Raw milk sales spike despite CDC's warnings of risk | Hacker News Reader

Raw milk sales spike despite CDC's warnings of risk

pbs.org

23 pointsgeox90 comments

Here's a topical anecdote. There's a dairy farm in Texas which had free-roaming farm cats, around 24 of them, who were given raw milk to lap by the workers. H5N1 killed 50% of them in days.

- "The cats were found dead with no apparent signs of injury and were from a resident population of ≈24 domestic cats that had been fed milk from sick cows. Clinical disease in cows on that farm was first noted on March 16; the cats became sick on March 17, and several cats died in a cluster during March 19–20. In total, >50% of the cats at that dairy became ill and died."

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/7/24-0508_article

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cats-died-after-drinking-milk-b...

The conspiracy theorists are already working on making H5N1 their next act of performative contrariness. Anything having to do with the disease is going to become a lighting rod. Go read some conservative forums, they're already anticipating public health guidance, and preparing their tough-guy "I will not comply" pitchforks. You can bet anything the CDC says about anything, they're going to be against--because their entire schtick is to be against the health system.

> because their entire schtick is to be against the health system.

Until they get sick. Then they are begging for help.

r/HermanCainAward recipients.

Person X: "COVID is a hoax! It's a PLANdemic!"

Person X: "Fight the power! Don't wear a mask! Bodily autonomy!"

Person X: "It's only a cold! The vaccine is big government poison!"

Person X's daughter: "Asking for kind words for my dad. He was admitted into the ICU this afternoon with severe COVID pneumonia. This is so shocking. We don't know how this could have been prevented. Only God can save him so please pray!!!"

Ego is a killer, as they say.

Have you asked yourself why this is the case? And have you considered answers that don't involve these people being some sort of less-than creatures, rather than thinking, feeling human beings like yourself?

Not sure how your comment is helpful. You could make your point by actually making it instead of putting words in someone’s mouth.

What words am I putting in anyone's mouth? The question is meant to be answered. I'm not claiming to have the answer. I want to know if parent has done the exercise of thinking it through, and what their conclusions are.

Well, I don't think they are "less-than creatures" as you put it. Don't know where that one came from.

I don't think anyone really knows why the alt-right is stuck in this imagined persecution complex, and insists on being belligerent against experts and authority figures. My comment was just an observation that they are. I'm not a psychologist so any explanation I could offer would be pure speculation from a layman:

Maybe the persecution complex comes from evangelical Christianity--after all, the Venn diagrams of the alt-right and devout Christians overlap to a degree. A big part of the Jesus story was him getting persecuted and killed by authority figures. Maybe they project this victimhood on themselves so they can imagine themselves on some kind of religious-like quest. Being victims of a giant conspiracy could also just be a way of trying to gain sympathy. As for the anger and tough-guy acts? Who knows? Some deep seated trauma from childhood? Parental abuse issues? School teacher trust issues? I guess there are a lot of traumatic events that could set someone down the road of being angry at everyone.

Hope this sheds some light on my thought process. Ultimately, I don't think anyone really knows why these folks have made an entire political movement out of simultaneously attacking experts and playing the victim.

Maybe "creatures" takes it a little too far, but it's hard to read anything other than "less-than" from your comments.

> I don't think anyone really knows why the alt-right is stuck in this imagined persecution complex, and insists on being belligerent against experts and authority figures.

Ignoring the alt-right part (because it means something different to everybody), consider that these people are aware that practically all of the experts and authority figures have the same low opinion of them that you do (conspiracy theorists, performative contrarians, victims, tough guy actors).

How much stock do you put in the words of people who don't care about/like/respect you?

A large percentage of the population is doing the exact opposite of what good science is telling them. I feel like it's not just the economy but general critical thinking and education of folks has split into a K curve.

Isn't there also a real risk of catching tuberculosis via raw milk consumption as well? [1].

I know there are advocates of raw milk, and I have heard it tastes better than the stuff you get at the grocery store, but it always seemed like the real risks of getting an infections outweighed the benefits. This stuff isn't meant for humans, it's meant for baby cows, I don't know why people think that you can just drink it untreated without any risks.

[1] https://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/FastFacts/pdfs/bovine_tubercul...

I’m not a raw milk advocate but saying “milk isn’t meant for humans” is ridiculous. If we can digest it, it’s for us. Is cow meat meant for us, or only for wolves and bears?

