Why Is the Debate Over Raw Milk So Emotional, When the Facts Are So Clear? Here's a New Theory

It’s interesting that so many discussions here about the benefits of raw milk seem eventually to revert to the emotionally-laden matter of safety, to the argument that raw milk is somehow a special class of food that is inherently unsafe. It happens again following my post about the Michigan research that clearly demonstrates the benefits of raw milk in combating lactose intolerance.

There’s nothing logical or rational about the emotional aspect of this, especially when you consider that data from the Centers for Disease Control show raw milk causing an average of 59 illnesses annually (according to data between 1973 and 2005), versus an estimated annual minimum of six million illnesses from food-borne disease overall.

So what’s really going on here? How can the arguments be so heated, not just here, but in California, Maryland and various places where the question of our right to access raw milk comes up?

I gained an insight into this contradiction the other day during a discussion with a professor of nutrition at a Massachusetts university. Of course, we got to talking about raw milk and pasteurization, and it was pretty much the usual thing—him explaining how important pasteurization has been as a public health tool and how risky raw milk is. As a matter of fact, he said, pasteurization is so essential it’s been extended to apple juice and vegetable juice and almonds. How about that?

But he said something, almost as an aside, that I now realize is more important than many of us appreciate in this debate. “If you have any kind of immune-compromised system, there’s a good chance you’ll die” from unpasteurized contaminated milk and other foods, he explained. Of course, he didn’t say that if you are immune-compromised, you could die from contaminated pasteurized milk, as we saw when four elderly Massachusetts men died last year from listeriosis they got from pasteurized milk.

But what he was really doing, I realized later, was positioning the pasteurization issue (really the sanitizing of all our food) as a minority rights issue. The minority of people with immune problems must be protected, even at the expense of the majority with no immune problems.

Then today, NPR aired a report that the medical community is recommending that all children be given flu shots--not so much to protect them, but to "reduce the spread of flu through communities." In other words, sacrific a buildup in the kids' natural immunity to "protect" adults who might be vulnerable.  

The implication is that the vast majority of people must sacrifice, via sanitizing of food and vaccination, so that immune-compromised people aren’t placed at risk. But is that really fair, appropriate, or healthy? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to suggest that the immune-compromised should be careful about what they eat, whether pasteurized or unpasteurized...and to work at re-building their immunity? That parents with concerns should keep their kids away from raw milk, while those who want their kids to benefit from raw milk make have access to it?

Even more to the point, why should the vast majority who aren’t immune-compromised be placed at risk of becoming immune-compromised because they can’t get access to foods that help build immunity?

Have I trashed enough sacred cows for one day?

***

Reminder: It looks as if the Meadowsweet Dairy contempt-of-court hearing in connection with its refusal to cooperate on a New York Department of Agriculture and Markets search warrant will be held Thursday in Albany. The hearing is open to the public, at the Albany County Courthouse, 16 Eagle Street, Albany, N.Y.

Comments

[David C. Phippen]

David,

We've had another run in with the NY State Ag and Markets. It's a winner and we thought you'd like to hear about it. Call me at 518-686-4044. Thanks, David Phippen

[Kirsten]

I don't think those in charge of institutionalizing pasteurization were concerned with immunocompromised individuals at the time. They were just thinking about how they could transport the milk without it going bad. The dairies existing near the cities were flop-py places with some unhealthy cows due to the poor feed and conditions. Babies were dying, and something had to be done.

I happen to think we have arrived at a place where we know exactly why this happened and how we can correct it, but we also know how hard it is to change the status quo and the ingrained thinking that goes along with it.

The status quo is factory dairies where cows don't get access to pasture, but instead get fed an unnatural diet of grain. This skews the omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio in the milk causing eventual disease for those who drink it. We know this to be true, but these facts have only recently come to light and haven't yet been embraced by the popular culture. Since the effects are delayed, we haven't fully appreciated that these foods are unhealthy to eat. We are only starting to come around to the fact that the trans-fats in "healthy" margarine are far worse for us than the "bad" saturated fat in butter.

