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Comment by dpc_01234 | Hacker News Reader

It has nothing to do with science really. I don't think "pro-raw-milk people" question safety benefits of pasteurization or doubt germ theory. It's only about people's lack of nuance, totalitarian ambitions and safetism. Some people just can't help but make decisions for other people because they think they are smarter and know better. Ban, ban, unsafe, ban, I know better. The idea that consuming raw milk is somehow "unscientific" is plain stupid and/or propaganda. All I want is to enjoy the taste of raw milk from time to time, I know how germs work, I'm not forcing anyone to drink it, but I'll be fine, please worry about yourself.

I would even appreciate government making sure that companies selling raw milk to me are taking additional (but reasonable) precautions. But anyone just trying to ban raw milk for being unsafe and "unscientific" is just stupid.

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> I don't think "pro-raw-milk people" question safety benefits of pasteurization or doubt germ theory.

The HHS Secretary of the United States does. https://www.wsj.com/health/rfk-jr-what-is-terrain-theory-66b...

Not only that link is a paywall, but I just don't trust propaganda outlets like this. Over and over I've seen these twisting and misinterpreting people's opinions. Quick googling suggests that he does have some unconventional (borderline quackery?) opinions there, though lots of it seems like a typical smearing tactics. Nevertheless, if I need to support even a complete quack to defend my rights, so be it. I wish both sides were more reasonable, so we could slap some warning signs on raw milk bottles, ensure higher safety standards on raw milk producers, so I could enjoy my glass of raw milk in peace, but I guess it is never going to happen.

The WSJ is, if anything, editorially right-wing, and bypassing the paywall is trivial; https://archive.is/n4JZL.

Excerpts:

> “The ubiquity of pasteurization and vaccinations are only two of the many indicators of the domineering ascendancy of germ theory as the cornerstone of contemporary public health policy,” he wrote in the book. “A $1 trillion pharmaceutical industry pushing patented pills, powders, pricks, potions and poisons and the powerful professions of virology and vaccinology … fortifies the century-old predominance of germ theory.”

> As his political profile grew, Kennedy made his war on germ theory part of his public platform. As a presidential candidate in 2023, he promised to tell the National Institutes of Health to “give infectious disease a break for about eight years,” NBC reported. On a 2023 episode of Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, Kennedy said “it’s hard for an infectious disease to kill a healthy person with a rugged immune system”—an assertion that runs counter to modern medical consensus. When Rogan said that wasn’t true of the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed more than 50 million people globally, Kennedy replied: “Well, the Spanish flu was not a virus.”

I'm not sure how to share a society with people who think it's OK for the HHS Secretary to be a quack.

How many human lives are worth the cost for you to enjoy the taste of raw milk that has been distributed across state lines from time to time? If possible please answer both in terms of acceptable deaths, but also in terms of hospitalization cases that did not result in death.

If banning the sale of raw milk saves a life is it still stupid and unscientific? What if it saves 10,000? A million?

People act like these things are a personal attack on them and their freedoms. Like they happened in a vacuum. Like a bunch of bros got together in the 40s - 70s and thought to themselves, "how can we deny future raw milk aficionado dpc_01234 his druthers decades from now". Pay no mind to the thousands of lives that could be saved from terrible diseases like tuberculosis.

This type of thinking and commentary (propaganda?) just constantly being thrust into the world is not only ignorant but it's dangerous. Good luck to you and yours man, I hope the worst that happens to you from this willful lack or regard for both science and history is the inevitable food poisoning you'll get from blindly ignoring food safety because "germ milk yummy".

These people do not understand the level of testing that we do; the statistics of efficacy or safety. Perhaps we need to explain it better, but it is really quite complex to explain. There's a trope that if you cannot explain something in a simple way, that thing must not be true. If so I would like someone to explain quantum mechanics and relativity to a 10 year old. Good luck.

That's a really good way to put it. I'll add that in my experience with raw milk, while I can still taste the taste I also think fondly about the relationship I had with the farmer and even (once or twice) the help I got to give at the farm.

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