What does it even mean for something to be “meant for us”? Are you saying that God didn’t mean for us to drink cow’s milk? Should we all live off women’s breast milk for our entire lives because that’s what is “meant for us”?

A lot of people actually can’t digest it. Lactose intolerance.

Humans were drinking animal milk long before Europeans developed the mutation to fully digest it.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/famine-and-dis...

Not raw milk.

Unpasturised milk does not contain (sufficient) lactase needed to break down lactose. You are welcome to cite any credible research that says otherwise.

https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/raw-milk-claim-is-udderly-u...

My digestive tract disagrees with you.

I’m lactose intolerant, yet I can drink raw milk.

> If we can digest it, it’s for us. Is cow meat meant for us, or only for wolves and bears?

What I meant was this, sorry if it wasn't clear: we don't eat cow meat untreated; we've been cooking it for a long time because it's substantially safer for us. Bears and wolves have evolved special digestive systems to handle the risks of bacteria and the like from raw meat.

I don't see why we should assume that a product specifically evolved to help nourish calves should automatically be perfectly compatible with human digestion. I'm not making a religious argument.

I'm not saying you should suck on your mom's boob for forever, and I am not 100% sure how you got that from my statement; humans have evolved to get nourishment from human milk when they're young, and as far as I can tell, have also evolved to ween off of it as they get older.

I know that "meant for us" may imply some more intent than evolution provides; it was a shorthand and I apologize if it was confusing.

Well, if you live in the woods, eat raw meat, fight for food and life, I am sure your immunity is strong enough to deal with germs and viruses waiting for their host in raw milk (if you're really into it, try raw goat milk instead). I am no city person, spent my childhood on a farm and even my granny wouldn't drink it unpasteured, which you can easily do yourself by the way, that's how stupid these people are.

> Should we all live off women’s breast milk for our entire lives because that’s what is “meant for us”?

I mean I dunno about the rest of you guys but I was able to graduate to solid food.

> Isn't there also a real risk of catching tuberculosis via raw milk consumption as well?

Just like there is a 'real risk' of catching parasites from eating plants. Or any foodborn illness from any food really.

> but it always seemed like the real risks of getting an infections outweighed the benefits.

Lots of things seem risky that to certain types of people.

> This stuff isn't meant for humans

Using that logic, humans can't consume any plants, fruits, meat, etc because they aren't 'meant for humans'. Do you only drink breast milk? And only your mother's breast milk since other female's breast milk is meant for other humans?

> I don't know why people think that you can just drink it untreated without any risks.

Me either. Don't know why people drive when it has risk. Or walk when at any moment, they can trip, hit their head on the sidewalk and die.

> Just like there is a 'real risk' of catching parasites from eating plants. Or any foodborn illness from any food really.

Most foodborn illnesses are not contagious to other people, and most are not nearly as bad as tuberculosis.

> Using that logic, humans can't consume any plants, fruits, meat, etc because they aren't 'meant for humans'.

I really don't think you read my comment in good faith. By "meant by", I really meant "evolved for", not any kind of god-given sense, and I do feel like that was pretty obvious. If we evolved to eat something untreated, then that's what I meant by "meant for us". I think you actually knew that.

I'm not really an advocate of a lot of raw foods, I think treating them in the form of cooking kills a lot of pathogens that could be bad for us.

> Do you only drink breast milk?

Is this just a meme with the raw milk crowd? Why is it automatically assumed that I'm suggesting that adults consume any form of raw milk. That's not implied by anything I said. I don't think adults should be drinking untreated human breast milk or untreated cow milk.

I personally don't really drink any milk, human or cow or otherwise. I do eat cheese from cow milk though, but it's always treated.

> I really don't think you read my comment in good faith

Because your comment wasn't written in good faith but driven by agenda.

> By "meant by", I really meant "evolved for"

What fruits, plants, animals, etc was 'evolved for' humans?

> If we evolved to eat something untreated, then that's what I meant by "meant for us".

So you just make up arbitrary definition of evolution? That's some quality comment written in 'good fath'.

> Is this just a meme with the raw milk crowd?

I don't drink raw milk.

> I personally don't really drink any milk, human or cow or otherwise.

So you are driven by agenda. Like I assumed. Thank you.

