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Raw Milk Reality: Is Raw Milk Dangerous?

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Full Bottle of fresh milk and two glass is wooden table on a blue background

Back in February, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) published a study targeting raw milk as dangerous and unsafe for human consumption. The media jumped on it in typical fashion. You may have seen headlines like this:

“Raw Milk Causes Most Illnesses From Dairy, Study Finds.”
– USA Today

“CDC: Raw Milk Much More Likely to Cause Illness.”
– Food Safety News

“Raw Milk is a Raw Deal, CDC Says.”
– LiveScience

While two of these headlines are technically accurate – raw milk is responsible for more illnesses than pasteurized milk when the number of people who consume each is taken into account – the concern they convey about the risk of drinking unpasteurized milk is dramatically overstated.

I’m going to break this series into three parts. In this first article, we’re going to examine what the research really says about raw milk safety, and compare the risks associated with drinking unpasteurized milk with other foods and activities. In the second article, we’ll explore the benefits of drinking raw milk from several different perspectives: nutritional, health-related, social, environmental and ethical. Finally, in the third article I’ll make recommendations and provide guidance on finding a safe and responsible raw dairy producer in your area.

This series is called “Raw Milk Reality” because, as is the case with other hot button issues like vaccination and homebirth, propaganda and hype have overshadowed facts and common sense.  If you only saw the headlines from the CDC and FDA reports, you’d be left with the impression that raw milk is a dangerous food and anyone that consumes it or gives it to their children is reckless and irresponsible.

The purpose of this series is to present the other side of the argument, and give you the bare facts without bias or hyperbole so you can make an informed decision about whether unpasteurized milk is a good choice for you and your family.

I’m not here to convince anyone that they should drink raw milk.  That’s a decision each individual has to make on their own by weighing the potential risks against the potential benefits.  But to do that, you need an accurate understanding of the risks (which we’ll cover in this article) and the benefits (which we’ll cover in the next.)

Just how “dangerous” is raw milk? A little perspective…

Before we do that, however, let’s put the current discussion of unpasteurized milk safety into a wider context. Foodborne illness is a concern for many types of food. According to the most recent review of foodborne disease outbreaks in the U.S. in 2008 by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), seafood, produce and poultry were associated with the most outbreaks. Produce is responsible for the greatest number of illnesses each year (2,062), with nearly twice as many illnesses as poultry (1,112). Dairy products are at the bottom of the list. They cause the fewest outbreaks and illnesses of all the major food categories – beef, eggs, poultry, produce and seafood.

According to the CDC, during the period from 1990 − 2006, there were 24,000 foodborne illnesses reported each year on average. Of those, 315 per year are from dairy products. This means dairy products account for about 1.3% of foodborne illnesses each year. That’s not exactly an alarming number, considering that more than 75% of the population consumes dairy products regularly.

It’s also important to note that the outbreaks and illnesses associated with dairy products are generally mild compared to other foods.
According to the CSPI report above, approximately 5,000 people are killed every year by foodborne illness. From 2009 − 2011, three high profile outbreaks involving peanuts, eggs and cantaloupe alone accounted for 2,729 illnesses and 39 deaths. (1) Yet there have only been a handful of deaths from pasteurized dairy products in the last decade, and there hasn’t been a single death attributed to raw fluid milk since the mid-1980s, in spite of the fact that almost 10 million people are now consuming it regularly.

The takeaway is that thousands of people are killed each year by foodborne illness, but they’re dying from eating fruits, nuts, eggs, meat, poultry, fish and shellfish – not from drinking unpasteurized milk.

Why the CDC report can’t be taken at face value

The CDC report claimed that unpasteurized milk is 150 times more likely to cause foodborne illness than pasteurized milk, and such outbreaks had a hospitalization rate 13 times higher than those involving pasteurized dairy products.

According to senior author of the CDC study, Barbara Mahon:

When you consider that no more than 1% of the milk consumed in the United States is raw, it’s pretty startling to see that more of the outbreaks were caused by raw milk than pasteurized.

But can these claims be taken at face value? No.

There are several problems with the CDC report:

  • First and foremost, the CDC doesn’t include the dataset they used, so we can’t analyze how they reached their conclusions. Fortunately, the CDC data for foodborne illness, as well as data from other institutions and peer-reviewed studies, are readily available online.
  • There are about 24,000 foodborne illnesses reported each year. Yet by the CDC’s own admission, this represents only a tiny fraction of the true number of foodborne illnesses that occur. In 1999, CDC scientists used an estimate of the overall prevalence of diarrhea and vomiting to calculate the “true” incidence of foodborne illness as 76 million cases per year! Put another way, 99.97% of foodborne illnesses go unreported.
  • A food vehicle was identified in only 43% of the reported outbreaks and only half of these were linked to a single food ingredient. What this means is that the true prevalence of foodborne illness that can be attributed to a particular food is much higher than what is reported. It also means that the data linking specific outbreaks with specific foods is such a tiny sample of the total that even small errors or biases in the reporting of outbreaks would seriously skew the results.
  • To calculate the number of people that drink unpasteurized milk, the CDC used an older, lower estimate (1%) of the number of people that drink raw milk. This is curious because a FoodNet survey done by the CDC itself in 2007 found that 3% of the U.S. population – about 9.4 million people  – regularly consumes raw milk. That number is likely even higher today with the growing popularity of raw milk. (In 2010 alone, raw milk sales increased by 25% in California.) Why did they do this? If you’re a cynic, you might conclude that they used the lower estimate to exaggerate the risk of drinking raw milk.
  • They combined data from outbreaks and illnesses associated with “bathtub cheese” (i.e. Mexican-style Queso Fresco made illegally at home) made from raw milk, and raw fluid milk. Queso Fresco is inherently more dangerous than raw milk, and is associated with more serious outbreaks and illnesses. Again, this distorts the data and makes raw milk seem more dangerous than it really is. (Note: commercial, properly aged raw milk cheese has never been implicated in a disease outbreak.)

