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.
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.
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)
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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.
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 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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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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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/
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?
E. coli doesn’t just get onto the spinach from farm runoff, I’m afraid. Some unscrupulous (presumably larger) farm operations don’t give their farmworkers either the time or facilities for bathroom breaks. :/ This issue is presumably greater when operators are using illegal-immigrant laborers, who would be less likely to raise hell about it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.