have described is not so helpful. Filth is not helpful either. I do not know of many people that are into filth and also raw milk. Fermented raw milk saved humans ( many human cultures would have died off if not for mammals and grass all driven by the sunshine ) on earth some tens of thousands of years ago. Human genetics prove it. We share much of our human biome with that of cows. This is from the UC Davis PhD’s that study raw mammals milk at the Milk Genomics research lab.
The rash that your wife is experiencing is a stress reaction from not getting any love or support from you!! Every one that I know that drinks raw milk and eats whole unprocessed foods have a remarkably strong immune system. After all…80% or more of our immune system strength comes from the biodiversity of bacteria that colonize or live in our gut. No good bacteria..not good immune system. That is very old science and not an argument for or against filth.
Suggest some respect and love for your wife and perhaps….do some reading about the immune system of your body.
Pasteurized milk is in crisis….it is the MOST allergenic food in America. Google it yourself. Raw milk is thriving and healing guts all over America.
Oh believe me Mark, My love life is just fine; after all I do have two daughters. Its their LIVES I am more concerned with at present than the esoteric value of someone’s paperback jacket opinion on how supportive I am with my wife which was not solicited from you I assure you. I am here in an attempt to present the other viewpoint to party line raw milk hacks. Nothing more.
Filth is quite common in late 30 something stay at home mom’s kitchens by the way. I wonder how much experience you have on this as it would seem filth is something you probably have had the monetary wealth to have eliminated for you, most likely from someone paid to do it for you.
But for most 98%s filth is simply the result of not having enough time or energy to clean everything, change diapers, manage the 18 half gallon mason jars in various states of dairy decay, wash the cloth diapers that you have also been drawn to, and all of the other homeopathic experiments. Something just has to give so its usually cleaning every surface etc is what is sacrificed. Clean to me means micro biologically clean whereby you would not get very good results by swabbing a surface then touching agar after 4 days; because hey, that is what’s going down with the milk, to cream to whey etc. anything that was encountered gets a chance to set up shop. I do not need any proof of that; I have grown my own cultures in Agar personally.
I share much of my genetics with pigs also, and I love bacon by the way so feel free to call me a pig to Mark, it would be expected of you at this point from me. The rash my wife has is most likely an allergy to the various products and scientifically backwards mysticism being peddled online by profit hungry, Deepak Chopra, Birkenstock wearing Chinese Medicine pushers. If I had a dime for every silly ointment, shake, herb, crystal, oil or supplement that she takes I would possibly be able to afford the copay’s to all of the Dr.s office visits she makes with the kids, visits that you and your ilk claim should never be due to the milk ingestion.
- I have news for those of you that believe that crushed Tiger Bones cures low Testosterone also by the way: They did a study and the results of that paper are: -you really need to stop killing tigers.
I have not for one moment attacked the presence of cultures in guts, enzymes or anything else. I am simply no fan of Bacteria. And Bacteria are much more present than car crashes. Whether or not they cause illness and impact you based on your assumptions that your immune system has somehow become calloused to the bacteria is your own business.
Ironic this discussion is occurring simultaneous to Chris’ latest post on the benefit of fecal transplant – and need by some to regain health by recolonizing the gut with feces from another person (this is done either orally, through the rectum, or via nasal tube).
http://chriskresser.com/poop-the-cure-of-the-future
Perhaps it would be useful for you, Stone Cold, to learn about the essential role bacteria and other microbes play in bringing about vibrant health for human beings. We are 10% human and 90% microbes.
**Update** and Happy Valentines Day Mark; did you get YOUR wife anything?
My family physician had a “talk” with my wife days after my last post and the raw milk consumption has been ceased.
Also the rashes cleared up and so has the strange kefir obsessive behavior with all I had mentioned; we now have a clean fridge that we can store food in again; organic food; food which i rinse and cook if need be.
I asked Wifers by the way what was said to change her mind by the doc.
She said that he said “well, yes people have consumed it for years, but do you really want to risk this with a 2 year old and 4 year old when there are no proven benefits?” he then advised against it – for the children. For the record, our Dr. is no fan of ANY kind of milk consumption as well as coffee but I break the coffee rule every morning; because the BENEFIT of caffeine is scientifically proven. Carry on all and happy V day.
