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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I commented a while back, but feel I need to say something here…
I think that for healthy adults, raw milk is awesome. Whenever I go to CA, I get some OP raw milk and drink like a gallon a week.
I also think that raw milk made under good condition is largely safe.
That being said, NO food is 100% safe. Not strawberries, not spinach, not meat, not even raw milk. Everything carries some risk, and you need to do a cost/benefit analysis. If the risk falls on your kids, and something happens to them, it won’t matter if the risk was 0.00001%. To you it’s a tragedy.
I don’t feed my son raw milk IN AMERICA, because it’s not well regulated. In many countries in Europe, raw milk is regulated by the government. They test every batch. Because of that, it’s a very safe food. I would feed it to my kids there in a heartbeat. I’d drink it while pregnant.
It’s not all black and white. Do I feed my kid raw greens? Yes, because I feel that I can’t get the benefits in another food. Raw greens are special. Do I feed him raw milk in the US? No, because I feel that pastured, high quality VAT pasteurized milk is a good substitute. If I only had access to raw milk or UHT milk for example, I would probably drink the raw milk for a few days as a test subject, then feed it to him, assuming I felt he really needed it. I’m glad I have access to high quality VAT past milk and don’t need to make a choice. I wish the US would stop being hard headed about raw milk and would test it and make sure it’s safe, instead of making it near contraband food.
And while I’m sure OP has good ways of ensuring the safety of their milk… Not everyone lives in CA, and we can’t be sure that all dairies are as scrupulous. So telling people that raw milk is safe everywhere, anytime, is not a good thing I think…
That’s my 2 cents…
I think that’s more like a nickel’s worth Joanna, lots of interesting information, for example I didn’t know that raw milk is more regulated in Europe than here. Thanks for the post.
Oh boy, a Holocaust denier? I’ll read your links Mark, but you really should address categorizing people who disagree with you. It’s that kind of blind thinking, my friend, that leads to things like the Holocaust, racism…fill in the blank.
I’m talking about an article that leaves out important information, especially for children and pregnant women, while you, on the other hand are talking about hatred, plain and simple.
I don’t watch the news Mark, because I agree with you that Fox has an agenda. So do most other networks. I just read stuff, like this, cause I like to learn and debate.
I don’t know where you got this out of my posts:
“Those who believes that anyone who exposes the AAP,FDA and CDC as not being truly independent organizations are conspiracy theorists, need to look again.” You’re ranting here Mark…go get glass of warm milk and settle yourself. I appreciate the links Mark.
From the Movie The Matrix:
Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
To those of you who who listen to Fox News,Rush Limbaugh and think the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics are squeaky clean, please read this report:
“How Corporations Corrupt Science at the Public’s Expense”
by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
From the Movie The Matrix:
Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
To those of you who who listen to Fox News,Rush Limbaugh and think the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics are not eligible to be vetted, please read this report:
“How Corporations Corrupt Science at the Public’s Expense”
by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
These are scientists, who are not affiliated with any corporate interests, and are to be trusted. Denying the influence of corporate influence on the AAP, FDA and CDC is no different than being a Holocaust denier.
Those who believes that anyone who exposes the AAP,FDA and CDC as not being truly independent organizations are conspiracy theorists, need to look again. Educate yourself.
“How Corporations Corrupt Science at the Public’s Expense”
by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
https://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/how-corporations-corrupt-science.pdf
These are scientists, who are not affiliated with any corporate interests, and are to be trusted. Denying the influence of corporate influence on the AAP, FDA and CDC is no different than being a Holocaust denier.
Those who believes that anyone who exposes the AAP,FDA and CDC as not being truly independent organizations are conspiracy theorists, need to look again. Educate yourself.
“How Corporations Corrupt Science at the Public’s Expense”
by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
https://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/how-corporations-corrupt-science.pdf
I don’t agree that anything about this issue is “laughable” Charlene, and you insult your own intelligence by not getting my point.
You somehow extrapolate a discussion I initiated on an article about raw milk into a completely different and totally unrelated subject. Those numbers are indeed horrible, but my beef is this writer ignoring established information that children and pregnant women should not drink raw milk. As far as this discussion goes, it doesn’t matter how many people died from prescription drug abuse, distracted driving, homicide or any of the other stupid ways people harm themselves and others.
As I said in an earlier post, my beef isn’t so much with raw milk, it’s how (sources) people irresponsibly provide and gain information on something potentially dangerous.
