Comment by YeGoblynQueenne | Hacker News Reader

Comment by YeGoblynQueenne | Hacker News Reader

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YeGoblynQueenne

realmilk.com is the website of a campaign for raw milk by the Weston A. Price Foundation. Being the website of an activist organisation it is not a source that is likely to be objective. Especially troublesome is the clear attempt to rebrand raw milk as "real milk", possibly to avoid the negative associations that most people rightly make with raw milk.

I cite below from the wikipedia page on raw milk, which is more likely to be an objective source:

With the exception of an altered organoleptic [flavor] profile, heating (particularly ultra high temperature and similar treatments) will not substantially change the nutritional value of raw milk or other benefits associated with raw milk consumption."[20]

Raw milk advocates, such as the Weston A. Price Foundation, say that raw milk can be produced hygienically, and that it has health benefits that are destroyed in the pasteurization process.[2] Research shows only very slight differences in the nutritional values of pasteurized and unpasteurized milk.[12][20]

Three studies have found a statistically significant inverse relationship between consumption of raw milk and asthma and allergies.[28][29][30] However, all of these studies have been performed in children living on farms and living a farming lifestyle, rather than comparing urban children living typical urban lifestyles and with typical urban exposures on the basis of consumption or nonconsumption of raw milk. Aspects of the overall urban vs. farming environment lifestyle have been suggested as having a role in these differences, and for this reason, the overall phenomenon has been named the "farm effect".

Also see webpages (and a pdf report) on drinking raw milk from the US FDA and CDC, UK FSA and EU EFSA, below:

The Dangers of Raw Milk: Unpasteurized Milk Can Pose a Serious Health Risk

https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/dangers-r...

Raw (Unpasteurized) Milk

https://www.cdc.gov/features/rawmilk/index.html

Raw drinking milk

https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/raw-drinking-milk

Scientific opinion on the public health risks related to the consumption of raw drinking milk

https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2903/j.efsa...

tl;dr all major public health agencies in the US and Europe advise against consumption of raw milk.

> I cite below from the wikipedia page on raw milk, which is more likely to be an objective source

It seems the co-founder of Wikipedia disagrees with your assessment of it as an objective source, in particular in this area, among others.

https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

I'm sorry, I can't find anything about raw milk in the article you linked to. Can you cite the passage from the article that discusses raw milk?

(I assume that by "this area" you mean raw milk, i.e. the subject of my comment above.)

This area meaning "scientific topics on health".

Quote:

It may seem more problematic to speak of the bias of scientific articles, because many people do not want to see “unscientific” views covered in encyclopedia articles. If such articles are “biased in favor of science,” some people naturally find that to be a feature, not a bug. The problem, though, is that scientists sometimes do not agree on which theories are and are not scientific. On such issues, the “scientific point of view” and the “objective point of view” according to the Establishment might be very much opposed to neutrality. So when the Establishment seems unified on a certain view of a scientific controversy, then that is the view that is taken for granted, and often aggressively asserted, by Wikipedia.

The global warming and MMR vaccine articles are examples; I hardly need to dive into these pages, since it is quite enough to say that they endorse definite positions that scientific minorities reject. Another example is how Wikipedia treats various topics in alternative medicine—often dismissively, and frequently labeled as “pseudoscience” in Wikipedia’s own voice. Indeed, Wikipedia defines the very term as follows: “Alternative medicine describes any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine, but which lacks biological plausibility and is untested, untestable or proven ineffective.” In all these cases, genuine neutrality requires a different sort of treatment.

Again, other examples could be found, in no doubt thousands of other, perfectly unexciting topics. These are just the first topics that came to mind, associated as they are with the culture wars, and their articles on those topics put Wikipedia very decidedly on one side of that war. You should not be able to say that about an encyclopedia that claims to be neutral.

Apologies, but I fail to see the relevance of this passage to the conversation above.

I have looked at all of these arguments in depth and recommend you read at least "The Untold Story of Milk" before making conclusions.

The history of raw milk has been tainted with misinformed public policy. The dangers of unpasteurized milk are highly over-exaggerated. To put it bluntly, I don't trust the government's assessments about raw dairy.

