| Got milk? It does a body good, right? Milk is likened | | | | raw milk to disease outbreaks. Sheehan admitted |
| to a super-food. In fact, it is considered a nearly | | | | that in the past 20 years, he didn't know of a single |
| perfect food because of its abundance of protein | | | | one. |
| (which contains all of the essential amino acids), | | | | Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions and |
| carbohydrates, fats and array of vitamins. | | | | president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, admits |
| The Masai tribe in Africa consume up to 7 quarts of | | | | that there have been cases of illness due to raw milk |
| the stuff a day and have virtually no heart disease, | | | | but points out the number of food-borne illness |
| diabetes, arthritis or atherosclerosis. The French eat | | | | outbreaks due to pasteurized milk is much larger. |
| plenty of cheeses, creams and other dairy products | | | | There have been 239,884 documented outbreaks |
| and have one of the lowest rates of coronary heart | | | | due to pasteurized milk in the past few decades and |
| disease among industrialized nations. | | | | 620 deaths. The nation's largest recorded outbreak |
| So what's all the hubbub about? | | | | of Salmonella, which occurred from June of 1984 |
| Raw milk is nearly a perfect food: not pasteurized. In | | | | through April of 1985, killed 18 people and sickened |
| fact, pasteurized milk has been linked to | | | | over 200,000. |
| osteoporosis, heart disease, allergies, arthritis and | | | | Fallon compiled a list of government-documented |
| other disorders due to calcium deficiency. | | | | outbreaks of food-borne illnesses for the Deputy |
| That's not the message you'll hear from the FDA. | | | | Director of Maryland's Office of Food Protection and |
| Raw milk sales have been banned in 23 states. It is | | | | Consumer Health Services. |
| illegal for it to cross state lines, in some states it can | | | | 1945: 1,492 cases of food-borne illness due to |
| only be sold from a farm as pet food and 17 states | | | | pasteurized milk in the US |
| forbid its sale in any manner. | | | | 1976: 36 children infected with Yersinia enterocolitica |
| A Maryland state health official told Thomas Bartlett, | | | | from pasteurized chocolate milk |
| author of The Raw Deal, that selling raw milk was as | | | | 1978: 68 cases of illness |
| bad as selling marijuana and compared raw milk | | | | 1982: 17,000 cases of illness |
| producers to heroin dealers. | | | | 1983: 49 cases of illness |
| How can this be? How can we have gone, in just a | | | | 1985: 16,284 cases of S. typhimurium |
| couple of generations, from believing milk is a | | | | 1985: 197,000 cases of Salmonella in California |
| wholesome source of nutrition to considering it a | | | | 1985: 1,500 cases of Salmonella in Illinois |
| health risk? | | | | 1987: 16,000 cases of Salmonella in Georgia |
| Melanie DuPuis, author of Nature's Perfect Food: How | | | | 1993: 28 cases of Salmonella |
| Milk Became America's Drink says "Americans care | | | | 1994: 105 cases of E. coli and Listeria |
| more deeply about milk than anything else they | | | | 1995: 10 children infected with Yersina enterocolitica |
| consume, precisely because of all it has come to | | | | 1996: 48 cases of Campylobactor and Salmonella |
| represent." | | | | 1997: 28 cases of Salmonella |
| What milk has come to represent is dual: both | | | | A look at just some of the more recent figures |
| dangerous and vital. We have been indoctrinated to | | | | reveals: |
| believe that milk is necessary, nutritious: a national | | | | 2000: 98 cases of S. typhimurim |
| resource. We have also been led to believe that it is | | | | 2004: 100 cases of Salmonella in California and |
| only safe if it is boiled, broken down, doctored up | | | | outbreaks in Pennsylvania and New Jersey |
| and made unnatural. | | | | 2005: 200 cases of C. jejuni |
| John Robbins, author of May All Be Fed, writes "The | | | | 2006: 1,592 cases of C. jejuni |
| modern-day Bessie is now bred, fed, medicated, | | | | 2007: 5 cases of L. monocytogenes |
| inseminated, and manipulated for a single | | | | Again, these outbreaks have all been traced back to |
| purpose-maximum milk production at a minimum | | | | pasteurized milk. The larger a farm-factory is, the |
| cost." | | | | more room there is for error after the milk has been |
| The truth of the matter is that corporate powers | | | | pasteurized. |
| are behind much of what we believe about milk. | | | | Fallon says, "The FDA and CDC definitely have a |
| Health is not what concerns them, profit is. They | | | | double standard when it comes to raw milk." |
| have done their best to ensure that profit by | | | | She claims that the agencies don't report food-borne |
| disseminating false information and lobbying | | | | illness outbreaks due to pasteurized milk in the |
| government agencies to do the same. | | | | Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Fallon found |
| The three biggest milk myths are: | | | | her figures from poring over other publications like |
| Pasteurized milk is safe while raw milk is dangerous. | | | | the Journal of the American Medical Association. |
| There is no nutritional disparity between pasteurized | | | | Quick to link raw milk to outbreaks, the agencies, |
| milk and raw milk. | | | | Fallon claims, then ignore "subsequent tests showing |