> Because your comment wasn't written in good faith but driven by agenda. > So you are driven by agenda. Like I assumed. Thank you.

Wait, what the actual fuck are you talking about? Agenda? You think I just go around the internet trying to besmirch the good name of milk? Are you suggesting I'm a member of some kind of anti-milk lobby? You think that's just how I spend every weekend or something? That's fucking stupid.

Sorry for being crass but that's a completely ridiculous assertion. I post something suggesting that raw milk is linked to tuberculosis and that implies that I have some stupid political agenda? Grow the fuck up, I don't have a team.

I don't drink milk because I don't really like the taste of milk. Nothing more. I said in the next sentence I do eat cheese, suggesting that I'm not some ranging anti-milkite.

> So you just make up arbitrary definition of evolution? That's some quality comment written in 'good fath'.

It's not really that arbitrary. Evolution is about increasing adaptation to environments. Cow milk evolved (like the cow animal itself) to be specialized for baby cows and their digestion. Baby cows almost certainly have different digestive systems than humans.

> What fruits, plants, animals, etc was 'evolved for' humans?

None, but I think humans likely evolved their digestion around being able to digest and kill pathogens from different types of plants and animals.

> Because your comment wasn't written in good faith but driven by agenda.

So are you agreeing that what you wrote was written in bad faith? I do not agree with your assertion that what I wrote was in bad faith.

Forcing people to take good advice makes you the bad guy. The same is true in government. People getting sick from raw milk might actually rebuild the cultural reputation of food safety institutions; if they crack down average people will continue trusting them less and less.

Like driving on the right side of the road? Stopping at red lights?

I think the constant exposure to traffic at wreck-jammed intersections reinforces a respect for the existence of traffic laws that doesn't exist for good regulations that aren't violated as often.

Also, many people absolutely do see traffic cops as the bad guys.

Yeah, you’re just explaining a textbook confusion of cause and effect: “milk is generally safe, therefore we don’t need these pesky regulations!”

We know what life looks like without these regulations. Answer: Lots of safety problems.

If these people didn’t produce risk of contagious pathogens I’d not really have a problem with their own decisions, but since they do produce that risk, the right way to prove these regulations unnecessary is to conduct scientific experiments and prove the regulations unnecessary. It was real world experience and scientific experiments that got them put in place to begin with.

Maybe people would find it less onerous to require testing. Technology for that stuff has advanced a lot since raw milk was originally banned on epidemiological grounds.

I have no idea what you're trying to argue beyond "people don't like being told what to do, even by people who are generally experts, and know what probably good for them."

I mean, I get that people don't like being told what to do -- I don't like being told what to do -- but it's part of being an adult to accept that you might not know what's best, and sometimes you ought listen to people who have dedicated their lives to the issues at hand.

I think a lot of this probably has to do with religious impulses, which, to some extent, require believers to reject empiricism and the scientific basis for knowledge, again, to a degree.

Its weird that america cares about this so much when healthcare is primarily private so the externalities of this choice can be priced via insurance premiums. Makes more sense to me for places eith primarily socialized medicine to care more and yet they have this largely legal and largely don't have problems as well.

in short the guys that really care about this have less justification for that care (and ensueing interference) and the guys that dont care that much have larger reasons to potentially care but at the same time dont seem to be exhibitibg the large problems claimed to justify intervention.

To be clear, I would much rather have socialized healthcare, but just to rebut your point a bit here.

> Its weird that america cares about this so much when healthcare is primarily private so the externalities of this choice can be priced via insurance premiums. Makes more sense to me for places eith primarily socialized medicine to care more and yet they have this largely legal and largely don't have problems as well.

Medical insurance is more or a less a collectivist thing, even in the US, and most people aren't directly buying their own insurance, they get a flat rate from their employer. If there is a considerable increase of diseases and hospitalization, insurance companies will end up raising their rates for everyone, including those who didn't do the stuff that increased the hospitalizations.

Also, if there's a risk of the person drinking raw milk incubating a disease that can eventually spread to other humans, then it's absurd to pretend that it doesn't affect us. If you catch tuberculosis from raw milk, and then spread that to someone else, that's obviously bad for literally every other human on earth, or at least every other human who is susceptible to TB.

You claimed American healthcare is large collectivist when the point was it was much less socialized/collectivist than other places that don't seem to care about raw milk being legal and also don't seem to have an appreciable health problem from raw milk being legal. I wouldn't really call that a rebut, I would call that missing the point.