Without a doubt, I have never learned or enjoyed more from a thread. I am a rapidly loyal fit and strong 52 year defender of the benefits of raw milk. My husband partakes and supports me in all this. Neither of us have had a cold, sickness or illness in over a decade.
As for my love life. . .well, God bless his virile 64 yo arse!
We are a raw dairy family. I have been doing some study because I am being challenged by some about our consumption of raw dairy. After reading this article I went on line to fine a report I had read in the past. I haven’t found it yet but did find this from the FDA quoting the CDC. Now I would like to know who is telling the truth?
FROM THE FDA WEBSITE-
2. Have any illnesses or deaths been caused by consuming raw milk products?
Based on CDC data, literature, and state and local reports, FDA compiled a list of outbreaks that occurred in the U.S. from 1987 to September 2010. During this period, there were at least 133 outbreaks due to the consumption of raw milk and raw milk products. These outbreaks caused 2,659 cases of illnesses, 269 hospitalizations, 3 deaths, 6 stillbirths and 2 miscarriages. Because not all cases of foodborne illness are recognized and reported, the actual number of illnesses associated with raw milk likely is greater.
It certainly isn’t the FDA
Chris,
Thank you kindly for summing up these statistics. After a day of research on the subject, I finally have your article to put things into perspective.
Chris,
Congrats on a great article. It could be written in so many ways and you took the high road. I would also add that the CDC carefully selected their time periods for data selection. In 1985 at least 300 people were seriouly sickened and 49 died from pasteurized cheese in one outbreak. The Jalisco Cheese incident. The CDC does not even show this in their data base. The CDC also does not show the 1600 inmates that were sickened by Campylobacter from a CA prison creamery that was inspected by the CDFA. The same agency that inspects OPDC. In fact…the CDFA did not even release a Press Release on the incident.
If you really want to see some amazing data….see http://www.rawmilkinstitute.org the rw dairy producers that are LISTED at this website adhere to the COMMON STANDARDS and so far none of them have had any illnesses or recalls or outbreaks associated with them. RAWMI has published standards, requires routine testing and a written audited food safety plan. This is the way forward.
Chris….please consider this, official records show that at least 8 children have died from allergic reactions to properly pasteurized milk since 1998. I would argue that pasteurized milk is defective and does not contain the biologic and metobolic elements needed for digestion. Children by definition do not have the developed digestive tract to be able to digest pasteurized milk. Raw milk is a WHOLE complete food that is the product of 200 million years of mammalian evolution and contains all of the proteins and enzymes and good bacteria needed for the childs immature and developing GUT.
This is not my idea….this is a quote from Dr. Bruce German PhD at UC Davis Milk Genomics Consortium. He is the most published PhD in the world on the subject of mammals raw milk.
Raw milk producers and raw milk consumers are literally at war with the FDA and their Food Inc Processors bed partners. This war has a serious body count and the bodies are stacked at the feet of the FDA and their deep corruption.
Raw milk sales rage upward as pasteurized sales die off at 1-2 % per year and conventional dairies go bankrupt. This says it all. Consumers are dollar voting the truth.
The CDC conveniently also omits the 197,000 people sickened by pasteurized milk and salmonella in 1993 in one incident.
The CDC unfortunately is not a scientific organization. It is an organization that does favors for the FDA to further an agenda. I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to them several years ago demanding data on the two deaths that they attributed to raw milk since 1972. The response was this: the deaths were associated with imported illegal Mexican Style bathtub cheese. They agreed that there had been no deaths from any American fluid raw milk since the start of their data collection database in 1972!!
That is not American Raw Milk! This was illegal Mexican Cheese. Cheese made from God Knows What under conditions that are highly questionable….this is quite a deliberate fraud on behalf of the CDC data collection process.
I’m living in Mexico and would really love to start using raw milk, however, I’m not sure that it’s safe…. especially after all the talk of Mexican bathtub cheese. I found a supplier in a market but they actually told me that I should boil it. Are there any suggestions/guidelines that I could use to help ascertain whether the dairy farm I’m interested in is producing safe milk?
More on the how the government misinterprets and distorts data on raw milk safety. This press release today by the WAPF:
http://www.westonaprice.org/press/flawed-government-report-thwarts-state-raw-milk-initiatives.
