Friday, September 16, 2011

Raw Milk: The New Prohibition

"Total diarrheal episodes annually USA -------> 217,973,045

Total foodborne illnesses annually USA -------> 48,000,000

Annual confirmed foodborne infections from the four "pathogens" (all foods) -------> 1,937,561

Average number of illnesses attributed to consuming raw milk (Dr. Beals, 1999–2011) -------> 42

Average number of illnesses attributed to consuming raw milk (Drs. Oliver and others, 2000–2008) -------> 27


From the perspective of a national public health professional looking at an estimated total of 48 million foodborne illnesses each year; or from the perspective of a healthcare professional looking at a total of 90,771 (data from Healthy People 20204) confirmed bacterial foodborne infections each year (about 0.2 percent), there is no rational justification to focus national attention on raw milk, which may be associated with an average of 42 illnesses maximum among the more than nine million people (about 0.0005 percent) who have chosen to drink milk in its fresh unprocessed form.

Using this average of 42 illnesses per year, we can show, using government figures, that you are about 35,000 times more likely to become ill from other foods than you are from raw milk.

It is irresponsible for a senior national government administrator to testify that because of those forty-two people, raw milk is inherently hazardous, parents should not be allowed to decide which foods they serve their children and milk should be banned across the nation unless it has been pasteurized.

...In no way do I wish to trivialize the personal impact of these illnesses. However, all activities have risk. Consumption of any food has some risk of illness or adverse reaction. And the consequence of basing public policy on horrific personal experiences is that all foods will ultimately be banned, and we will not be able to participate in any activity."

--Ted Beals, MS, MD, Those Pathogens, What You Should Know

H/T: The Justice Report

8 comments:

love the girls said...

":And the consequence of basing public policy on horrific personal experiences is that all foods will ultimately be banned, and we will not be able to participate in any activity.""

Not so. Margarine, for instance, is impregnable to bacteria, as likewise are many of the 'foods' we now have available for consumption.

While it should not be illegal to sell or consume it, milk being raw is probably the last aspect I care about. Organic production, (especially the hormones and antibiotics), and not homogenizing it are far more important.

I'm perfectly happy pasteurizing it, in fact I often heat it up for the children with spices and such. But the locally marketed milk is always homogenized.

Belfry Bat said...

Include the populations with the illness numbers; when arguing from statistics, we must go out of our way to make them readable. Also, I think that what these numbers show is the longer it takes food to get from farmer to you, the more infectious it becomes. And that makes sense; and which is, at the least, a good reason for urban groceries not to carry raw milk.

Other than that, cheers!

Belfry Bat said...

OK, so, now I understand it's a lifted quote. It's still presented wrong...

Obviously, the statistics has nothing to do with policy decisions. It probably has more to do with the legend of Pasteur the hero who established microbial disease theory and put it to good use with vaccines and pasteurization...

Paul Stilwell said...

love the girls,

He's talking generally, I think. It's impossible to render every food as impregnable to bacteria as margarine. You're always going to have a "risk factor". Therefore, basing the banning of raw milk on horror stories would mean that we would have to ban many other foods, processed and unprocessed, as well.

Raw milk is an obscure issue but not unimportant. Here in Canada it is illegal to sell raw milk. So the issue is perhaps a bit more substantive to me.

Also, when they talk of raw milk, the assumption is is that it is also organic. Drinking raw industrial/non-organic milk would be worse than drinking pasteurized milk.

I love heating goat's milk and putting honey in.

Paul Stilwell said...

Bat,

"Also, I think that what these numbers show is the longer it takes food to get from farmer to you, the more infectious it becomes."

Yes, that's definitely the way it seems.

Raw milk would not, i think though i may be wrong, conducive to urban grocery outlets. It would typically be sold either straight from farms, or, as happens here for those who buy shares in a cow, the farmer goes out with his truck to certain locations to buyers.

Paul Stilwell said...

The only statistic that seems important here is that around 9 million in the U.S. drink raw milk annually, and of that number an average of 42 get sick.

Belfry Bat said...

While that statistic is awfully impressive, it's actually the weakest of all the data here. The claimed record is better than for treated water (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18020305). Certainly it's not the case that of those nine million people, on average fourty-two got sick in any year; it's that of the one or two million among them who certainly got sick on average in any year, forty-two of those illnesses were connected with spoilt unpasteurized milk. If the number had been a thousand cases of illness connected to unpasteurized milk annually among nine million users, that would still be a thousand times better than the industrifud health record, a thousand times better than tap water, and the numbers would be more credible.

All that said... less "processing", more cooking is my preference. I don't want to buy ready food, I want food stuffs, I want ingredients!. Fresh milk... would be a superb ingredient; but, like you, I can't get it. Ah, well.

Paul Stilwell said...

Some people want raw milk (some believe that with milk in the raw the calcium is far more available to the body) and the government makes it near impossible. That's wrong. Which is the ultimate point of bringing up the stats. Whatever.