Also, that there is a risk to others in it self is not a per se reason for illegality (or else everything would be illegal). What matters is the cost of the risk not borne by the person making the choice vs the net benefit directly to the person taking the risk. Based on the fact that raw milk is legal in much of the world with very rare ill effects (and even rarer ill effects beyond the person consuming the raw milk product) your last two paragraphs ring very hollow

> I wouldn't really call that a rebut, I would call that missing the point.

I don't think I did actually. Even if other countries are more collectivist than the US, that doesn't mean that it doesn't affect me if something causes a spike in costs. Yes, the UK is more collectivist but I don't really know what that has to do with anything other than a potential misunderstanding of the US healthcare system; rising health insurance costs could still affect me, not even counting the fact that around 100+ million people in the US (around 1/3 of the entire population) are on medicare or medicaid, which is directly socialized [1] [2] and would directly affect all taxpayers.

> your last two paragraphs ring very hollow

Sure. It's all about risk management, a glorified expected value calculation. I don't really care if raw milk is legal or not, I just don't like it when people pretend that anything is all sunshine and fucking rainbows. If it has a risk of carrying an airborne illness, instead of pretending that it doesn't, we should acknowledge it and regulate it properly.

[1] https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/program-information/medica...

[2] https://data.cms.gov/summary-statistics-on-beneficiary-enrol...

Don't think I'd want to take that risk regularly, although I did try raw milk a few years back and definitely preferred the taste to my standard supermarket brand milk at the time.

After a bit of experimentation I noticed that I dislike some kind of flavor that is present in the homogenized milks I tasted but not the unhomogenized milk from my local farmers's market. Luckily, pasteurization does not worsen the taste profile for me, so now I get the best of both worlds at a slightly higher cost.

> raw milk products account for a small fraction of overall dairy sales

Given this quote from the article, the title seems hyperbolic.

I hope the CDC issues new warnings about the dangers of chicken tartare and pufferfish meat.

Almost as if people are skeptical of/apathetic to guidance from an organization that recently got done eroding decades of public trust.

I know people who have advocated raw milk since the 70s. Very progressive folks. They're pissed to have become "right wing" without having changed any opinions.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/10/the-alt-ri...

Ah, the joys of living in a society incapable of nuance.

Like vaccines, many on the right think pasteurization is woke: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/business/raw-milk-bird-fl...

They could provide simple PCR tests to detect bird flu virus in milk. We produced trillions of those very recently. Those "warnings" are useless.

A PCR test requires specialized equipment and trained personnel; it is typically conducted in a laboratory setting.

And CDC has equipment and personnel. They should provide free anonymous testing, like with STDs. I want to know I am safe, without risking my pet cows life!

I’ve been drinking raw milk for years.

Amish all drink raw milk, as do most of the folks around me. Tastes better, naturally has lactase so lactose intolerant folks can drink it, etc

None of us believe anything the cdc says because they have always said “don’t drink raw milk” and all of the Amish and others are the healthiest people you’ll ever meet

Oh brother… eyes roll so much, can see brain

> None of us believe anything the cdc says because they have always said “don’t drink raw milk” and all of the Amish and others are the healthiest people you’ll ever meet

I don't think that logic makes any sense. The "ones you meet" are the ones who didn't die. You're not meeting the dead ones. Selection bias and such. If you have statistics that Amish people have fewer deaths or something, that would be better evidence.

> The "ones you meet" are the ones who didn't die

Can you link to any instances of an outbreak of disease from unpasturized milk among the Amish people? Or even among the general population? All I know about is one time over 150 years ago the milk got spoiled on a train in Chicago. Which is why we have pasturization.

I found this study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140832/, which seems to indicate that raw milk consumption has benefits.

I didn't look because a claim without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. What the parent comment claimed didn't logically follow and I was pointing that out.

Your link does seem to indicate potential benefits, so I might give it a read, but I really don't want to get tuberculosis so I probably won't drink raw milk regardless.

EDIT: before you accuse me of hypocrisy, I did post a link talking about bovine TB elsewhere in a sister thread.

> I didn't look because a claim without evidence can be dismissed without evidence

I did look & could not find anything. I think marketing fuels a hysteria against raw milk. The reason why vendors say it's "not fit for human consumption" is to avoid action by the regulators. e.g. Having the authorities raid the farm & seize property. https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/dairy/raid-on-...