What I say is clear as mud Charlene (beautiful name, I was named after my Aunt Charlene). Don’t knee jerk to what you read, and take a closer look at what’s being said. I’m not saying raw milk is bad, far more reliable sources than me and this article’s author say it is. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ only stake here is the health and safety of children. If you disbelieve that Charlene, then I’m wasting my breath, er fingertips.
“Who do you work for Charles?…getting paid to shill for the big boys? Like you would implicate yourself.” Looks like you stuffed my straw first there, Mark. There’s nothing lazy or energetic about what I say, and you certainly aren’t debating anything, you’re just making a statement, the same thing I’m doing. We just happen to disagree.
“Money interests can buy off and control any organization they want and they do…Such being the case, it is incumbent on any thinking person to be skeptical of any official government agency being unbiased. The rapacious nature of certain human beings and corporations must be acknowledged.
The reputation and credibility of the govt organizations like the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics have been called into question.” Sounds fairly conspiratorial to me, Mark.
But hey, you make my point quite nicely when you say “Unfortunately, scientific misconduct and fraudulent research has become a very serious and widespread problem that threatens the entire paradigm of science-based medicine.
Again and again, papers assessing the prevalence of scientific fraud and/or the impact this is having shows that the situation is dire and getting worse. In short, we have lost scientific integrity,” All I’m saying is this article is an example of the very problem you (and I) raise.
Charles Hooper,
Nice Try
Hi Charles Hooper,
Your assertion that raw milk is dangerous is laughable (Zero deaths since 1972) especially when compared to *annual* deaths attributed to prescription drugs and medical treatments (>700,000 per year).
Quote:
Out of the 783,936 annual deaths from conventional medicine mistakes, approximately 106,000 of those are the result of prescription drug use [1]. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, two-hundred and ninety people in the United States are killed by prescription drugs every day [4]. – See more at: https://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/05/07/death-by-prescription-drugs-is-a-growing-problem/#sthash.I2xNpIwa.dpuf
Please don’t insult our intelligence with your specious arguments.
Charles Cooper,
I love how lazy debaters try to win an argument by labeling the opponent a “conspiracy theorist”, so they can be dismissed. I think that is what in logic is called the “straw man “.
You smear someone to make it easier to attack their position. By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone’s argument, it’s much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate.
Charles Cooper,
I can say with absolute confidence that the 2 raw milk deaths that are reported in the CDC records reach back to 1972. I have a Freedom of Information Act Request ( FOIA ) response from the CDC that researched these two deaths. The two deaths were from ILLEGALLY imported ( smuggled ) bath tub cheeses from Mexico and not USA raw milk!!!.
I know for a fact that the CDC data is related to Mexican cheese and not any thing related to a US fluid raw milk.
I also know that the CDC records show at least 430,000 illnesses since 1972 from pasteurized dairy products and at least 77 deaths if the 1985 Jalisco pasteurized cheese outbreak is included with its 49 deaths. The last 9 deaths from pasteurized products happened since 2007 with 3 from pasteurized milk and 6 from pasteurized cheeses.
It is absolutely accurate to report that there have been zero deaths reported to the CDC since 1972 from fluid raw milk produced in the USA.
As I said Mark S., some people aren’t going to listen to reason. In fact some don’t listen at all. You seem to have an aversion to the scientific method, dismiss organizations such as the AAP and have a conspiratorial view of the world, even from organizations that help save countless lives. Your rant spirals upward to a final effort to insult me personally. I don’t know a soul in this debate, drank plenty of raw milk in my youth without getting sick nary a time. I just read something and conclude its informational value. I think this is an interesting article, but don’t believe it a very reliable source for learning about the subject. If you don’t agree, that’s fine by me.
Mark McAfee, makes a more interesting argument…if he can support it. Can you post any of your source information?
I can’t argue with your pasteurized milk information as I have not researched it, so I would value your source. But right out the gate, I think you compare apples to oranges when you consider the numbers of people who drink raw vs. processed milk.
I still categorically say you have no way of knowing definitively that nobody has died in your time frame from consuming raw milk. Given that the AAP’s time frame is 11 years and yours is over 42, I am especially dubious of your claim.
I’m forever the student, and would love more rigorous information comparing the two.
To the writer who thinks that we raw milk users are stooges of the raw milk industry:
I can understand your wariness with the ‘pro” comments, especially in light of recent (duh) allegations regarding companies stacking reviewing website with positive remarks.