(For a more detailed analysis and critique of the CDC report, see this article from the Weston A. Price Foundation.)

In light of these weaknesses, I decided to conduct my own analysis using a more comprehensive data set including the CDC foodborne disease outbreak surveillance tables, an online outbreak database published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), public health reports such as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly (MMWR), a CDC line list produced in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to CDC by the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), and peer-reviewed studies in the scientific literature (2,3,4).

I purposely excluded outbreaks associated with Queso Fresco cheeses, because we are concerned here with the safety of raw milk and not raw cheese made in a bathtub, which I would never eat and would never advise anyone else to eat. I chose to focus on the most recent data available, from 2000 – 2007, since unpasteurized milk consumption increased significantly over the last decade.

I also included two notable outbreaks in California that were missing from both the CDC and CSPI databases: a large outbreak of campylobacteriosis in 2006, involving over 1,644 illnesses among prison inmates that was linked to pasteurized milk produced by an on-site prison dairy and another campylobacteriosis outbreak in 2007, that caused 8 illnesses following consumption of commercial raw milk and/or raw colostrum. (5,6)

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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.

Raw milk data

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.

Pasteurized milk data

There were 8 outbreaks with 2,214 illnesses, with an average of 277 illnesses per year. According to the CDC FoodNet survey, 78.5% (246,097,500) of the U.S. population consumes pasteurized milk.

This means you had a roughly 1 in 888,000 chance of becoming ill from drinking pasteurized milk.

According to these data, it’s true that you have a higher chance of getting sick from drinking raw milk than pasteurized milk. But the risk is 9.4 times higher, not 150 times higher as the CDC claimed.

Perhaps this is a good time to review the difference between absolute and relative risk. When you hear that you have a roughly 9 times greater (relative) risk of getting sick from drinking raw milk than pasteurized milk, that might sound scary. And indeed it would be, if we were talking about the absolute risk moving from 5% to 45%.

But when the absolute risk is extremely small, as it is here, a relative 9-fold increase is rather insignificant. If you have a 0.00011 percent chance of getting sick from drinking pasteurized milk, and a 9.4 times greater risk of getting sick from drinking unpasteurized milk, we’re still talking about a miniscule risk of 0.00106% (one one-thousandth of a percent).

But to truly gauge the risk, we should ask how serious these illnesses are.

An “illness” in these data can mean everything from an upset stomach to mild diarrhea to hospitalization for serious disease.  One of the reasons most foodborne illnesses go unreported is that they are only a passing nuisance.

When is the last time you had a bout of diarrhea that you suspect was caused by something you ate?  Did you report it to your doctor or the county public health department?  Probably not.

The statistic we should be more concerned with is hospitalizations for serious illnesses such as kidney failure and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) caused by unpasteurized milk.  This does happen, and children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable and more likely to experience a serious illness.  That said, hospitalizations from raw milk are extremely rare.  During the 2000 − 2007 period, there were 12 hospitalizations for illnesses associated with raw fluid milk. That’s an average of 1.5 per year. With approximately 9.4 million people drinking raw milk, that means you have about a 1 in 6 million chance of being hospitalized from drinking raw milk.

To put this in perspective, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, you have a roughly 1 in 8,000 chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident if you live in the U.S..  Therefore, you have a 750 times greater chance of dying in a car crash than becoming hospitalized from drinking raw milk.

The risk of dying in a plane crash (1 in 2,000,000) is orders of magnitude lower than dying in a car accident (1 in 8,000) – and yet most people who are afraid of flying don’t hesitate to get in their car. But as unlikely as dying in a plane crash is, it’s about 3 times more likely than becoming hospitalized (not dying) from drinking unpasteurized milk.

As I said earlier in the article, there has not been a single death attributed to drinking unpasteurized milk since the mid-1980s. There were 5 stillbirths attributed to an outbreak linked to bathtub-style Queso Fresco in 2000 in North Carolina. These were the only deaths during the 2000 − 2007 period I analyzed.

How does the risk of drinking raw milk compare to other foods?

Now let’s put some of these abstract numbers into perspective.

According to the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly (MMWR), from 2006 − 2008 there were an average of 13 outbreaks and 291 illnesses per year associated with shellfish and mollusks. According to the CDC FoodNet Survey, about 5.7% of the population (17,869,500) consumes shellfish. This means you had a roughly 1 in 61,000 chance of becoming ill from eating shellfish. That’s about 1.5 times the risk of becoming ill from drinking raw milk (1 in 94,000).

The risk is even greater – and more serious – if you eat raw oysters. 7.4% of people who eat oysters consume them raw (1,322,343). There are 15 deaths a year on average attributed to raw oyster consumption. This means you have about a 1 in 88,000 chance of dying from raw oysters. In other words, you have a greater chance of dying from eating raw oysters than you do of getting sick from drinking unpasteurized milk.

