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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The above website is an excellent Food Safety News story that makes my point very well.
Mr. Hooper,
You are mostly right about the safety of raw milk in the 1800’s and the very early 1900’s. But that is very old history. Recent CDC data holds a different truth.
422,000 illnesses from pasteurized dairy products from 1972 forward.
77 deaths from pasteurized dairy products since 1972…with the last 9 deaths since 2007 all from pasteurized dairy cheese and milk!!
There have been about 30 illnesses per year in the USA since 1972 and zero deaths from fluid raw milk!!
Those are the cold hard facts.
As far as listeria is concerned….there is no listeria illnesses associated with raw milk. That is right…listeria come from processed milk, not raw milk. The CDC under FOIA has clearly declared zero illnesses originating from fluid raw milk from Listeeria. That means that raw milk is not a risk for pregnancy. In fact, one huge EU study showed that pregnant moms provided a very strong gift as shown by cord blood anti bodies of their newborns when they drank raw milk during pregnancy.
if you want to see really pure and low risk raw milk…go see http://www.rawmilkinstitute.org and look at the food safety plans and test data of the LISTED raw dairymen. The risk is extremely low….far lower than pasteurized milk for sure.
Mark McAfee
CEO OPDC
Fresno CA
Hi Mark, I’m making no argument about the safety of pasteurized milk. I’m saying there is too much caution from too many quarters about the dangers of raw milk to certain populations, which goes beyond “deaths” and “listeria.” The same CDC you cite and whose opinion you seem to respect (at least with information you want to hear) also reports the dangers I mention. Here a few snippets from different bulletins just in the last couple of months:
“Raw milk can carry harmful bacteria and other germs that can make you very sick or kill you. While it is possible to get foodborne illnesses from many different foods, raw milk is one of the riskiest of all.”
“Getting sick from raw milk can mean many days of diarrhea, stomach cramping, and vomiting. Less commonly, it can mean kidney failure, paralysis, chronic disorders, and even death.”
“Many people who chose raw milk thinking they would improve their health instead found themselves (or their loved ones) sick in a hospital for several weeks fighting for their lives from infections caused by germs in raw milk. For example, a person can develop severe or even life-threatening diseases, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause paralysis, and hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can result in kidney failure and stroke.”
“Illness can occur from the same brand and source of raw milk that people had been drinking for a long time without becoming ill.
A wide variety of germs that are sometimes found in raw milk, can make people sick, including bacteria (e.g., Brucella, Campylobacter, Listeria, Mycobacterium bovis (a cause of tuberculosis), Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli [e.g., E. coli O157], Shigella, Yersinia), parasites (e.g., Giardia), and viruses (e.g., norovirus).
Each ill person’s symptoms can differ, depending on the type of germ, the amount of contamination, and the person’s immune defenses.”
“Who is at greatest risk of getting sick from drinking raw milk?
The risk of getting sick from drinking raw milk is greater for infants and young children, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems, such as people with cancer, an organ transplant, or HIV/AIDS, than it is for healthy school-aged children and adults. But, it is important to remember that healthy people of any age can get very sick or even die if they drink raw milk contaminated with harmful germs.
Can drinking raw milk hurt me or my family?
Yes. Raw milk can cause serious infections. Raw milk and raw milk products (such as cheeses and yogurts made with raw milk) can be contaminated with bacteria that can cause serious illness, hospitalization, or death. These harmful bacteria include Brucella, Campylobacter, Listeria, Mycobacterium bovis, Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, Shigella, Streptococcus pyogenes, and Yersinia enterocolitica. From 1998 through 2011, 148 outbreaks due to consumption of raw milk or raw milk products were reported to CDC. These resulted in 2,384 illnesses, 284 hospitalizations, and 2 deaths. Most of these illnesses were caused by Escherichia coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella, or Listeria. It is important to note that a substantial proportion of the raw milk-associated disease burden falls on children; among the 104 outbreaks from 1998-2011 with information on the patients’ ages available, 82% involved at least one person younger than 20 years old.”