However, speaking for myself, for me, the raw milk knocks me (and my husband) out at night for a full and uninterrupted sleep, fulfills (via homemade kefir) my appetite, and just makes me feel better.
Also, I can appreciate your hesitancy and fear about drinking “not sanitized” in our day of flesh eating bacteria, anti biotic resistant drugs, and critter infested shopping carts. If you are so worried about raw milk, have you done your homework about the spray washes on apples and pears? or the chlorine washes on conventional eggs? and what about the cantaloupes and lettuce and other produce that get pulled from supermarket shelves due to bacterial contamination in commerical farming? After a week of two, we don’t hear too much flack about that, do we?
This is govt and BIG FARMA/DAIRYA who spew safety yet cannot watch the hen house close enough for their own products.
Think on this: if there had been or has been SO many deaths and illnesses due to raw milk, well, don’t you just think that govt inspectors would be all over the raw milk industry? Shutting them down left and right? Getting on ABC, NBC, CBS, and the rest of the alphabet stations trumpeting yet another alternative lifestyle shutdown?
In my area, raw milk producers are coming out in droves and selling like crazy. We buyers are not ignorant–rather I would make a generalization and spew back that we are better informed because we HAVE done the research, as opposed to taking someone else’s word for it.
May I suggest that you do the weeks of research that I did before I took the plunge and THEN make you opinion; you might end up voting differently, too.
Hi Wendy, I’m going out on a limb here and assume you are referring to my post. If so, I never said anything about somebody being “stooges of the raw milk industry.” I’m just saying I think this article runs counter to what I see as research from more reliable sources. Like I said, I drank raw milk many years without a single problem and knew of nobody else having a problem, so I have no horse in the race. My beef (unintended pun) isn’t with raw milk, it’s with bad, even biased, reporting.
I realize we live in a toxic environment, but I don’t think advocating the safety of raw milk by simply tossing out odds statistics is responsible reporting. Especially without clearly warning that it is dangerous for pregnant women and children to consume it.
This has nothing to do with whether the government can be evil or not, or that there are other things more dangerous. I don’t think I can make my point any clearer. If you believe the AAP is ” govt and BIG FARMA/DAIRYA,” then you fall into the same camp as Mark S., and do your cause little justice.
You kinda went off the rails toward the end of your post there, Wendy. But I do appreciate your passion and willingness to stand up for something. Just try and read what somebody actually says before you criticize, well, what you think they said…makes sense, right?
Be wary of these kinds of articles, which are little more than advertorials and professions of faith in particular causes. This man is an acupuncturist, not a pediatrician, nutritionist or even biologist.
Raw milk is not safe, especially for children. You can rely on this flimsy article or on an organization such as the American Academy of Pediatrics. Read their December 2013 policy statement on raw milk consumption. If you believe these doctors are a band of sinister supporters of the milk industry or pharmaceutical companies, you’re not going to listen to reason anyway.
Mark, it is wrong for your to say there have been “zero deaths” from raw milk consumption in the U.S. since 1972. In fact, according to the AAP, “From 1998 to 2009, consumption of raw milk products in the U.S. resulted in 1,837 illnesses, 195 hospitalizations, 93 illness outbreaks and two deaths.” And nobody, including your PhD. friends can say with certainty they know the cause of every child’s death is not raw milk. Who knows how many raw milk illnesses and deaths escape report? Below is a link to the AAP report and the abstract. Realize this is only U.S. information…it would be interesting to look at the World Health Organization’s justifications for advising the pasteurization of milk.
https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/133/1/175
From the American Academy of Pediatrics
Policy Statement
Consumption of Raw or Unpasteurized Milk and Milk Products by Pregnant Women and Children
COMMITTEE ON INFECTIOUS DISEASES,
COMMITTEE ON NUTRITION
Abstract
Sales of raw or unpasteurized milk and milk products are still legal in at least 30 states in the United States. Raw milk and milk products from cows, goats, and sheep continue to be a source of bacterial infections attributable to a number of virulent pathogens, including Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella species, Brucella species, and Escherichia coli O157. These infections can occur in both healthy and immunocompromised individuals, including older adults, infants, young children, and pregnant women and their unborn fetuses, in whom life-threatening infections and fetal miscarriage can occur. Efforts to limit the sale of raw milk products have met with opposition from those who are proponents of the purported health benefits of consuming raw milk products, which contain natural or unprocessed factors not inactivated by pasteurization. However, the benefits of these natural factors have not been clearly demonstrated in evidence-based studies and, therefore, do not outweigh the risks of raw milk consumption. Substantial data suggest that pasteurized milk confers equivalent health benefits compared with raw milk, without the additional risk of bacterial infections. The purpose of this policy statement was to review the risks of raw milk consumption in the United States and to provide evidence of the risks of infectious complications associated with consumption of unpasteurized milk and milk products, especially among pregnant women, infants, and children.