What about other more commonly eaten foods?  Check out the chart below, from the 2008 CSPI report. It shows the relative incidence of foodborne illness from 1999 – 2006, adjusted for consumption.

As you can see:

  • Seafood caused 29 times more illnesses than dairy
  • Poultry caused 15 times more illnesses than dairy
  • Eggs caused 13 times more illnesses than dairy
  • Beef caused 11 times more illnesses than dairy
  • Pork caused 8 times more illnesses than dairy
  • Produce caused 4 times more illnesses than dairy
What this chart clearly shows is that when it comes to foodborne illness, dairy should be the least of your concerns.

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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597 Comments

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  1. My brother is a dairy farmer in NZ. He was managing one of the Waikato’s (NZ premier dairy farming region) top dairy farms.

    I took RAW milk from his farm to make chocolate milks. I got campylobacter and if I was young 75 I would have died!!!

    Raw milk is not worth the risk people. Take it from me. I was extremely ill for 4 weeks. I was 11 stone and went down to 7 vomiting, diarrhoea, hallucinations, sweats etc etc. Worst month of my life.

    Stool samples were finally taken, farm was the origin, because we took RAW milk from it. Not supposed to as all NZ dairy products are pasteurised.

    LESSON LEARNED.

    Babies and elderly will die from unpasteurised milk, be warned…FDA know what they are talking about….

    • Edit below post.

      “If I was young 75 it was supposed to say.”

      I was 21 years of age and healthy enough to fight the massive infection that took hold of my entire body.

    • “chocolate milks”? why blame the milk and not the chocolate? Even the CDC isn’t saying that people are dying from raw milk.

        • You don’t know the campy was in the milk. You don’t know it was even in your food at all. You could have gotten it anywhere or it could have been in your body all along. You don’t even know it was the cause of your illness. This is what you said: “Stool samples were finally taken, farm was the origin, because we took RAW milk from it. Not supposed to as all NZ dairy products are pasteurised.” You didn’t say you tested the milk. “Symptoms of Campylobacter infection begin after an incubation period of up to a week.” When did your symptoms start?

      • And Prince Charles has never undressed himself and his shoelaces are ironed for him. Let’s all do what the royals do!

        • There are those who believe healthy food is only for the rich. Are you one of those people John?

        • There are those who believe healthy food is only for the rich. Are you one of those people Gary? I thought I was still talking to John.

          • How would you come to that conclusion? I am pointing out the absurdity of saying if the royals do it, it must be good.

            • Wade said – “Not supposed to as all NZ dairy products are pasteurised.” Gary, I was saying “If the royals do it, it may be good.” “I am pointing out the absurdity of saying” food processors pasteurize milk so pasteurization must be good. What do you think?

    • I would be notifying the dairy regulatory body in NZ if I were you. Dairy farms, especially ones that are producing what is regarded as a higher quality product, should be properly managed. There are strict guidelines a dairy farmer has to follow when taking care of the cows and the milk once extracted, all the way to the vat…. I grew up on a dairy farm and I know many others who did and there are hundreds of thousands of kids grow up on cows milk before it reaches any stage of pasteurizing. City folk mostly don’t even know milk comes from a cow…..they think it’s made in a bottle….

      • Is there a dairy regulatory body in NZ that cares about the quality of raw drinking milk? “City folk mostly don’t even know milk comes from a cow.” True, but you may be surprised how many grew up on raw milk.

        • I’m speaking from an Australian perspective……I grew up on a dairy farm and the milk has to be tested regular. What people need to realize is milk is very sensitive to sunlight. Leave your milk out on the bench with sun shining on it and it will degrade very quickly. The only real advantage of having milk pasteurized and homogenized is a longer shelf life which benefits the manufacturer and delivery process. Nowadays all milk bought from shops is actually “re-constituted” meaning it is dehydrated and separated at a central collection point then trucked to the large manufacturers in cities. All the goodness is taken out at that point. This allows for greater profit and less waste so the powdered milk and other products are made from what has been taken from the milk…….any body who thinks there is no conspiracy in corporate manufacture techniques must have their heads up a cows…….you know what…….

          • Lance, you are right on the money. Although I have heard that the only real advantage of having milk pasteurized is that it prevents butter fat from going rancid(oxidize) within hours of being homogenized.

            • just to add an interesting point here……hundreds of tanker trucks pick up the milk from dairy farms everyday. Do you see these hundreds of tankers coming into the large city milk providers plants in cities. No you don’t. Only a few come in with the concentrated milk product. Smaller collection points in rural centers do the separation process and then send on the concentrated parts to the varying process plants, eg: milk powder, baby formula, flavored milk, powdered coffees and so on. Shop milk is not really milk at all………

          • That’s what I don’t understand. I have found that raw milk (refrigerated) doesn’t go off even after a week. Homogenised pasteurised milk from any supermarket goes bad much quicker.