Changing the current belief system means using science to debunk false claims - even if they are claims against the old prevailing science. Instituting the coliform standard in California is just a red herring. It won't prove that the milk is safe to drink, just as it won't tell you what beaches are safe to swim at. It is a vestige of old science that should be challenged and replaced. It's an antiquated and meaningless hurdle to put in front of people who wish to think outside the conventional wisdom - all sound and fury, but signifying nothing. We really need to completely rethink testing procedures for food so the tests that we actually perform have clear implications for safety.

[Dave Milano]

And what exactly does “immune-compromised” mean? Many make the point (properly, I think) that our medical and scientific communities have at very best a weak understanding of immunity. (No surprise, for a system whose self-worth depends in part on ignoring it.)

Your professor would likely believe that a minority of Americans is immuno-compromised, but it seems to me that really the vast majority is so afflicted, just not at what doctors (and alas, nutritionists) consider a clinically significant level. (It is a common aphorism in differential diagnostic medicine that if you don’t suspect something, it doesn’t exist. In this case, not only do our white-coats not suspect it, they often do not understand it when they do see it.)

A health-care system that minimizes the importance of immune function, in happy companionship with a dead-food nourished, manically sanitizing, civilly litigious society, is a marvel to witness.

[Amanda Rose]

I'm not sure I get your argument entirely, David. If you think raw milk is not inherently unsafe (and that it is in fact overly emotional to discuss risks), then why is it necessary to discuss "immunocompromised" groups? Should they drink raw milk? Children are a compromised group by definition yet you leave it to parent choice in your post. If public policy is about protecting minority groups, do they actually need protection from raw milk? If not, then why are we worried about people with lowered immune systems in this discussion in the first place?

My view is that people should understand the risks with whatever food they are eating and be able to access whatever it is they choose to eat.

Amanda

[Linda Diane Feldt]

There are a lot of reasons to resist a paradigm shift. Concern for immune compromised people is a shallow argument - deserving of a greater discussion of what it means to be immune compromised and also what support that person needs.
Accepting the basics of why raw milk is valuable - which is directly linked to criticism of our way of raising animals and what is acceptable in the market place (which should not be), awareness of farmers and their vulnerability, and so much more craziness in nutrition and food supply -- your whole life and what you believe and trust can begin to unravel if you actually consider that maybe raw milk makes sense.Even if you just go the small distance of maybe it is OK for a few people.

My personal struggle is with a family member diagnosed with a number of autoimmune diseases - including the almost unheard of combination of polymyositis and autoimmune hepatitis. His liver and muscles are being destroyed by his own body. And yet there is resistance to my ideas of how such a process may have been initiated, and nutritional approaches to resolution.

The paradigm shift to embracing nourishment as a cause and also a cure is really huge. Really almost impossible for so many people raised on a typical American diet. We're the lunatics, even though nearly every dietary insight I had or learned 20 and 30 years ago has now been validated. Remember when linking stress and immune system functioning was considered crazy? I do. Now when I teach at the med school they think it's weird if I pause to go into that idea. It is so obvious to them.

My point in summary - raw milk opens questions and ideas that many people would be more comfortable left un-addressed. I was already far along, and being involved with raw milk (and not just drinking it!) has moved me even further into some radical and non-convetional actions and understandings.

Of course it's dangerous. But the ideas and values associated with it are far more dangerous than the actual milk!

[Steve Bemis]

David your point about "sacrificing" the healthy in order to protect a minority of immuno-compromised struck a cord. In Michigan, "depopulating" a herd of cattle in fact culls from the gene pool mostly healthy animals who were exposed to TB, show positive on the tests, yet don't have the disease. In other words, their immune system came, it saw, it conquered, but because they have the tell-tale immunity which shows up on the test, they are (literally) sacrificed.

What is going on here? It seems to me, that western medicine's focus on "fixing" things only when they become clinical problems, drives the reductionist logic that says, "well, if we kill all the TB reactors we'll be sure to wipe out this disease."