Sorry Charles, but you made no case specifically why Mr Kresser’s arguments were flimsy. He appears to be just be taking CDC statistics and intelligently putting them into proper perspective. I don’t care if he is an acupuncturist or not. He is intelligent and insightful. I’ll take an intelligent acupuncturist over a university brainwashed, working for the man, biologist any day.
And unless you just crawled out from under a rock, we are living in a plutocracy. Conflict of interest is pervasive problem within the research field. FDA, CDC etc are staffed in executive positions from former corporate executives they are supposed to be regulating. Money interests can buy off and control any organization they want and they do.
Unfortunately, scientific misconduct and fraudulent research has become a very serious and widespread problem that threatens the entire paradigm of science-based medicine.
Again and again, papers assessing the prevalence of scientific fraud and/or the impact this is having shows that the situation is dire and getting worse. In short, we have lost scientific integrity, and without it, “science-based medicine” is just a term without substance.
Such being the case, it is incumbent on any thinking person to be skeptical of any official government agency being unbiased. The rapacious nature of certain human beings and corporations must be acknowledged.
The reputation and credibility of the govt organizations like the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics have been called into question. This is a shame they can’t be trusted. When they might be telling the facts, it can go unheeded because they have lost the public trust. It’s like the boy who cried wolf.
Who do you work for Charles?…getting paid to shill for the big boys? Like you would implicate yourself.
According to PhD’s that I work with…it is practically impossible to have Ecoli 0157H7 or any other ecoli patyhogen found in OPDC raw milk under the post AB 1735 standards and RAWM LISTING RAMP programs that are in use
With less than 10 coliforms….there can not be enough Ecoli present to cause illness. We also test for ecoli pathogens and have never found it in 14 years of testing. That said…our average coliform population in all of our independent tests ( thats about 180 teste per month reveal less than 3 coliforms. Pasteurized milk ( after processing ) is allowed up to 10 coliforms.
This is a numbers game. There must be a load of pathogens and if their is not even enough coliforms to form a basis for possible sub-population…then it is impossible.
Please know that Mary is a mom and that makes her very passionate and I respect that very much. You will find equally passionate moms that would never ever feed their kids anything but OPDC raw milk becuase it has saved their lives fom Asthma…Asthma kills 9 kids a day!!!!!!! There have been zero deaths from raw milk anywhere in the USA since before 1972.
Just think about this logically. OPDC is perhaps the most innovative producer of raw milk in the world. if you want to dizzy yourself with the true science behind how we do raw milk come visit or see our RAMP plan at http://www.rawmilkinstitute.org you will be amazed!!
Mark, nice deflection to the challenge. Milk in general unless comming from a woman’s breast shouldn’t be consumed. And the probiotic claims in here are absolutely proven false; you would need to consume hecto-liters in one day to “populate” your intestines with probiotics from milk. Dare I say Chris’s idea of eating human pooh would probably yield better results. You crunchy people always amaze me. You spout off about not trusting the government, FDA, EPA and then vote for the same clowns (democrats) that are in bed with big pharma, farm bills FDA and EPA. Get a clue and vote libertarian if you REALLY feel this way about your government. Better yet vote for Jessie Ventura and Rand Paul and they will be all for your freedom to potentially poison your kids with no Governmental oversight of food. The only thing I will admit to anyone in here having correct is that ANY food can harbor bacteria; pasteurized or not. Marks example of cheese is a great example of that; but its still leprechauns and unicorns if you are trying to tell me raw milk wont go bad or harbor potentially harmful bacteria which exists everywhere and has killed people for tens of thousands of years. Claiming said bacteria is a positive thing in ones life or for that matter needs to be ingested is simply begging for trouble. I triple dog dare you all to go slurp some ecoli, listeria, salmonella, staph or hepatitis and tell me how great you feel. You wont make the night without a hospital and lord knows you will blame it or your katsup or toothpaste rather than the proper suspects. If only drinking dangerous things really gave us super powers like some of you all claim… my trips to the local micro brewery would be oh so much more special. Scratch that; my brewery DOES give me magic powers… the powers to laugh off these insane comments.