    • I approached the manager of Jimbo’s (health store) , once upon a time, and I asked him whether or not raw milk was safe. He told me this:

      “The safety of raw milk depends on where you get it from. I wouldn’t get it from a dairy that doesn’t specialize in selling it. The raw milk I do sell ( Organic Pastures ) has raw unpasteurized organic milk that is safe. I know this because in the last 28 years I’ve been selling milk from this dairy, I’ve not had one customer come to me can tell me they got sick from drinking it.” In other words, a dairy that specializes in selling raw milk has to take precautions, and as long as they do, the milk is safe. So, when trying to determine which is healthier, compare safe brands of each. Fact is, pasteurized milk gives me hay fever, but non-pasteurized milk does not. That’s all I can say about the matter, plus the fact that raw milk tastes a lot better, to my tongue, anyway. I’ve been drinking raw milk for several years now, and not one problem, ever.
      I’m 63

      • Thaddeus, The safety of raw milk doesn’t really depend on where you get it from but it’s quality does. It would be hard to get it from a dairy that didn’t specialize in selling it. Most raw milk in California is sold farm direct from very small high quality operations. Didn’t Organic Pastures first open in 2000? Mark McAfee hasn’t been in the raw milk business for 28 years. Organic Pastures was blamed for an outbreak once and was shut down but as usual no contamination was ever found. Nothing can stop the health department from blaming raw milk or any food for cases of diarrhea and there will never be a shortage of cases. The average America gets diarrhea 4 times a year. None of these so call precautions have anything to do with milk’s safety and neither does pasteurization. Hey, raw milk cured my hay fever to.

  2. Raw milk has been the norm in India since ages. At home in India , we had a milkman who delivered raw milk every morning and my mom would boil the milk for 10 minutes. The milk creates a thick cream layer on top which was collected and accumulated to make butter and saturated butter(Ghee) from it later. When i moved to Canada the distance between my food and the food provider expanded to the extent I dont know where my milk comes from , which farm or factory, I dont know which farms the vegetables come from. Drinking raw milk is a personal choice but in my opinion people in north america who have been cushioned against bacteria with modern age medicines may not have natural immunity for raw milk consumption. I have had raw milk since I was born , now I do not have access to it, Iam I bothered – yes maybe , Iam worried about the “milk solids ” in my Grocery store milk

    • Homogenization is worse than pasteurization but boiling milk for ten minutes is worse than pasteurization. People in the city are exposed to more of these so called food-borne pathogens that cows on the farm. Antibiotics do not protect us from these bacteria. Do all Indians boil their milk?

      • Yes. We all generally boil milk first and then drink it. Its a common practice in India. And as far I know, there has been not a single case of any side effect from boiling the milk. And because of the fact that even today in small town people buy milk from milkman they always prefer to boil it first and then use it.

  3. It seems you start your reasoning with data from pasteurized dairy products, i.e. when you mention that they “account for about 1.3% of foodborne illnesses each year”.

    And then you close the article listing all the products that caused more illnesses than dairy, but then again, isn’t that data from pasteurized dairy products?

  4. I am a cheese maker. Originally, I got on this site to get information about using raw milk in cheese making. There is good information on this page and I’m grateful to those who supplied it. Raw milk cheese was the norm for me when I lived in England and it still is, in many parts of Europe. I’ve never heard of anyone getting sick from eating it and what I’ve found on this site bears out the opinion that there is nothing dangerous about it.

    I got what I set out to get and thank those whose posts helped me to clear things up. But, to be honest, the bickering and mindless opinions are things I can do without.

    So, I am leaving this discussion.

    Yours sincerely,

    John Davis

    • Above commenter is correct. The benefits you receive from raw vs pasteurized milk is simply not worth the risk. Any average American diet gets more than enough vitamins/minerals etc. Illnesses from dairy are low because they are Pasteurized! If it was widespread that americans consumed raw dairy products that number would go way up. And for what purpose? Raw milk companies today take pride and work extremely hard to verify that the cow doesn’t have infection, if raw dairy was widespread the risk of infection would sky rocket.

      • The above commenter is either selling very low quality processed foods or very expensive drugs.
        As John Davis once said “bickering and mindless opinions”. J is obviously not familiar with the benefits of raw milk. Raw milk has demonstrated a negative risk factor. Only a fool would suggest that the “average American diet has more than enough vitamins/minerals”. Illness from pasteurized dairy has proven to be extremely high even before you consider the so called food-borne illnesses associated with it. If raw dairy consumption was widespread in America we wouldn’t need health insurance because most of the doctor we have today would be in other professions we would all be making a lot more money. And yes J “Raw milk farmers today take pride and work extremely hard to verify that their cows don’t have infections.”

        • I was on board with most of what you were saying (yeah right, American diet is so nutritious…LOL). You lost me when you said if everyone drank raw milk doctors would be out of work. Yikes. Let’s not cause dismissal of some good points you make with such silliness.

          • First I know where you’re coming from and I agree but for me sometimes when someone brings up the subject this way I find it hard to contain myself. Are you saying raw milk is not a healthy food? Doesn’t it go without saying that an increase in the consumption of healthy food should result in healthier people and therefor a decreased demand for doctors and pharmaceuticals. Or would it simply mean the salesmen would have to step up their game to protect their $4 trillion a year income? Your criticism brings to mind 1984.

            “Nineteen Eighty-Four, sometimes published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by George Orwell published in 1949. The novel is set in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (or Ingsoc in the government’s invented language, Newspeak) under the control of a privileged Inner Party elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as “thoughtcrimes”.”