“Because not all cases of foodborne illness are recognized and reported, the actual number of illnesses associated with raw milk likely is greater.”
“According to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), between 1993 and 2006 more than 1500 people in the United States became sick from drinking raw milk or eating cheese made from raw milk. In addition, CDC reported that unpasteurized milk is 150 times more likely to cause foodborne illness and results in 13 times more hospitalizations than illnesses involving pasteurized dairy products.”
“Pregnant women run a serious risk of becoming ill from the bacteria Listeria which can cause miscarriage, fetal death or illness or death of a newborn. If you are pregnant, consuming raw milk – or foods made from raw milk, such as Mexican-style cheese like Queso Blanco or Queso Fresco – can harm your baby even if you don’t feel sick.”
A number of regulatory, educational, and public health organizations have issued position papers regarding the dangers associated with the consumption of raw milk. These include:
Association of Food & Drug Officials (AFDO),
American Public Health Association (APHA),
American Medical Association (AMA),
American Academy of Pediatrics,
U.S. Animal Health Association,
National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians,
Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists,
House of Delegates of the American Veterinary Medical Association,
U.S. Food & Drug Administration, and
International Association for Food Protection (IAFP).
(And that’s just the U.S.!)
This is a mere sliver of what I mean by credible information and sources Mark. Not an obviously biased source as the rawmilkinstitute.org. I can reel out data if you want, but you aren’t going to like it.
If you can seriously continue to blithely speak of the safety of raw milk to certain populations in spite of the weight of so much learned opposition, then you are simply being irresponsible.
Charles,
Charles how come I drank raw milk through all of my eight pregnancies and gave my children only raw milk and I or they never got sick? Huh Huh? How come none of my friends who did the same never became sick? Because the raw milk scare thing is bull crap. Don’t be so gullible. What happens with these government agencies is they just all jump one agencies bandwagon. One agency (usually bought off by some big corporate diary concern.) will issue some caution or warning and the others agencies just follow suit. They don’t each do their own research. They are too lazy. Believe me. If you think you can trust these compromised govt agencies, you are a fool. Someday, perhaps when the hearts of men are about the common good and not greed, we will be able to trust the govt ( really corporate run) agencies. Really, you are really showing your ignorance. And I know you are going to do your your brick wall impersonation…so go right ahead. It’s entertaining really. I bet you a $100 you are going to respond as if you didn’t comprehend a word I said.
$100 eh? Hmmm…nah, I don’t sell disinformation and I try (imperfectly) not to give it away. I assure you I comprehend what you are saying Cary, I just don’t agree. We are supposed to disagree in this country, that’s why I thank Chris Kresser for allowing dissenting opinions on this site–he isn’t afraid to hear reasoned debate, nor should you.
In response to your comments:
a) your evidence is purely anecdotal. I don’t say personal observations aren’t important. I grew up drinking raw milk and so did many of my relatives, with nary a problem I can recall. But would I use that information to argue the safety of raw milk for certain populations? No, I would not.
b) If there were only a handful of agencies or they conflicted with one another, I would be more dubious. But there are hundreds of such reports from agencies and organizations worldwide. To be fair, there are notable exceptions, like France.
c) I distrust our government only a little more than I do that of France, but sometimes government does things right. I think that can be said for the CDC and FDAs raw milk cautions. Primarily because they agree with the vast majority of others.
That was not my brick wall imitation though Cary, so here it goes…hurry…it hurts…ah you missed it! Lighten up, it’s a debate, not a war. A mother of six earns tons of respect, and you definitely have mine.
Actually it is not a war or a debate. Wars and debates have two sides. It’s Plutocracy.
One more time: Considering how common so called food-borne illness is in this country and the extreme nature of the claims made by raw milk consumers, how long do you think one has to drink raw milk to prove it’s safety and benefit? If you grew up on raw milk you have no idea the health issues you’ve avoided.
You don’t have much of a grasp of statistics do you? The fact you don’t know anyone affected is not at all surprising, statistically.