Mary McGonigle-Martin
For me to make more meaning out of your son having kidney problems, are you certain raw milk was the cause? Could it have been something else he ate? Could it be possible he was going to have this health issue regardless of whether he drank the milk? How many children have the same kidney issue every year who do not consume raw milk? Did others who drank the same batch of raw milk also have issues? Did something go awry with that batch? Something can go awry with any food?What percentage of kids who drink raw milk have a kidney malady? Is this merely anecdotal and can we extrapolate to all children your son’s experience? Just wondering. I have not reached a conclusion on raw milk yet. Just trying to be careful before making a decision.
Mark,
1. Yes I am certain the raw milk was the cause.
2. No it wasn’t something else he ate. He had only been drinking the raw milk for 2 weeks. Nothing else in his diet change. He only eats the food I prepare at home.
3. No he would not have had these health issues if he hadn’t consumed contaminated raw milk.
4. Yes. 6 children became ill from the milk, but only one other 10 year old girl suffered from HUS, the same as my son. She also went into complete renal failure. Her kidneys never fully recovered. That means someday she will probably need a kidney transplant.
5. Yes something went awry with the batch—it was contaminated with E.coli 0157H7.
6. Yes other foods can become contaminated with E.coli 0157:H7. The most common food is hamburger because people don’t cook it to the correct temperature or cross contaminate in the kitchen with other foods. Proper handling and cooking can prevent illness.
7. I have kept data on the raw milk outbreaks since 2005 involving the pathogen E.coli 0157:H7 116 people have become ill and 27 children (mostly under 10) have developed HUS. That is 23%
8. There have been 15 raw milk outbreak since 2005 involving the pathogen E.coli 0157:H7. HUS is a very rare disorder. Typically 2%-8% who contract an E.coli infection develop HUS. It appears with raw milk 23% develop it.
9. In 2012 an outbreak happened in Oregon. A two year old girl developed a severe case of HUS. She had a stroke, died and they brought her back to life. She was left paralyzed, unable to swallow or talk. She also had a portion of her colon removed. She is feed through a feeding tube. A few months ago she needed a kidney transplant. Her mother was the donor.
10. Here is an article I wrote about my son’s story https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/04/is-the-foundation-of-good-health-found-in-a-bottle-of-raw-milk/#.Uuh07E3Tk5s
Good luck with your decision. If you want to drink it for yourself, go for it, just don’t give it to your children.
Mary thanks for your reply. Can we conclude then that only raw milk with 0157H7 e. coli is the problem. Now the question becomes does my raw milk source have it or not? That is the question. Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures, on his website, claims that because of his fastidious cleanliness and care, the independent and govt agencies have never found the villianous 0157H7 e. coli in his milk. So can we conclude that drinking his milk is at least safe for the kiddos? Other unregulated and untested diary’s less so? Also can we conclude that you could pasteurize raw milk to reduce the risk or you could just be very careful, sanitary fastidious, verify it and be safe that way? Do you concur?
Well, Mark is technically correct. They have never found E.coli 0157:H7 in a sample of his milk, however that don’t mean it wasn’t in the milk. Pathogens are not evenly distributed. Just because you took a sample out of the bulk tank, doesn’t mean a pathogen wasn’t somewhere in the milk. There have been two E.coli 0157:H7 raw milk outbreaks associated with his dairy. One in 2006 and another in 2011. In 2011, they did find the matching fingerprint in cow manure on his farm.
E.coli 0157:H7 is not the only pathogen that can get in raw milk, but it is the pathogen that is causing the most serious illnesses in young children.
Testing does not guarantee that the milk is pathogen free. People really need to understand this when they are choosing to consume regulated raw milk. I made the assumption that because the milk was tested it would be safe to drink. Remember, every single batch of raw milk is not tested. Let’s say the milk is tested 4 times a month. The other 26 days, the milk is not tested. That leaves a lot of room for pathogens to go undetected.
I think the best option for consuming healthy milk would be to buy it raw from a farmer who feeds his cows grass and does not use hormones or antibiotics and then home pasteurize it. This is what people did prior to mandatory pasteurization. I know Mark McAfee is developing raw milk safety standards for farmers who are selling raw milk. I support these efforts; however, I am not convinced yet that you can make raw milk 100% safe. Time will tell.
