> Powerful anti-vaccine advocates and people selling potentially harmful goods such as raw milk are profiting from the push to write anti-science policies into law across the U.S.
But we don't regulate milk for the people who boil it.
We regulate it because of the ones who don't.
Same reason we have airport security even if I personally don't want to hijack a plane.
If the fear is actually the drinking of raw milk then they should ban that, not the buying/selling of it.
There are very few things with serious health impacts that are completely unregulated. The closest we get is probably guns.
> To go after something as niche as raw milk is weird in my view.
It wasn't niche when we regulated it. It's niche now because we did.
> Heart disease leads to quite a few deaths and we don't ban McDonalds.
We take plenty of regulatory steps to reduce heart disease. McDonalds is required, for example, to provide nutrition facts. The burger meat gets USDA inspected. The restaurants get health inspections. (And we do try to do more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drinks_portion_cap_rule)
Guns are more regulated than most everything else? Background checks, age verification, licensed dealers, rules on transporting and storing guns, etc.
> It wasn't niche when we regulated it. It's niche now because we did.
Just not true. It is niche in places where it is not regulated as well and some portion of those who buy raw milk pasteurize it themselves so we don't even know how many people drink raw milk.
> We take plenty of regulatory steps to reduce heart disease. McDonalds is required, for example, to provide nutrition facts.
Almost nobody reads that at a McDonalds...
> The burger meat gets USDA inspected. The restaurants get health inspections. (And we do try to do more.
And yet you can go to a McDonalds and die from a heart attack. Many places do not let you take that risk with raw milk.
Despite all these regulations you mentioned, McDonalds has more stores than ever before. With your reasoning that should be turning McDonalds into a niche place.