      • Ok, ever since man came out of the Garden of Eden he has been drinking raw milk (or if your an uninformed evolutionist ever since we climbed out of the slim) It wasn’t until the late 40’s early 50’s that we began drinking pasturized milk. So suddenly a staple food for millenia was declared “unfit”. It is hogwash, the industrial farming and bags of antibiotics that are causing problems. 3 years ago I had the start of ulcers and constant stomach problems, I was on all sorts of meds for it, a friend told me about the benefits of raw goat milk….3 months after trying it I was off all meds. I know you hippie doctor types will tell me that’s anecdotal evidence….that may be but i don’t double over in pain anymore and one cup of Goat milk seems to keep the Dr. away..Biblically a “Land flowing with Milk and Honey…” He didn’t say pasteurized homogenized crap…, I have to go with God on this one I am a believer!

  5. Did you also post and say ouch about:
    caggage sickening people
    chicken that continues to sicken people
    massive beef recalls due to contamination and sickening hundreds.

    • All foodborne illness outbreaks are mire mathematical associations. They are not base on empirical evidence.

      • The author himself provides the data that shows that raw milk is extremely dangerous. He says that there are only an “average of 100 illnesses per year” caused by unpasteurized milk. However, earlier he says that 99.97% of food-borne illnesses go unreported. This means, according to his data, there are 333,233 actual illnesses each year caused by unpasteurized milk. Yikes!

        • Now you’re putting word in their mouths. They didn’t say “caused by” the said “associated with.”
          —–
          According to U.S. government studies raw milk may actually have a negative risk factor.
          —–
          1. An estimated 17.3% of raw milk consumers in Minnesota may have acquired an illness caused by 1 of these enteric pathogens during the 10-year study period. (That’s 1.7% per year.) or (1 in 59) and (No deaths in the US from fluid raw milk consumption.)
          —–
          2. About 48 million people (That’s 15% per year or 1 in 6 Americans) get sick and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases, according new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
          —–
          If raw milk is the most dangerous food NOT on the market how is it possible that only 1 in 59 raw milk consumer get sick each year from foodborne diseases while 1 in 6 Americans(78.5% of whom drink pasteurized milk and only 3% of whom drink raw milk.) get sick each year from foodborne diseases? Raw milk may be preventing 1.3 million cases of foodborne disease and 90 deaths every year in the US. Or in other words: Apparently people who don’t drink raw milk are 9 times more likely to contract a so called foodborne illness than people that do.

        • “However, earlier he says that 99.97% of food-borne illnesses go unreported. This means, according to his data, there are 333,233 actual illnesses each year caused by unpasteurized milk. Yikes!”

          Okaaaaay…. So when he said CDC estimates that 99.97% of food-borne illnesses go unreported why did you ONLY do the math for unpasteurized milk? According to CDC data, and their estimation that 99.97% of food-borne illnesses go unreported, what are the “actual” figures for the illnesses associated with seafood, meat, produce, and pasteurized dairy???

          • According to CDC data there are actually 1.2 billion illnesses each year in the US caused by pasteurized milk. Yikes! Of course no case of foodborne illness is ever proven to be foodborne but I’m just sayin’.

            • Mike,
              Could you please list the source for your fact stating 1.2 billion illnesses each year are caused by pasteurized milk?

  6. Charles,
    Nobody is convinced by a single article you posted above, except maybe the feeble minded and gullible. (Which I guess is what you and those of your ilk are counting on.) They are rubbish, misguided or purposeful propaganda put out by big Diary and formula manufactures. Where is your bs detector? But keep trying to rob woman of the healthful benefits of raw diary and steer them in the direction of denatured and dangerous boiled (ruined) milk and garbage milkshake like baby formula. You are actually harming a lot of woman and children with your posts. Just stop and find a real worthwhile cause to put all your energy behind. You are so obstinate. I bet your would rather give up a limb than let go of your dogma on raw milk for babies and pregnant women. You are so entrenched in your position that you scour the Internet tirelessly looking for any source or person who agrees with you and then post your misguided pseudo science articles or outright fabricated lies. Charles, just because you read it on the Internet does not make it true. Where is your BS detector and your street smarts!

  7. Sweet Mellisa, if you opt to concoct raw milk formula mixtures for your baby, that is your business. I certainly wouldn’t, especially if I had functioning breasts.

    Here are a few web sites for mothers considering options that provide a little food for thought. However much as I may be one in your eyes (assuming you are talking about me), I don’t consider these sources to be “babbling idiots.” There are plenty more, but this should get folks started. Ladies, please do your research before you put an ideology before common sense. “phsst” indeed…

    http://www.realrawmilkfacts.com/

    http://www.bestforbabes.org/from-karo-syrup-to-goat-milk-the-formulas-may-change-but-the-booby-traps-remain-the-same/

    http://breastfeedingwithoutbs.blogspot.com/2013/04/homemade-formula-and-weston-price-bust.html

    http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/04/is-the-foundation-of-good-health-found-in-a-bottle-of-raw-milk/#.U-tgcWMvfqM

    http://www.foodinsight.org/Good_Intentions_that_May_Lead_to_Bad_Outcomes_Home_Made_Infant_Formula

    http://www.fearlessformulafeeder.com/2011/09/guest-post-how-anti-formula-propaganda-hurts-infants/

    • “Real Raw Milk Facts is supported in part by Marler Clark, the nation’s foremost law firm with a practice dedicated to representing victims of food poisoning.