All this talk about raw milk being consumed raw for thousands of years. Let’s keep in mind that the first document case of HUS was in 1982. The deadly pathogen E.coli 0157:H7 is new to our food supply and it harbors in the intestines of cows, goats, sheep and deer. It takes as little as 10 to 50 cells to make a person ill. 200,000 can fit on the head of a pin. Children are the most at risk for becoming ill because they have under developed immune systems.
My personal opinion is that E.coli 0157:H7 is a game changer for raw milk.
What is your opinion on someone without a spleen drinking raw milk? I have had my spleen removed and have had the appropriate vaccinations. I don’t feel I have a poor immune system as I don’t get sick often. I just bought some raw milk but then I started wondering about having no spleen and if it is still fairly safe. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
Dear Geetalee,
I produce retail raw milk out here in CA. My raw milk is state inpected and sold in 625 stores. We have a very intensive food safety plan and publish our bacteria counts at our website http://www.organicpastures.com and also http://www.rawmilkinstitute.org
If you boil your raw milk it is no longer raw. You might as well just buy the UHT dead stuff you already buy. Boiling is about the same as pasteurization. Why do you want to buy raw milk? Raw milk has enzymes and proteins that are vitally active and impact very poweful healing properties to the consumer. Namely: asthma benefits, anti allergy benefits and it treats excema very effectively.
Pasteurized milk has been identified as the most highly allergenic food in America at the FDA website.
But…all of this said, you really need to know your farmer and understand the conditions that he produces under. Raw milk can make you sick if he does not know what he is doing.
call me if you have any questions…I can help.
559-46-9732 mark
Thank you very much Mark, I wish I could buy the raw milk from the stores at organicpastures. But being in New Jersey, I shall try to find more details about the farmer I am planning to buy the raw milk. Also, I will try not to boil the raw milk and consume it naturally. Thanks once again!
I have just found this site, looking for more information about using milk which has not been processed by big companies. Here in New Zealand there is one main company – the largest company in the country – which processes almost 100% of the milk produced in this dairy focused land. Milk here is pasteurized, the goodies – it is separated, protein etc are removed, some is used for protein drinks etc, then it is re-mixed, homogenized, plus the UHT variety has another process as well. Then cream: cream has additives to make it smoother when it is whipped, and then it is sold as a pure product.
Now I can’t say about what happens in the US industry, but what I do know, is that the pasteurizing process I have used for several years, allows me to consume dairy products without any of the – very severe – allergic reactions I had for much of my life eating/drinking that commercially processed dairy.
My procedure is to bring the milk to 82C for 15 seconds, remove it and cool it quickly in a water bath – my kitchen sink. Depending on how much milk there is, it still takes a while, but before it is completely cold I start to separate it for butter (to freeze for baking) clotted cream (reheated, cooled, for eating on bread) cheese, which can have some cream in it but I don’t like a lot; by now most of the cream has gone, so the rest is bottled and quickly into the fridge for drinking, and finally, the almost cream-free milk I use to make yoghurt.
I hope this will help the person who wants to know about how to deal with raw milk, but I totally disagree with the notion that home pasteurizing creates anything like what comes out of the over-produced dairy product that comes out of the factories – especially UHT milk..
(I think that is the blog URL)
Well, since my last comment, I am now SO firmly resolved to use only raw milk for my kefir. I did tons of research on UHT treated milk and have concluded that whether the product comes from conventional cows or “organic” cows, the result is the same- dead white liquid AND devoid of anything in it so the stores gain 4-6 extra weeks of shelf life. Think about that. The milk in the aisles that are not refrigerated but stacked for your convenience and touted as 100% safe undergoes the same UHT process as the Horizons brand in the cooler at Whole Foods. Do you want your kids to drink that? Especially when the choice includes a real food, unprocessed and chock full of nutrients .
I personally think the dairy industry is nervy pushing this while castigating raw milk and doing what it can to limit raw milk exposure.
Remember: UHT kills 99.9% of all the bacteria (brags the dairy industry). Can anything such as vitamins or minerals still be alive or active? Dead White Water.
I have been researching a lot about consumption of raw milk and was surprised after reading all your blogs. I have been feeding my 6 year old daughter with ultrapasteurized organic milk all these years and now I am keen on switching to the raw milk option and since I live in New Jersey, probably delivered by a local farmer from PA.