I am not so sure how any one can claim that raw milk has caused more illness than pasteurized since 1972. Cornell university studied this and found that 1100 people had been sickened by raw dairy since 1972, but 422,000 had been sickened by pasteurized cheeses or milk since 1972. Thats a no brainer…
Also, 70 people had died from pasteurized dairy products and NONE from US raw milk!!!
Thats also a no brainer.
A new EU food risk assessment classification study was just published in the last few weeks. As soon as I have the link, I will post it.
The EU CODEX risk assessment says this ” raw milk for human consumption is among the lowest risk foods and is not associated with misscarrage in pregnancy”. Yes they said that….they found that raw milk is not associated with LISTERIA…yet pasteurized milk adn cheeses are.
The FDA lies are being exposed one by one. As far as Mary Martin is concerned…..ask her if her child ever had ecoli found in his fecal sample or his body.
The answer is NO HE DID NOT. There was epidemeologic questions, but causation was never shown. That is why the State of CA wrote a big fat check to OPDC to avoid liability from a non confirmed recall in 2006. None of the products or even the cows manure was found to have a matching ecoli pathogen!!
Mary…leave this dog to rest and sleep…enough is enough. The fact that CDFA never published a Press release when 1600 people were sickened from Campylobacter at a CDFA pasteurized creamery literally 2 months earlier in 2006 and restarted the creamery in 3 hours tells me everything. They hate raw milk and being fair or unbiased does not matter.
The fact that 13 kids in New Orleans ate a spinach smoothie in September 2006 and got Ecoli from a different strain of CA spinach but the CDC does not associate these illnesses with the CA spinach outbreak tells me that their where multiple spinach pathogens and not one.
I have never lied and neither has Sally Fallon.
Mark,
Do you have the documentation on the phantom 13 children you refer to? If you are claiming that 13 children became ill as part of an outbreak, there were be documentation of this? Where is it?
As for finding E.coli 0157:H7 in Chris’ stool sample, you really need to educate yourself about this subject. This is a common occurrence. Children and adults develop HUS without testing positive for an E.coli infection. http://www.cdph.ca.gov/data/statistics/Documents/stec-episummary.pdf
From the years 201-2008 there were 336 cases of HUS in California. That averages 42 illnesses a year. Of these only 179 were accompanied by a laboratory-confirmed E. coli 0157:H7 infection. That is 53%. The others could not be confirmed. I am not a scientist and don’t know what is involved in growing out the cultures, but obviously it is not easy to grow.
First, I admit that I did not read the entire article or all the comments. I also want to state for the record that I’m a fan of yours, Chris, and I have referenced your work in some of my posts. That said, as much as I WANT to support raw milk, and as much as I believe it is a superior food to pasteurized milk and to most foods in the grocery store, I no longer drink it or buy it for my family, and that is because my entire family was sickened by raw milk just a little over one year ago. We drank raw milk from trusted farmers who I still believe to be honest, reputable farmers. It was a fluke. But I just can’t drink it anymore, or give it to my children in good conscience. While I realize that all foods have the potential to make us sick, I have never been sick from any other food. We drank raw milk for only about 2 years, and got very sick. I was almost hospitalized. others who were sickend from the same farm were hospitalized and still suffer the ill effects. I completely support the legalization of raw milk and understand why people drink it. But I also know from first hand experience that it is possible to get very sick from it, even when purchasing from a trusted source. And I am so very conflicted on the issue. I felt the need to state my piece. Thanks for your research and hard work on this article.
“Cornell university studied this and found that 1100 people had been sickened by raw dairy since 1972, but 422,000 had been sickened by pasteurized cheeses or milk since 1972. Thats a no brainer…”
does this take into account how many millions MORE people drink pasteurized milk than raw?
For the record, I don’t agree at all with your assessment of WAPF and so far you have provided no proof of your assertions other than your own interpretations and assumptions. Organizations have to make money to support their activities. This is as true of non-profits across a variety of disciplines as it is of for-profit corporations. This does not by itself make an organization corrupt, or make the information they share unreliable. That has to be evaluated separately. This thread is not about the WAPF, and I’m not going to approve any more of these comments. If you want to continue, you can do it elsewhere.