> I really don't want to get tuberculosis so I probably won't drink raw milk regardless

Nobody is asking you to. You have the freedom not to consume raw milk. But some people do want to consume raw milk. And there is scant, if any, evidence of the alleged problems. So why are Authorities making this illegal? I doubt it's to "protect public health". The public who wants to drink raw milk don't want the Authorities "protecting their health" in this way.

> Nobody is asking you to. You have the freedom not to consume raw milk. But some people do want to consume raw milk. And there is scant, if any, evidence of the alleged problems. So why are Authorities making this illegal? I doubt it's to "protect public health". The public who wants to drink raw milk don't want the Authorities "protecting their health" in this way.

If the the TB is spreadable to non-raw-milk-drinkers then it's ridiculous to act like it doesn't affect me, and the libertarian argument doesn't make sense. I don't give a shit about the health of the people who actually drink the milk, if they want to kill themselves then don't let me stop them, but I don't want them infecting innocent people in the process. This really isn't hard.

> This really isn't hard

Yet the governments that you love so much supports Gain of Function Research. Which literally caused Covid among other pandemics. And is suspiciously linked to AIDS. Yet you are worried about unpasturized milk? Your priorities are completely wrong due to your belief in governments. The same governments that cause all wars, genocides, & most pandemics.

So I agree...this really isn't hard. Unless you frame things the wrong way.

I "love" the government? That's news to me. I am not sure where you got that information.

I don't really know how the government "caused" COVID, unless you're claiming that the Trump administration's handling of it was completely incompetent which led to a lot of unnecessary spreading, which I would agree with. I'll concede that the Reagan administration's handling of the AIDS epidemic was pretty evil.

I'm not terribly worried about pasteurized milk, I just said that if something causes TB, and TB can be spread person to person, that's something to consider, and it's not as simple as "if you don't like the risk then don't drink it".

> I "love" the government? That's news to me. I am not sure where you got that information.

I apologize if I'm incorrect. I think there's a common implicit bias that favors using force against the population. When that force does not do anything meaningful to protect anyone.

> I don't really know how the government "caused" COVID

COVID came out of gain of function research from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Which genetically engineered the Coronavirus to cross the species barrier & become contagious. The NIH & Eco Health Alliance funded this research.

Still many biolabs do Gain of Function research around the world. Funded by the NIH. The only effective purpose for these labs is to create bioweapons. Guess who will be affected by the bioweapons? Us...

> Trump administration's handling of it was completely incompetent

I'm not happy with how he pushed the experimental shots that got many people sick. And killed an unreported amount of people.

> I'll concede that the Reagan administration's handling of the AIDS epidemic was pretty evil.

Fauci was heavily involved with AIDS. I find Robert F. Kennedy credible. He wrote a book called "The Real Anthony Fauci". Which details Fauci's involvement with AIDS. And how AZT was killing people with AIDS. As AZT killed people with Cancer, which was it's original intended use.

If Mr. Kennedy is defaming Fauci, then Fauci can sue. Fauci hasn't sued Mr. Kennedy. He would have to go through discovery.

Re: TB. There are many risks for TB transmission. Unpasturized milk is an orders of magnitude smaller risk than people gathering in a public place or immigration.

Lmao I mean, you can look up the stats. Approximately no one dies from raw milk. Pasteurization started before refrigeration was common and when cities became larger so getting milk was more difficult.

I think we’d know if people started to become massively sick, people would stop buying from the folks. We know most of the people in the area.

I posted in a sister comment, but you can get tuberculosis from raw milk, and then that tuberculosis can be spread, even to people who don't drink raw milk

I'm not saying it's super likely, but it's something worth considering.

Have we lived through the same pandemic?

People will absolutely insist their loved ones dying is a coincidence, as long as they can frame their action as standing up to the government (or whatever they hate).

All you need is someone describing the situation as the government holding a gun to your head and telling you to pasteurize your milk (YOUR milk!), or something like that.

It's my understanding the sickness from milk isn't fatal. There are many foods which have comparable levels and even much higher risk. Somehow raw milk gets all The attention.

Like most things medical you can't compare the risk to the population as a whole. Risk factors, environment and individual farms will vary risk greatly.

> It's my understanding the sickness from milk isn't fatal.