My question is should I give it to my daughter as is or should I boil it before and for how long? Also, how long can it be stored if refrigerated normally?
Thank you very much for the information and saving us from the long term harmful effects of drinking ultrapasteurized milk.
i just thought of something and maybe Chris can address this: if, as my experience and observation has shown, cultured foods from raw milk culture faster than pasteurized or homogenized milk, then would it not be not only beneficial but also better to eat cultured foods from raw milk, if for no other reason, than to be continually feeding your gut probiotics to fight the salmonella and e coli bugs?
all this about raw milk. wow. anyway, i just started culturing my own kefir and buttermilk and yogurt. i cant really tell the difference. i started out using whole foods 365 organic ultra pasturized milk. then went to a pasturized-only ( not ultra),then costcos heavy cream(rbst free). these took 3 days to “turn”!!! 3 days. so i bit the bullet and bought a half gallon of raw milk at $8 a half gallon(gag). this turns within 24 hrs. my assumption has to be this: the others took so long to turn because there were less live things in the processed milks. hey- i thought the new buzz is “processed is bad, raw is best”. well, cultured raw milk tastes a bit different, but starts bubbling immediatley after i dump in my kefir/yogurt tablespoon. also, i want to add this: i was breast fed as a child for a year and still managed to be allergic to everything under the sun. i have been plagued by sinus and post nasal drip for all my life. now at 60, i am culturing my own probiotics from raw milk and now breathe in stereo!!! both nostrils. no morning hacking up mucus and my nose is not crusted with gunk. YEAH> if raw milk is dangerous, then culturing it with kefir grains has got to kill it. you can actually watch the raw milk bubbling, making those wonderful colonies that our bodies need to OFFSET ALL THOSE ECOLI GUYS. i really think that raw milk, homeopathy, and the host of alternative medical and food choices are real targets to limit health. dont get me wrong– i am not a tree lover. i am a registered libertarian who is conservative in thinking. but i have also experienced the marvels of homeopathy up close and personal–some 25 yrs ago. and no one can dispute the horrors of what the conventional food growers are doing to our food ( i just discovered that apple and pear growers have been spraying crops with anti-biotics). how much more is hidden out there, and how much is distorted? re: the e coli parents above—e coli can live for a long time –E. coli has been shown in a separate study to survive over 28 days at both refrigeration and room temperatures on stainless steel, but the bacteria only survived 90-360 minutes on surfaces of copper or copper alloy. In general, without bacterial conditions or measures, both of these hardy bacteria appear to be able to survive on hard, inanimate surfaces for weeks–you really cant pinpoint the raw milk. it could have been sitting there on your countertop or your grocery cart or a public restroom.
i say–if the CDC and the FDA get involved, there is a lobby group behind it. go raw milk!!.
Thank you, thank you for this article. I am sick to death of the CDC and FDA trying to scare us with not quite truthful statistics and research. You’re article really broke it down for those of us wanting to make our own decisions!
Stoney Cold,
Speaking of BULLETS. Asthma kills about 4000 kids per year in America. Consumption of raw milk improved asthma and perhaps even heals the process of inflammation that causes flare-ups. MAST cell stabilization via raw whey proteins. There are several huge EU studies that validate and show this to be true PARSIFAL, GABRIELA, PASTURE, AMISH studies and several others.
back prior to the advent of the supermarket, people arround the world relied on mammals for milk and its related products. Where ever there was grass and sunshine and rain….there was a mammal that could be milked. Camels, Sheep, Cows, Horses, Goats….People stopped starving when mammals served man. The bible even speaks of it in the highest regard.
I do agree that modern pasteurized, homogenized standardized white stuff is allergenic and associated with lactose intolerance and should be avoided. Raw milk is not allergenic and does not cause lactose intolerance in nearly everyone that consumes it. Our immune systems need the bacteria found in raw milk for strength and enzyme generation in the gut.
The CA raw milk markets are crazy on fire with growth and very happy healthy families. Pasteurized milk is however dying off at 2% per year or faster. Three weeks ago….Crave Brothers PASTEURIZED cheese in Wisconsin killed 2 and sickened god knows how many more. That is the real bullet. The 4000 kids a year that die from asthma is the real bullet.
Raw milk if consumed nationally would save so many lives it would mean bankrupcty for the medical industry that prays on illness. Raw milk builds immunity and health…that is why pharma brain washed doctors hate it.