      Everyone knows raw breast milk is best unless the mother is vegan or on crack. We are talking about raw cows milk vs powdered baby formula.

      I have no intention of getting my toilet-training advice from a Pampers helpline.

      Food safety attorney Bill Marler saw an opportunity to pull together a team of journalists – Food Safety News

      The International Food Information Council – Our vision is a global environment where credible science drives food policy and consumer choice.

      FFF “Antigone”. I don’t know much about homemade formula; I am not convinced that someone feasibly couldn’t come up with a concoction on his/her own.”

  8. I am a British cheese maker living in Japan. I started making cheese at home with store bought pasteurised homogenised milk. I found that it is possible to make cheese from store bought milk and it can even taste quite good.

    Then I got hold of raw full cream milk, pasteurised it and made cheese. It was amazing. The yield was MUCH greater with HALF of the culture and rennet and the taste was excellent. Encouraged by this and other articles on raw milk, I decided to make a batch with milk straight from the cows.

    It was incredible! Everything went so fast. With MUCH less culture, the pH dropped very quickly and with much less rennet and no calcium chloride at all, I got a great set and the taste (60 days later) brought tears to my eyes. This is it! This is the cheese I used to eat when I was a child in England, 50 years ago.

    Japanese law – in its infinite wisdom (sarcasm) – doesn’t allow me to sell cheese made with unpasteurised milk. But it doesn’t prevent me from making it. Or eating it!

    • John,

      Do you drink raw milk? What do you think of the 60 day rule in the US.? Does the taste of cheese improve with age? Does it get sharper with age? Do you think some people could prefer the taste of a younger cheese? When does it become cheese?

      • Rawmilkmike, sorry to be late with the reply:

        >Do you drink raw milk?
        Very rarely, but then I only rarely drink milk. I prefer soy or almond milk for drinking. I do, however, make cheese with raw milk, as I wrote above.

        >What do you think of the 60 day rule in the US.?
        I think it’s being ultra safe to the point of meaninglessness. On the other hand, most of the cheese we make is hard cheese, which doesn’t develop its flavour until it’s matured for a couple of months, at least.

        >Does the taste of cheese improve with age?
        Well, it depends what cheese it is. Hard cheeses usually do, but keeping them for longer than six months requires careful attention to temperature and humidity.

        Brie, Camembert, Taleggio and similar cheeses develop a rather unpleasant ammonia taste after 5/6 months.

        Aged cottage cheese would be disgusting!

        >Does it get sharper with age?
        It’s difficult to describe the effect of ageing. I think the sharpness is more to do with the culture used and the time taken for incubation.

        There are also different types of sharpness. Cheddar made with raw milk has a special kind of sharpness that is truly wonderful. Strong, but not sour. Not unlike a good cup of tea, brewed for just the right amount of time with milk and no sugar. (This might not communicate if you haven’t been to England).

        >Do you think some people could prefer the taste of a younger cheese?
        Yes, of course. Each person has their own taste. Our ricotta made with full cream fresh milk is to die for! This does not age.

        >When does it become cheese?
        As soon as you separate the curds from the whey. Some cheeses can be eaten as soon as they are made and others, like Parmesan, are aged two or more years.

        • Thank you so much for the info. That was exactly what I was looking for. I even printed it out.

          Why do you prefer soy or almond milk for drinking? Most of us need some sort of health food to stay healthy. I read that you should “avoid soy milk with its endocrine disrupting isoflavones and gastric inflaming phytates.” Fresh almond milk sounds OK but not as good as raw milk.

          “Organic, unsweetened coconut milk and almond milk in cartons seem like great alternatives at first blush, but are they really as “healthy” as people believe?”

          “First, Vitamin A Palmitate is added, the synthetic version of Vitamin A.  I personally avoid synthetic versions of Vitamin A like the plague.  Every single multi-vitamin I’ve ever examined contains some form of synthetic A, including the so called “whole foods” multis.”

          “Synthetic vitamins are the chemical mirror images of the real, natural versions.  They can cause imbalances over time   Even small amounts of the synthetic fat soluble vitamins like Vitamin A can prove toxic and should be strictly avoided!”

          “The second really bad additive in these organic cartons of coconut milk and almond milk is Vitamin D2. Vitamin D2 is a form of the wonder vitamin that you should take great pains to avoid.”

          “In all known cases of Vitamin D toxicity where the dose was intentional, Vitamin D2 was the culprit.  By comparison, Vitamin D3 is much less toxic and requires an enormous or even an accidental dose to produce any toxic effect.

          Vitamin D2 is manufactured industrially by irradiating yeast.   It is dangerous for D2 to be added to any food product particularly if this product would be given to children, where toxicity symptoms would appear at much lower dosages.
          None of the store brands of cartoned coconut milk or almond milk were free of these dangerous and synthetic versions of the fat soluble vitamins!
          Notice also that carrageenan is present in 2 of the 3 products as well!  Dr. Andrew Weil has been telling people to avoid carrageenan since 2002.  Carrageenan is so toxic and inflaming to the human digestive system that this food additive is formally classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a potential human carcinogen.”

  9. Is there a mistake in this sentence? Does the author mean “Unpasteurized”?

    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.

    • It’s not a typo.

      “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.”

      There have been 10 deaths associated with pasteurized dairy products in the last decade. The 2 deaths you may be thinking of were associated with cheese not the drinking of raw fluid milk .