Roger, “how come I drank raw milk through all of my eight pregnancies and gave my children only raw milk and I or they never got sick? Huh Huh? How come none of my friends who did the same never became sick? Because the raw milk scare thing is bull crap.” Roger, the average American gets diarrhea 4 times a year. That’s once every 3 months. “You don’t have much of a grasp of statistics do you?”
Also Roger, 1 in 6 Americans come down with a foodborne illness every year. So how long could it possibly take to know that “the raw milk scare thing is bull crap.”?
This just happened. This is because of articles like this. Makes me sick. There is a reason it is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk. Not everything is a conspiracy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-11/child-dies-after-drinking-unpasteurised-milk-in-victoria/5959246
Sarah, all it says in your link is “3yo child dies after”. It doesn’t say the cause of death. I’m sure this child did may things, ate many things, and was given many dangerous medications before it died. But were any of them the cause of it’s death and if so which one?
“The health department had taken samples of our milk [for] salmonella, E.Coli, dysentery and all the results have come back negative, or not detected.”
“She also said her company ran their own tests on the milk every week for bacteria and it always came back negative.”
If reading makes you sick maybe you need to start drinking raw milk. It is not illegal to sell unpasteurized milk. That would be absurd. Actually everything is a conspiracy. Especially when money is involved.
Joshua,
You are painfully uninformed. Please read the article above and then all the comments and then see if you still see things the same way.
Failure to heat milk to kill harmful pathogens is playing with fire. Milk is a PERFECT medium for bacterial growth. Think about what your suggesting to people, your suggesting something that could ruin their life. There is no significant deteriorization of nutrients caused by heating milk to kill pathogens.
I took Mark’s advice and did further research, yet remain unconvinced that raw milk is safe for young children or pregnant women. If you don’t trust the FDAs caution, read those of the UN, Canada, Australia, the UK or Germany. And in many countries where regulations are lax or unenforced, consumers often boil it, especially in Asia.
To believe these regulations exist solely to benefit the big dairy operations instead of protecting the consumer is like believing Oswald didn’t shoot Kennedy. You can find all the “evidence” you want to support a conspiracy, but under closer scrutiny, it just doesn’t add up.
There is no conspiracy on behalf of the dairy industry. Instead, it’s as you say Joshua, raw milk is fertile ground for pathogens. One can believe a few people posting here or research why so many international regulations exist. If you do so with an OPEN MIND, you can’t help but reach the same conclusions. If then you continue giving them raw milk, you are playing Russian Roulette with your child’s health and safety.
People can make all the arguments they want–mostly raw milk producers and consumers–but I would not give it to a child or expecting mother. I have no horse in this race and drank it all the time in my childhood. It’s way too rich and fattening for me to drink now.
Considering how common so called food-borne illness is in this country and the extreme nature of the claims made by raw milk consumers, how long do you think one has to drink raw milk to prove it’s safety and benefit? If you grew up on raw milk you have no idea the health issues you’ve avoided.
Charles,
I suggest you read the new issue of Time magazine that has an article about Butter on the cover. The new research shows that science has been wrong about butter, whole milk, (saturated fats) being the cause of obesity and heart disease. (The usda advocates for the ag industry) It turns out the USDA recommendations were completely flawed and bad science. It turns out sugar and cooked carbs are the major cause of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes etc. Read the article and get back to me. The lesson here. The USDA,
FDA, CDC can be wrong. Maybe not purposely. But they are human and you have to be CAREFUL what you believe and who you listen to, even the diety you call government.
Hi Cary, my argument is only as complicated as you want to make it and has nothing to do with whether the FDA missed the mark or whether butter and milk are unhealthy or not, nor do I argue that the FDA, et al are infallible.
My argument all along has been that enough information exists (from governmental and health organizations in other countries, for example) to support caution giving raw milk products to pregnant women and children.
Trust me, I am careful with sources, but your reliance on Time Magazine as a primary source indicates you are not. There simply is not enough CREDIBLE research to support the safety of raw milk products consumed by children and pregnant women.