Mark McAfee
Founder OPDC
Fresno CA
Mark: well stated as usual
Stoney Cold: give it up
James, you need to lay off the weed. Your hypothesis basically seems to imply that free range cows, hippy daireys etc have no bacteria ever coming into contact with milk and that the dark ages of the industrial revolution caused all that evil bacteria. Simple test for you; go take a swab and go to your favorite place that sells still moo-ing milk and swab the cows udder. touch said swab to a pitri dish and send out to lab. You will be surprised what grows in the dish. Consuming unpasteurized milk in today’s day and age is akin to Russian roulette with a 15,000 round revolver. Just because you don’t get the bullet doesn’t mean you wont or for that matter have magic powers. The bottom line is that Cows milk is meant for baby cow. The people that crow in here ad infinitum about how awesome their raw experiences are should be mooing too and have never had to take thier kids to the ER for projectile vomit. I have. I am your statistic; My family got the bullet.
dude, first of all I don’t do weed, and am probably the last person you would call a hippy. Secondly, I’m well aware of the difference between a modern, legitimate dairy practicing the type of milk production that produces consumer grade produce and the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century dairies that within the space of forty years moved from being surrounded by low density human population arable land to high density, high populace situations with little or no drainage and no knowledge of the germ theory (which didn’t become prevalent until the early part of the twentieth century in practice) and therefore little in the way of soap. Try https://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health10.html or this interesting documentary on youtube – I guess you will find it eye opening – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6gyIRy3bEw. These days, if your children experience projectile vomiting (although it is actually a good experience for the developing immune system to be exposed to non-fatal bacteria) you can report it to your local health authority. In 1898 there were over thirty thousand meat producers in new york and only ten health inspectors (with evidence of bribery being rife). Modern milk pasteurisation removes upto 80% of the bacteria that our bodies have lived with for more than thirty thousand years and I think you would be surprised at the speed that our bodies demonstrate symptoms in line with evolution (as little as three generations). I am neither in favour of raw milk or against it, and merely comment as an interested reader for other interested readers. However, should we continue wholescale with pasteurised milk when in modern hygienically controlled dairies in combination with modern refridgeration techniques there is no need for pasteurisation and I am correct about the evolving stomach and short chain calcium molecules that block ionic channels in the ceacum in intestine that has lead to gluten intolerance and problems with gliadin and ADHD and other cardiovascular issues, then the only people who will profit are the drug companies that sell cures for the symptoms that will continue to need to be patched up. Perhaps in order to check whether this is correct, one might find evidence from dairies matched on hygiene and individual families who have drunk raw milk vs families who have drunk pasteurised milk for several generations. If you can find enough families, then if I am correct then there will be a statistically significant greater than chance level of finding families with increased levels of susceptibility to gluten intolerance and adhd etc. As for free range cows, I live in a globally famous area for dairy milk and forgive me if I’m wrong but are you guys in the US practicing battery cow farming? (lol).
I have been researching for a book about health and physiological macro evolution (rapid changes to our physiology in some adaptive way). A critical theoretic reading of historical influences that lead to the adoption of pasteurised milk demonstrates that the outbreaks of illness that inspired the move towards pasteurisation stemmed from the growth of cities due to the industrial revolution during the 19th Century. The cities, with their large scale drainage requirements literally existed side by side with dairies that had not moved. This led to outbreaks of illness and the move toward pasteurisation was implicitly supported by the separation of probiotics and the fact that pasteurisation preserves milk. What I have found interesting is that there was until recently a group of respected scientists who believed that we had not evolved for milk and that this was the reason for the illnesses associated with milk. Actually, the prebiotic component of milk is implicated in the ‘cleaning / health’ of the ceacum and intestines and we have begun to demonstrate illnesses in response to the pasteurisation of milk as our stomach begins to evolve the ability to cope with the new environment that it finds itself in. Note that this is a modern application of the term ‘evolve’ and refers to an adaptive cellular process. We have since the times that necessitated the introduction of pasteurisation understood the need for cleanliness (the germ argument has been thoroughly developed since its infancy when pasteur hit the milk) and have also now got unprecedented access to fridges in comparison the ice blocks that were sometimes used for cooling back in the day (ice used as a coolant like this is well known for its ability to acquire/transfer germs during delivery). Modern illnesses like gluten and wheat intolerance along with some hormonal problems some cancers, and also ADHD are, to my mind at the moment, most likely to be traceable to this macro evolutionary process due to the process of pasteurisation.