| Pasteurization is in everyone's best interest | | | | the milk to be clean." |
| Myth 1: Pasteurized milk is safer than raw milk. | | | | Her research found that: |
| Fear is a favored marketing tool. There was once | | | | A 1983 outbreak attributed to raw milk later found |
| reason to fear for the safety of milk. | | | | that none of the cultures revealed any of the |
| In the last decades of the 19th century and the early | | | | Campylobacter bacteria |
| decades of the 20th, as people moved away from | | | | A listeriosis outbreak that occurred over the years |
| farms and into industrialized cities, they were indeed | | | | 2000 and 2001 in North Carolina was blamed on |
| sickened and killed by contaminated milk. | | | | cheese made from raw milk, cheese that later tested |
| As milk production became factory-produced instead | | | | negative for the bacteria |
| of farm-wrought, little sanitary regulation took place. | | | | A 2006 E. coli outbreak that was associated with raw |
| Milk wasn't refrigerated, equipment wasn't sterile, | | | | milk was later found to be due to spinach |
| factory-farm owners thinned their milk with dirty | | | | A 2007 report of Salmonella linked to a raw milk dairy |
| water and added things like animal brains to give it | | | | in Pennsylvania revealed later that none of the milk |
| body. Cows were fed waste from distilleries (creating | | | | contained any of the pathogen |
| "swill milk" or "white poison".) These city milk centers | | | | Even though more outbreaks have occurred due to |
| were often infested with insects and rats and | | | | pasteurized milk rather than raw as of late, neither |
| workers were unhygienic. | | | | the FDA nor the CDC has ever issued a public |
| Tuberculosis spread through cow's milk, and | | | | warning about it. |
| epidemics of brucella, botulism and cholera killed many. | | | | Factory-farmed cattle have 300 times more |
| The rising use of technology created pasteurization | | | | pathogens in their digestive tract than grass-fed |
| equipment. People no longer had to boil their milk at | | | | cows on small dairy farms. |
| home, small farmers were forced out of the industry | | | | Pasteurization destroys good bacteria as well as bad. |
| or absorbed by rising conglomerates who could | | | | The probiotics that occur naturally in milk are |
| afford the machinery. | | | | destroyed by heat although it is their presence that |
| The use of pasteurization made sanitary | | | | can naturally kill many virulent pathogens. Probiotics in |
| improvements unnecessary and increased the | | | | raw milk prevent the multiplication of these bacteria, |
| production of milk through crowded feedlots, cheap | | | | which thrive in milk after pasteurization. This is why |
| and unhealthy grain-feed and widespread use of | | | | pasteurized milk becomes rancid after a week while |
| antibiotics and growth hormones. | | | | raw milk simply sours. |
| Today, it is E. Coli, Listeria and Cryptosporidium that | | | | Due to the widespread use of antibiotics in industrial |
| are the most common food-borne pathogens and | | | | farms, these pathogens are becoming resistant to |
| these have only emerged within the past 25 years, | | | | present medications. |
| after the practice of pasteurization has been | | | | In 2003 the USDA reported that pasteurized milk |
| established. | | | | causes 29 times more cases of Listeria than raw milk. |
| The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the | | | | Robert Tauxe, Chief of the CDC's Foodborne and |
| Center for Disease Control recently issued a public | | | | Diarrheal Branch, says that globalization of the food |
| warning about the dangers of raw milk. Siding with | | | | supply, antibiotic use, corn and soy feed and |
| corporate dairy and attempting to re-inoculate the | | | | crowded conditions in industrial agriculture has given |
| public with fear (especially since consumer-interest in | | | | rise to new food-borne pathogens and, he warns, |
| raw milk has risen 40% in recent decades), the | | | | many more are on the way. |
| agencies posted a "reminder" that between 1998 and | | | | A 2004 study by the Center for Science in the Public |
| 2005, raw milk was implicated in 45 food-borne illness | | | | Interest (CSPI) found that dairy products, |
| outbreaks, 1007 individual cases, 104 hospitalizations | | | | pasteurized or raw, make up less than 1% of all |
| and 2 deaths. | | | | food-borne illness outbreaks. Produce is now |
| When raw milk champions Sally Fallon and Thomas | | | | responsible for 38% of outbreaks, poultry 20% and |
| Bartlett went looking for the data that supports | | | | beef 16%. Eggs and seafood constitute 13% and |
| these claims, they couldn't find it. The reference that | | | | 12% respectively. |
| the FDA and CDC cited, the Morbidity and Mortality | | | | Dairy farms that produce raw milk are normally |
| Weekly Report, provided no such information. No | | | | smaller, cleaner and more accountable to their |
| supporting data could be found in any other FDA or | | | | customers for the quality of their animals, feed, |
| CDC document and demands for clarification have | | | | practices and milk. |
| not been addressed. | | | | There really isn't evidence any longer that pasteurized |
| Bartlett asked then-director of the FDA's dairy | | | | milk is safer than raw: it's more likely that it is the |
| safety division, John Sheehan, about evidence linking | | | | other way around. |