  10. A re-post of part of a response to Sam.

    “One to five percent of healthy people are thought to carry Listeria monocytogenes in their intestinal tracts as a portion of their normal flora.”
    https://www.emlab.com/s/sampling/env-report-05-2010.html
    “Listeria is a type of bacteria found in soil, water, and sometimes on plants.”
    http://www.cdc.gov/pregnancy/infections-listeria.html
    “A number of pathogens are commonly associated with persistent diarrhoea in children, but in children without diarrhoea the pathogens are found with similar frequencies.”
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709113/

  11. Mike, you’ve run off the rails buddy, so further debate with you is pointless. I will add though, that I am not paid by nor associated with anybody. Everything I said came from far more authoritative sources than myself, and I cite them!

    Mark, you clearly have a horse in this race, a great big one–you own one among the largest raw milk dairies in the country. After researching you and Organic Pastures, it looks like government recalls are a regular part of your operations. Here is a Mother Jones article as one example, but there are plenty others.
    http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/09/organic-pastures-faces-another-recall-quarantine/#.U7oIsbEpeW4

    And to say we should dismiss the weight of information based on the CDC admitting a mistake is ridiculous. It’s your word versus the CDC and many other organizations. Given your interests, your opinion is little more than an advertisement.

    Cary, regarding me being a tool, see above. Otherwise, offer something constructive to a debate. My goal has been to raise enough awareness so mothers reading here, wondering if they should give their children raw milk—and yes, raw milk cheese—will research the subject more carefully. If I have done that for just one of them, I can say I did what I set out to do, all by my lonesome.

    • Charles a competitor’s accusation carries no wait. A persons authority does not give them credibility when they are a competitor. When I drink raw milk for my health my farmer becomes my doctor’s competitor. When I buy farm direct I compete with the distributor, when I buy raw that hurts the processor and so on. As you say, these people have a horse in this race. It makes no sense to site an accusation from a competitor when their own data does not support their position. If you listen closely, most of the time their words don’t even support their anti-raw milk position. When I point this out they promptly change the subject or start name calling. The anti-raw milk argument convects itself. The fact that you call your sources authoritative suggests that you have no facts.

    • Charles, we need more people like you in this world. I respect your research and evidence-based information. Don’t let these other people tell you otherwise.

  12. Charles, You are not responding to any of the points that I have made. You have no evidence that “children and pregnant women” are “most affected”. The statement you quoted didn’t even say that and you will not find any official statement that does. Changing the subject to cheese when we are talking about the safety of raw milk most certainly is a red herring. Talk about pregnant women being prone to diarrhea of unknown origin when we are talking about diarrhea associated with raw milk is also a red herring.

    The pasteurization of milk is the subject so how is that a red herring? The definition of raw milk is unpasteurized milk. We are not talking about raw milk products. Pasteurized milk is a raw milk product. Your CDC report says 79% of dairy product-associated outbreaks were due to raw milk or cheese and we all know what they mean by associated. If you don’t please look it up. If it were a fact the correct term would be “caused by” and it would be followed by a reference to some empirical research. You and I both know all they mean is that these people may have consumed raw milk within the last 3 months and that is all that they mean. Farmers selling raw milk directly to consumer, who drink it for their health, are competing with “medical social workers”. As a “freelance writer” I assume you are being paid for your writing. Thanks for your honesty.

    If “there is overwhelming evidence” “that it is not safe to give raw milk to young or unborn children” why did you post your cheese report instead.

    My point is that raw milk has a negative risk factor. If you were a “medical social worker” and you “used to love raw milk as a kid, and never got sick nor knew anybody who did.” then you know I’m right and you know that “young and unborn children” are the ones that need raw milk the most.

  13. Mr. Hooper,

    I challenged the CDC to provide me any evidence of death by raw milk since 1972. Any evidence of listeria monocytogenes causing illness from raw milk. Any evidence of pregnancy being effected by raw milk since 1972.

    Under FOIA, they were not able to provide any evidence as requested. In fact they denied any listeria associated with raw milk. No deaths from raw milk.

    All listeria was associated with processed milk…that is right, the processors blame raw milk conveniently when they screw up pasteurization.

    These are the facts.

    When considering raw milk safety, also consider that 700 different types bacteria have been found in human breast milk including many of the same bad bugs also found in cows raw milk! ( UC Davis IMGC studies ).

    Babies over 6 months of age are perhaps the greatest age group to gain the greatest value from raw milk.

    When we speak of raw milk, we mean tested, low risk raw milk that is intended for human consumption. Not any old raw milk intended for pasteurization. The FDA and processors have intentionally confused the two kinds of raw milk.

    To see the best standards in the world and the test data to back it up…see http://www.rawmilkinstitute.org

  14. Dang Mike, I just posted a list of organizations who have answered your question, along with quotes and I posted a link to an excellent article that includes more links, etc. You cannot reasonably discuss something if you completely ignore evidence.

    Below is a tidbit of that info that answers your question about where I found “nonsense” about pregnant women and children and the risks they take when consuming raw milk.

    What’s nonsensical are people willing to spout bs to support an agenda or make $. Isn’t that where you are coming from MIke? Shame on you…

    If I was an objective individual (which I am) and researched the information you and Mark provided and compared them with the body of evidence easily found, there is no way I would give my child raw milk…no way. Why take such a foolish risk? There is no evidence making its potential benefits outweigh its risks. It’s not rocket science, just facts and objectivity, neither of which you possess enough of.