Charles,
I have been watching you debate the whole forum here and I think it is safe to say. Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.
Not quite brick Cary, but resistant to bad arguments. I’ve been saying the same thing since my first post…it is not responsible to promote raw milk as safe for pregnant women and children to consume. That’s all, so call me a wall.
International research is abundant and there is a reason pasteurization is considered one of the major health advancements in history.
Visit any cemetery over 100 years old and you will see them filled with the graves of young children. Infectious disease was the major killer of children (and adults), and many of those pathogens came from water and foods (including milk).
It’s unfortunately too easy to malign the FDA and ignore their achievements in improving food safety.
About 48 million people (That’s 15% per year or 1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases, according new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The average American get diarrhea 4 times a year.
What is it you hope to avoid?
Perhaps avoiding food-borne illnesses, hospitalization and death…oh yeah, and diarrhea for children and pregnant women.
Avoiding raw milk does not prevent “food-borne illnesses, hospitalization and death…oh yeah, and diarrhea for children and pregnant women.” You own statistics show that avoiding raw milk only increases “food-borne illnesses, hospitalization and death…oh yeah, and diarrhea for children and pregnant women.”
My neice almost died and suffers from a disease she will have for the rest of her life due to drinking raw milk from a licensed raw milk dairy. My Grandmother when asked what she thought about raw milk said “I would never go back to unpasteurized milk.. it was terrible in those days, we watched babies die from diseases in raw milk.” I took that as wise advice.
I think the latest fads about health food are getting down right scary. Suddenly it is “unhealthy” to clean our foods anymore. Now foods like sushi “raw fish” are considered safe and healthy by some folks and heating milk to kill bacteria is somehow turning the milk into an unhealthy food.
There has been well over 100 years of study on the subject of making food safe to eat. Pasteurization was developed to solve a problem and I think it is nieve to believe that thousands of years of food development is suddenly wrong and we should go to eating everything raw again. I learned about microorganisms in 6th grade science class and the importance cooking food. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out the risks are great.
Some say that we need to be exposed to more microorganisms so that our bodies learn to resist them. At some level this must certainly be true. The problem is that with products like unpasteurized milk you cannot control which microorganisms your exposed to. It could be anything from yeast to ecoli.
TB is not a significant raw milk risk. Here is why. A state of CA veterinarian said once, a mother always protects her young.
What this means is this: When a mother has TB it is the antiboidies to TB that are shared with her offspring…not generally the actual TB itself. Now, if the TB infection is in the udder, the TB obviously gets into the milk, but if the TB is some place else in the cow, like the lungs, then it is the antibodies that are found in the raw milk and not the actual TB itself. That is why cows are an excellent animal to be used for immune milk. Immune milk has been shown to be a very effective and curative method to heal diseases in man. To make immune milk, just inject the cow with the infection found in man during the dry period just prior to calving. When the calf is born the colostrum will carry the antibody to the human infection that was shared with the cow. Other countries arround the world like Germany and Russia use this therapy. The FDA will jail a farmer for playing doctor like this. I fact there have been several dairy farmers prosecuted for providing immune milk to consumers. According to the FDA this makes the farmer a drug company.
Is tuberculosis a significant risk ? If not, why not?
lived onj dairy d\farm from 1960 to n67 and we milked 100 cows and we drank milk when thirsty mother cooked with raw milks we drank it with meals used with cereals. and never died places like CDC and FDA have to try and justify their existance so they say things are dangerous to eat, funny more people get sick from contaminated vegetables or fruits or sea foods then raw milk.
Its like Cancer, no one will find a cure for cancer sadly to say the drug industry makes to much money providing medications chemo therapy etc and doctors and researchers would all lose their jobs because research wouldnt be needed anymore a cure was found.
I also believe a cure for the common cold will never happen, it it did just look at the empty shelves at your local drug store which are stocked with cold medications liquids pills capsules rubs etc, imagine the billions the manufactuing companies would lose when their products no longer wanted or needed?? Society always needs its bogeyman so we cant donate and so thes e researchers have a job, just saying
Amen! couldn’t agree more.