On a practical level, consider this: people drank milk for thousands of years, but we only started pasteurizing it in the early 1900s. Do you really think people before 1900 were just living with these supposed diseases of raw milk, completely unawares? No, they drank raw milk and they were fine.

> Do you really think people before 1900 were just living with these supposed diseases of raw milk, completely unawares? No, they drank raw milk and they were fine.

Except for the ones who died. Life expectancy has gone up dramatically since 1900.

>> On a practical level, consider this: people drank milk for thousands of years, but we only started pasteurizing it in the early 1900s. Do you really think people before 1900 were just living with these supposed diseases of raw milk, completely unawares? No, they drank raw milk and they were fine.

People fall ill from drinking raw milk and even die today, when we have a better understanding of the causes of disease and have much better hygiene standards. I don't understand why you expect that this happened less, or not at all (?) in the past.

>> To put it bluntly, I don't trust the government's assessments about raw dairy.

Which government's? I linked to sites from the US, the UK and the EU. They are representative of health agencies from around the world.

In any case, this is from the WHO, i.e. not a governmental source:

Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli are among the most common foodborne pathogens that affect millions of people annually – sometimes with severe and fatal outcomes. Symptoms are fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea. Examples of foods involved in outbreaks of salmonellosis are eggs, poultry and other products of animal origin. Foodborne cases with Campylobacter are mainly caused by raw milk, raw or undercooked poultry and drinking water. Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli is associated with unpasteurized milk, undercooked meat and fresh fruits and vegetables.

Listeria infection leads to miscarriage in pregnant women or death of newborn babies. Although disease occurrence is relatively low, listeria’s severe and sometimes fatal health consequences, particularly among infants, children and the elderly, count them among the most serious foodborne infections. Listeria is found in unpasteurised dairy products and various ready-to-eat foods and can grow at refrigeration temperatures.

https://www.who.int/NEWS-ROOM/FACT-SHEETS/DETAIL/FOOD-SAFETY

It's interesting to note that some of the diesease associated with raw milk consumption are also caused by consumption of other foods, e.g. raw meat or raw eggs etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense to think that it's possible to get, e.g. E. coli from raw meat, but not from raw milk.

> People fall ill from drinking raw milk and even die today, when we have a better understanding of the causes of disease and have much better hygiene standards. I don't understand why you expect that this happened less, or not at all (?) in the past.

The illnesses associated with raw milk are caused by improperly handled milk, diseased cows, or something else entirely. Its human error, not some inherent quality of milk that is dangerous. Seriously take a look at the book The Untold Story of Milk, it has done all of the intellectual work to weigh the evidence and analyze the history already.

>> Its human error, not some inherent quality of milk that is dangerous.

I agree that it's not an "inherent quality of milk" that is dangerous. For instance, it's not the fact that milk is liquid, or that its colour is white/yellow that makes it dangerous. It is the presence of pathogenic bacteria in raw milk that make drinking raw milk dangerous.

However, the presence of pathogenic bacteria in raw milk is not the result of "human error". Indeed, one would say that it is the natural state of things that bacteria will populate everything we eat, drink or breathe. It just happens that some of those bacteria can cause illness or kill us.

>> Seriously take a look at the book The Untold Story of Milk, it has done all of the intellectual work to weigh the evidence and analyze the history already.

So have the WHO, FDA, CDC, EFSA, FSA, etc etc. Does the book you recommend arrive at different results?

Edit: To be a bit more precise about "human error". Animals do not need to be diseased and humans don't need to make errors for raw milk to cause illness. See for example the campylobacter outbreak caused by raw milk produced by Kendal Farm in the UK:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-38409110

Note:

In August the farm won a National Trust fine farm produce award for its unpasteurised milk.

Meaning the highest possible hygiene standards were observed at that farm. This being a UK farm, hygiene standards means that ill animals are separated from the herd and their milk destroyed and that animals and their milk are tested at least twice a year to ensure they're free from infection. You will not find more stringent hygiene procedures the world over. And yet, an outbreak did occur.

> So have the WHO, FDA, CDC, EFSA, FSA, etc etc. Does the book you recommend arrive at different results?

Yes

Are there any authoritative sources that arrive at the same results as the book you recommend? If so, could you link to them, please?

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