Similarly, the logic goes on raw milk, "if we kill all the bacteria and other living organisms in the milk, we'll be sure to wipe out the risks."

My point is obvious to all who read this blog, I understand, but I thought the parallels in logic were striking. In both cases, there is virtually no regard paid to the question of fortifying the majority (or at least, in the case of raw milk, those who choose to drink it) to resist the disease, and nurturing those whose immune systems prove most adaptable.

Do we forget about those less fortunate? Of course not. That is what the healthcare system is for. I humbly submit, however, if the healthcare system were only required to take care of those who are injured or sick and did not have to take care of the majority who are made sick by un-natural restrictions on a healthy diet, that we'd have a much smaller, less expensive, fairer, and more efficient healthcare system.

[jean]

I know a million people who drink raw milk and think nothing of it -- of course. What else?!! Our own mayor would not think of drinking anything else nor feeding his kids anything else. doh.

They get the usual yearly illnesses, maybe fewer, maybe milder, but they get on with their lives.

And yet i feel a juddering in my bones when i come on here and listen, read, all you proponents of raw milk, as though it were a fearful thing.

I would say let's have more optimistic talk. We know what we're about, but our appearance of victims of the establishment carries it's own reality.

We need to be carrying on this discussion without anger and without an aura of victimization. We need to accept the fact that what we want to happen here is the only sane way to continue, and figure out how to make it happen.

No more whining, is my suggestion.

[pete]

It is because the facts don't matter when a paradigm shift is involved. I've seen the same thing with doctors and vaccines, dentists and mercury fillings, and people and religion. It often doesn't matter how true your facts are if the conclusion fundamentally shakes their world. It becomes even harder if the new conclusion says that their lifetime service of helping people was actually harming them.

I have known people who have agreed with me on such issues until they realized the full conclusion of that belief, at which time they suddenly changed their mind again and began to vehemently deny that which they had just previously believed. Why? Because the facts had changed? No, but they couldn't stand to accept that which they knew was true. It is really a coping measure against radical paradigm shifts. But it sure is sad to watch.

[MP]

Do you have any evidence that raw milk is more beneficial to health apart from your own, anectodal accounts?

It's like saying that wearing seatbelts is useless because I never had an accident. If 300 million Americans were to drink unpasteurized milk, there would be MUCH more than 50+ illnesses/year. And keep in mind, these are only CONFIRMED cases. The number of illnesses that go unrecorded is much higher beyond any doubt.

[Don Neeper]

The European PARSIFAL study found a significant negative correlation between raw milk consumption and allergy rates in rural children who drank raw farm milk. The study results were published last spring in the peer-reviewed journal "Clinical and Experimental Allergy".

The published journal article and the study final report can be viewed on my website using the links below:

http://orderman.ohiorawmilk.info/rawmilkasthma.pdf
http://orderman.ohiorawmilk.info/parsifal_en.pdf

[Dave Milano]

When new commentators like MP ask such a broad question, it's difficult to know where to start explaining. The short answer is obviously a resounding YES! There are many, many health benefits associated with raw milk, and with the various classes of foods generally known as "whole" or "unprocessed," or today's more descriptive term, "alive," foods. The effects are numerous, and are well-documented in both anthropological and controlled-variable research forms.

Likewise, there are myriad, well-documented negative health effects associated with the consumption of unnatural, processed, industrialized, manufactured (and historically very new!) foods.

To understand the whole of it would require a significant time investment. A reasonable starting point is westonaprice.org, where one can see the results of Dr. Weston Price's astounding anthropological research into healthy peoples and what they ate. That also can be a long journey, but, partial as I am to anthropological data, I would begin here:

http://www.westonaprice.org/basicnutrition/characteristics.html

[Don Neeper]

My previous comment should have read "an inverse correlation" instead of a "negative correlation". Basically after controlling for other factors the researchers determined that rural children who drank raw milk from their family (grass-fed) cows had much lower rates of asthma and other allergies than rural and sub-urban children who drank pasteurized milk. It is also interesting to note that their sample population ran into the thousands, implying that tens if not hundreds of thousands of European children drink raw milk daily! And amazingly enough there are no epidemics of listeria, campylobacter, E. coli or any of the other diseases about which health and agriculture department officials hyperventilate.