I like raw goats milk quite a bit but, lately I have been thinking about toxoplasmosis risks. I know goats can get it if cats that are infected with the parasite are kept near by. If you are culturing the milk to make kefir, does this destroy the parasite/oocytes?
Mark McAfee…now that’s how to maturely argue! You give me food for thought and make me want to know more. Civil debate is an excellent way to learn something. When it comes to children and pregnant women, I’ve got some convincing to do, but you lead me in a few directions to follow.
An example of a ridiculous argument (almost as bad as Mark S.) is somebody who sent me a message (maybe it hasn’t posted yet) about the CDC director being charged with child molestation. What in the world does that have to do with whether raw milk is safe for children and pregnant women? There are creeps throughout society…
I’m happy for you Joey…enjoy it. I’m talking about misinforming people about the risks to women and children, not whether adults should drink it or not. Do you understand the difference? To illustrate, you can buy all the liquor you want, and even though its not good for you that is your business. But you certainly wouldn’t give it to a child, right?
Yes Mary, that is a curiosity that only the webmaster can solve. It just doesn’t bode well for objectivity and leaves some wondering, “Wow, I wonder what happened to that kid and whether the milk was the problem or not?”.
Mary and Charles,
I agree…I am biased, I am in love with high quality raw milk…I love the challenge of the pioneering experience and most of all I love the hugs I get from deeply appreciative moms that provide OPDC raw milk to their kids. Yes….to their kids. I also love the thanks I get from the pregnant moms that drink OPDC raw milk. When they give birth their cord blood reflects an entirely different anti body profile and this is a gift to their babies that lasts a lifetime!!! NO ASTHMA!!!
Both of you have the science very wrong. Listeria is the bug you worry about when pregnant!!! THE CDC HAS ZERO INCIDENTS OF RAW MILK CAUSING MISSCARRIAGE OR DEATH RELATED TO LISTERIA in USA PRODUCED RAW MILK!! ZERO. All of the issues and deaths have come from dear old FDA beloved pasteurized products….all of them!! Including about 77 deaths mostly from LISTERIA!!
So get your facts straight. It is one thing to argue based on true facts it is quite another to not know your facts and especially official data like CDC.
Mary….you know that I completely agree with you about ecoli 0157H7 and kids. But you also know that RAWMI LISTED producers have tackled this problem with the use of RAMP plans and testing. You know that a coliform count of less than 10 basically ( most of our tests show less than 3 or even less than 1 ) makes it statistically near impossible and highly improbable that any one of any age will become sick from raw milk ecoli pathogens. Even our CDFA state dairy inspectors say this.
Nadines work has been accepted by the most conservative regulatory agency in the world…the Canadians that forbid raw milk. So….we need to stop considering all raw milk dangerous and start thinking of raw milk as a “grey scale of risk”….from higher risk ( Grade A raw milk that is intended for pasteurization ) and Grade A raw milk that is tested, inspected, under tight controls like RAMP and RAWMI etc…that is intended for human consumption. Both come out of a cow…but are they different!!!
We are not talking about ONE RAW MILK in America. Raw milk quality and safety directly reflects the conditions and safety programs that produce it.
There is a reason why raw milk is classified in the EU as a “low risk food”. The systems we have applied at Raw Milk Institute.ORG completely bypass and surpass the standards in the EU.
Times are changing. When 9 kids die each day ( mostly in ER rooms or going to ER’s in ambulances ) from Asthma…and we know that asthma is effectively treated and prevented by raw milk….that is a travesty. ( PARSIFAL, GABRIELA, PASTURE, AMISH EU studies ). We must embrace nutrition as a basis for health. Our dear ER nurse that talks about all the sick kids in the ER fails to appreciate that these ER sick kids are a direct result of very weak immune systems, that are related to anti-biotic abuse and a sterile sugar based fast food or highly processed diet. Kids that drink raw milk and eat whole foods generally have very robust immunity and do not ever go to ER’s for treatment…except for maybe a broken bone and that is rare because their bones are stronger.