Salmonella, e. coli, and listeria have killed people so I'm not sure where you're getting that idea from. True, most people don't, but most people also don't die from flu, but some still do.

And tuberculosis! That's arguably the most deadly disease in recorded history.

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

Any of the articles about it never mention fatalities.

You can get all the above from lettuce and deli meat.

> You can get all the above from lettuce and deli meat.

That's a whataboutism, and a pivot. Just because you can get them from lettuce or deli meat doesn't mean you shouldn't consider it with raw milk.

I'm just asking if you're comfortable about a lot of other risks, some worse, why is this one specifically worse? Because you hate dirty hippies?

I don't think most people who drink raw milk are dirty or hippies and I don't hate people who are dirty or hippies and I never said anything that even remotely implies that. I have no idea where the fuck that came from.

Communicable fatal diseases are objectively scary. Tuberculosis is a communicable potentially fatal disease. You probably won't spread your e.coli. that you got from your undercooked hamburger by coughing on them, but you can spread your tuberculosis that way. These risks should thus be taken a lot more seriously and the statistics become more difficult.

I frankly do not give a shit if all you ever drink is raw milk in regards to disease that get you sick, use it to replace water, bathe in it for all I care, far be it for me to tell you how to live your life, but infectious airborne diseases are a different story to me.

I know all of this comes down to calculated risk, you can't get anything involving food down to zero risk and I never asserted as such, so fundamentally everything in regards to food comes down to "which risks do we want society to put up with?".

The reason I keep fixating on the tuberculosis point is that is a particularly nasty disease and I don't know the actual number of cases we should be willing to tolerate as a society, and AFAIK there's no TB vaccine.

has Salmonella killed anybody: yes. has e. coli killed anybody: yes. has listeria killed anybody: yes.

has salmonella from raw milk killed anybody yet: your source says no.

it's just a matter of time before someone does die from salmonella from raw milk. Thanks to science that's a completely avoidable death, but to each their own. You're not forcing me to drink raw milk, and i'm not forcing you to drink processed milk.

and yes, wash your veggies.

You can catch tuberculosis from raw milk. Tuberculosis can absolutely be deadly, and it can be spread to non-raw-milk drinkers, which means it's my business, not just telling people what they can or can't drink.

How many cases per 100k? Where do people typically contract it?

You moved the goalpost. You said "It's my understanding the sickness from milk isn't fatal."

You didn't say "it's usually not fatal", in which case I might agree. You said it's "your understanding that it's not fatal", so I was pointing out that your understanding was wrong.

I realize I'm being annoyingly pedantic on this, but I think it's a claim that needs to be addressed. It's important to know that you can get a disease from product X, whether it be from raw milk or lettuce or undercooked beef or whatever. Pretending that you cannot die from raw milk infections is dishonest.

To make it more clear, it's not typically fatal and many other foods cause higher levels of both sickness and fatalities. To get any number of fatalities you have to expand the timeline like 40 years. I'd consider that basically never.

I've not seen anything claiming TB is a risk even in sources like the CDC and FDA. Maybe it is, but given the small numbers of illness I'd wager it's something localized or that effects people with serious underlying health complications.

> I've not seen anything claiming TB is a risk even in sources like the CDC and FDA

You didn't look very hard then. This was after a ten second search [1].

From the article:

> However, humans also can become infected, most commonly through consumption of unpasteurized milk products from infected cows.

Also this from the NIH [2]:

> Contamination of unpasteurized dairy products can occur by a variety of mechanisms: direct contact with bovine feces, transmission of the organisms from bovine skin/hide, bovine mastitis, primary bovine diseases (i.e., tuberculosis), and environmental contamination from insects, other animals, or humans (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017a).

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5424a4.htm

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9262997/

Raw milk contains little to no lactase, and is far more likely to cause food borne illness.

I dont suppose controlled scientific studies will persuade you, but for those looking for some

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3948760/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9262997/

I won't pronounce myself on raw milk, we used to buy our milk raw and pasteurize it ourselves (the cream was a bonus), but Amish aren't the healthiest people you'll ever met. Maybe the healthiest group of Americans, on average (i mean, 4% obesity rate is low), but Japanese living on islands are far more healthy. In fact, i think generally, people living on small, rich islands are healthier, with good iodine level (which is an issue with the Amish), good vitamin D levels, good diet.

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