    From a CDC report:
    “Among dairy product-associated outbreaks reported to CDC between 1998 and 2011 in which the investigators reported whether the product was pasteurized or raw, 79% were due to raw milk or cheese. 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.”

    • Charles, Thank you for your response. I’m not the one ignoring evidence. If you look closely at your evidence you will see it actually supports my argument. It does not support yours. I am a raw milk consumer not a producer. I grew up on pasteurized milk so I know the difference. I have no agenda other than the health of our families. What’s your agenda? Who do you work for?

      Where is your “objectivity”? “Associated” only means they may have drank raw milk. The cause can not be proven. The average “outbreak” associated with raw milk is 11. For pasteurized milk it’s thousands. “between 1998 and 2011”? In 1985, there were over 16,000 confirmed cases of Salmonella infection that were traced back to pasteurized milk from a single dairy. “due to raw milk or cheese”? We are not talking about cheese so doesn’t that make this CDC report irrelevant? Isn’t this what they call a red herring? “Escherichia coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Listeria” are not strictly food-borne. They are in us, on us, and on almost everything we touch. If “a substantial proportion of the raw milk-associated disease burden fell on children”, wouldn’t there always be “at least one person younger than 20 years old”? Since when is an 18 year old a child? “Substantial proportion” does not mean majority. Actually adults get diarrhea more often than children.

      So that’s the best data you can come up with?

      According to the CDC’s Minnesota study only 1.7% per year or 1 in 59 raw milk consumers get sick each year from foodborne disease. The national average for non-raw milk consumers is 9 times that. Isn’t that a negative risk factor?

      • No mike, a red herring is a distraction method to divert a discussion from a relevant issue. In this case, the issue is whether it is safe to give children and pregnant women raw milk. I simply say the preponderance of evidence, some of which I cite or link to or list more authoritative sources saying it, is convincing enough to believe it is not, and that I believe to argue otherwise, without more convincing evidence, is irresponsible, since those most affected are unable to argue for themselves (children, whether born or unborn).

        You offer genuine red herrings aplenty. For example, your repeated referencing to pasteurized milk; the whole silly cheese thing (it’s raw milk “products”); and, my favorite, your misunderstanding the report’s use of the term “associated” since it had already said, “From 1998 through 2011, 148 outbreaks DUE TO consumption of raw milk or raw milk products…” obviously meaning more than “associated” from the research methodology definition you apply. It’s actually okay to say something is “associated” once established as fact. Like, rain is associated with clouds, etc.

        You lost me on the bacteria thing. E.coli does indeed live in the gut–in the intestinal tract, not the stomach, and never shall the twain meet or somebody is going to get sick. None of the other three live anywhere inside our digestive systems as far as I know. That these bacteria are all around us I won’t argue with. But it is when they get in the guts of people is when they become pathogens.

        You need to understand that point is the crux of the whole matter. They get in the guts of children either when the child ingests something contaminated (as from a field worker’s unwashed, fecal-smeared hands picking your lettuce), a pasteurized milk system that ain’t pasteurizing, as the one I think you are alluding to was supposed to have, or from a speck of cow crap in the raw milk you give trusting little baby. I personally wouldn’t give a child under two any kind of dairy product, but that my friend would be a red herring.

        Since you asked, I am a retired medical social worker and occasional freelance writer. I used to love raw milk as a kid, and never got sick nor knew anybody who did. I simply say there is overwhelming evidence–far beyond just from the CDC–that it is not safe to give it to young or unborn children. Most of what you are saying is irrelevant to that, or as you would say, “red herrings.”

        • Charles you said “It’s actually okay to say something is “associated” once established as fact. Like, rain is associated with clouds” but rain isn’t caused by clouds and cause it what we are talking about.

        • Charles, I apologize for the misprint. You said “It’s actually okay to say something is “associated” once established as fact. Like, rain is associated with clouds” but rain isn’t caused by clouds and cause is what we are talking about.

          You also said “You lost me on the bacteria thing. E.coli does indeed live in the gut–in the intestinal tract, not the stomach, and never shall the twain meet or somebody is going to get sick.” But diarrhea happens “in the intestinal tract” not in the stomach.

  15. Charles, no one avoids death or diarrhea. The average America gets diarrhea 4 times a year. Has the CDC checked to see how often raw milk consumers get diarrhea?

    Charles Hooper, do you have any idea where this nonsense about “young children and pregnant women” comes from? “pregnant women” are prone to diarrhea. There is no evidence that raw milk increases that risk. The CDC’s Minnesota raw milk study actually suggests the very opposite. “young children” make up a large number of the 10 million raw milk consumers but only a small percentage of the raw milk-associated illnesses.

  16. It’s interesting that on the FDA site on this issue, they state that one of the dairy products it’s safe to eat is “ricotta cheese made from pasteurised milk.”

    1. Ricotta isn’t cheese. It’s a by product of the cheese making process.
    2. In making ricotta, you heat the whey to 75C, add salt and milk and continue heating to 85C. At this point, IT IS PASTEURISED.

    You cannot make ricotta at low temperature – you just can’t do it. It wouldn’t be (ri=again, cotta=cooked) if you did. ALL ricotta is made from pasteurised milk.

    Looks like they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.