I know all of this….My wife is a 25 year MSRN and I spent 17 years of my life on a helipcopter and in ambulances and I was an EMT-Paramedic ( ran 15000 EMS calls and saw it all at least three times ) that taught EMS advanced life support and prehospital medicine at the Fresno Co. Health Department.
Yes I own and operate OPDC with a deeply dedicated team of people that embrace safety and RAMP plans and we are not perfect….but pretty damn close as we apply better technology and learn from every little thing that comes our way.
Pretty soon…there will be no fluid pasteurized milk to defend….it is dying at 2% per year becuase it is listed as the MOST allergenic food in America adn at least 30% of the consumers can not digest it….it is shelf stable and your gut is not a shelf!!
Start waving that white flag of surrender…raw milk is an emerging market and consumers dollar vote for it every single day.
I just got back from getting my (REAL MILK) Charlie!
Charles, I think the most alarming thing you posted was that the comment about the possible sick child from contaminated raw milk was removed. No bias operating here.
And this folks, is what happens to somebody like Mark when you render their arguments biased and worse than irrelevant. Keep those teats clean!
That’s the spirit Paula! I wish you and your clients the best. Enjoy your raw milk, I just ask some voice in the back of your head ask you to be sure and careful about that when it comes to young children and pregnant women.
People on this very forum have spoken about their own experiences with children sickened by tainted raw milk.
I’ve not mentioned but will now that I do have personal knowledge of its danger to children, having seen many cases of infection in the ER and other areas of medical practice. Do you think they and people like me take our time to throw in our two-cents worth just to bring out profound commentary like “nice try” from somebody who sells the stuff?
I make no profit here, I only work in medicine because I serve the public’s health. It’s heartbreaking to see severe sickness and death because of the folly of well-meaning parents who put political and personal agendas above the health of their children.
Mark S., you darn right it was! I can tell when somebody has made a strong point here when you salute them with a “nice try.” Hilariously ironic…
Would you say that the man who was posting an “as we speak” report about his sick daughter was making so nice a try that his comments have been removed from the discussion? Is that any worse than alleged FDA and CDC cover-ups?
I see from one of your posts that you are a vendor as well, which negates your objectivity and renders most of what you say to be a “nice try…” Oh, I forgot the irony…NOT!
So let’s here it Mark…”nic. …”
Oy Vey Charles Hooper,
You really got the CDC’s back and those of their ilk?
CDC Director Arrested for Child Molestation and Bestiality
Story at-a-glance
A high-ranking CDC official, who played a significant role in the 2009 H1N1 propaganda campaign, has been arrested and charged with two counts of child molestation and one count of bestiality
As an official in charge of CDC health recommendations for all American children, her actions raise troublesome questions about her level of concern for the health and well-being of children in general
Other recent stories raising questions about the ethics and integrity of the agency include documentation showing that the CDC has never obtained any input from toxicology experts to assess the health effects of water fluoridation, and the recent fraud indictment of Dr. Thorsen—hired by the CDC to debunk the link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism. Geesh. Charles do you really expect your reputation to withstand this?
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/28/cdc-director-arrested-for-child-molestation–bestiality.aspx
And then the CDC rehires the louse.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/01/cdc-official-accused-child-molestation-bestiality-returns-to-work/
Charles Hooper,
Nice Try
I Just want to let you all know I’m Going up to the Farm to get my weekly supply of 2 gallons of (REAL MILK) Its something I love to do.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. . .
Common sense and tradition show me that raw milk from grass fed cows is beneficial in health to both adults/children.
Of course you have a horse in the race Paula…One side of your mouth says you don’t while the other side clearly indicates you do…Giddy-up!
Misinterpretation again . . .
I don’t “profit” from the sales of raw milk or how many people drink or don’t drink other than my clients/families are healthier and perform better.
If you consider that “a horse in the race” so be it. Better move over cause it’s a racehorse.