[MP]

Don, I am aware of the research paper. Here is a quote from 668:

"The present study does not allow evaluating the effect of pasteurized vs. raw milk consumption because no objective confirmation of the raw milk status of the farm milk samples was available."

There is a difference between raw milk and farm milk.

[MP]

that was supposed to be "page 668"

[MP]

Dave, my only question related to the difference in health benefits between pasteurized and unpasteurized milk. I understand well that highly processed foods are not a bonus to health. Let's keep them out of this discussion.

I am also aware of Weston Price foundation and their website. I don't consider it an authoritative, unbiased information source. Much rather it is a selective information presentation to back their claims. For example, the Lancet papers quoted at http://www.realmilk.com/asthma-brucellosis.html indeed exist. The second reference (publ. August 6 2001) is titled "Exposure to farming in early live and development of asthma and allergy: a cross sectional survey". Note that the exposure to farming (not raw milk) was the main focus. Any of the factors could have contributed to the observed reduced incidence of asthma (as noted in a later letter in the same journal), and yet westonprice speculate that it could be raw milk. Well, that is a speculation and this was an epidemiological study.

In brief, there is no scientific evidence that benefits of raw milk outweigh its inherent risk.

Even if raw milk were capable of preventing asthma, asthma is still better than renail failure due to E. coli from raw milk. Oh, and children are at a much higher risk of foodborne illness.

[Rob]

There no study that shows there is an inherent risk from raw milk.

Also pasteurized milk is a highly processed food and that concept belongs in this discussion. As you say, MP, highly processed foods are not a bonus to health

[MP]

I believe this database clearly shows that unpasteurized milk is an inherently unsafe product:

http://www.cspinet.org/foodsafety/outbreak/outbreaks.php?column=subgroup&colval=Milk&column1=Dairy

Note that the last couple of years haven't been included.

It also seems that there are more than just about 60 CONFIRMED cases a year.

Further, if you go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez and search scientific publications by entering "unpasteurized milk" you will get further proof that unpasteurized milk is an unsafe product.

In regards to your claim that pasteurized milk is a highly processed product: I said earlier that highly processed foods are not a bonus to health, hence you claim pasteurized milk must be unhealthy. That's faulty logic. But I would disagree that pasterized milk is a "highly processed food".

[Rob]

Pasteurized milk is indeed a highly processed food. It is heat treated, homogenized and artificial chemicals are added in the guise of vitamins.

Also fat is removed further processing it.

This milk is derived from cows that eat an inappropriate diet of grains and chemicals.

Here is a link to check:

http://www.realmilk.com/abstractsmilk.html

This link explains how pasteurized milkis processed.:

http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/dirty-secrets.html

You also should look at this updated power point presentation on the safety of raw milk

http://www.realmilk.com/ppt/index.html

[MP]

Instead of trying to prove that pasteurized milk is a highly processed food, try proving that it is unhealthy. That would be more constructive and logical.

I already commented on the credibility of Weston Price material in the post above - all those web pages were created by them.

I have no hopes (well, I had no hope to begin with) to change your opinion, but at least people who come across this article will be able to see the other side of the story as well.

By the way, I used to drink farm milk as a child, but it was always brought to a rolling boil before any of the kids were allowed to drink it. I have nothing against that. But drinking raw milk is like playing Russian roulette - http://www.cspinet.org/foodsafety/outbreak/outbreaks.php?column=subgroup&colval=Milk&column1=Dairy

[Rob]

Since pasteurized milk is a highly processed food, it is inherently unhealthy.

It seems that you are ignoring the biases and the lack of credibility in the sources that you cite.