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Raw Milk Risk Extremely Small Compared to Risk of Other Food
Government Data Proves Raw Milk Safe! Independent labs prove raw milk safe. Cow-shares prove raw milk safe! It's safe already!
In contrast: "... the largest outbreak of salmonellosis ever identified in the United States ... were traced back to pasteurized milk from a single dairy"
Date: 8/1/2011 7:58:06 PM ( 13 y ) ... viewed 37526 times August 6, 2020 - Raw Milk Is A Low-risk Food! -
"Raw milk that is carefully and intentionally produced for direct human consumption is a low-risk food. Udder preparation is one of the most important steps for producing clean, safe raw milk. If you don’t properly clean the udders and teats, dirt and manure contamination can contribute pathogenic bacteria into the milk. With proper cleaning and preparation of the udders and teats, the risk of pathogenic bacteria in the milk is dramatically reduced. ..."[1]
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February, 22, 2012 - A Most Recent & Relevant Update Immediately Follows This Report!
WASHINGTON, DC June 22, 2011: Data gleaned from U.S. government websites and government-sanctioned reports on foodborne illnesses show that the risk of contracting foodborne illness by consuming raw milk is much smaller than the risk of becoming ill from other foods, according to research by Dr. Ted Beals, MD, appearing in the Summer, 2011 issue of Wise Traditions, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.
“At last we have access to the numbers we need to determine the risk of consuming raw milk on a per-person basis,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education foundation that provides information on the health benefits of raw, whole milk from pastured cows.
The key figure that permits a calculation of raw milk illnesses on a per-person basis comes from a 2007 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) FoodNet survey, which found that 3.04 percent of the population consumes raw milk, or about 9.4 million people, based on the 2010 census. This number may in fact be larger in 2011 as raw milk is growing in popularity. For example, sales of raw milk increased 25 percent in California in 2010, while sales of pasteurized milk declined 3 percent.
In addition, Dr. Beals has compiled published reports of illness attributed to raw milk from 1999 to 2010. During the eleven-year period, illnesses attributed to raw milk averaged 42 per year.
“Using government figures for foodborne illness for the entire population, Dr. Beals has shown that you are about thirty-five thousand times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk,” says Fallon Morell. “And with good management practices in small grass-based dairies offering fresh unprocessed whole milk for direct human consumption, we may be able to reduce the risk even further.”
“It is irresponsible for senior national government officials to oppose raw milk, claiming that it is inherently hazardous,” says Dr. Beals. “There is no justification for opposing the sale of raw milk or warning against its inclusion in the diets of children and adults.”
According to Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, “Where raw milk is concerned, the FDA has an agenda apart from protecting the public health. The agency wants to restrict and discourage the sale of unprocessed dairy products. This will have the effect of denying freedom of choice."
“Every time there is a possible connection between illness and raw milk, government officials issue dire press releases and call for bans on raw milk sales,” says Fallon Morell. “However, these numbers fail to justify the government opposition and prove what we’ve known all along, that raw milk is a safe and healthy food.”
http://westonaprice.org/press/press/government-data-proves-raw-milk-safe
Dr. Ted Beals' report is also referred to by Dr. Mercola:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/08/31/us-government-d...
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.realmilk.com/real-milk-pathogens.html
Article written by Kimberly Hartke
Monday, August 01 2011 13:11
Weston A. Price Foundation
CONTACT: Kimberly Hartke, Press@westonaprice.org
For Immediate Release 703-860-2711, cell 703-675-5557
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The following is a press release form Kimberly Hartke Received February 22, 2012:
Here is a response from the Weston A. Price Foundation, to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control report on raw milk and illness outbreaks. The government bias against raw milk and their flawed analysis is critiqued, below. --Kimberly
URL: http://www.westonaprice.org/press/cdc-cherry-picks-data-to-make-case-against-...
CDC CHERRY PICKS DATA TO MAKE CASE AGAINST RAW MILK
Agency ignores data that shows dangers of pasteurized milk
WASHINGTON, DC, February 22, 2012. In a press release issued yesterday, authors affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control claim that the rate of outbreaks caused by unpasteurized milk and products made from it was 150 times greater than outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk.” The authors based this conclusion on an analysis of reports submitted to the CDC from 1993 to 2006.
According the Weston A. Price Foundation, the CDC has manipulated and cherry picked this data to make raw milk look dangerous and to dismiss the same dangers associated with pasteurized milk.
“What consumers need to realize, first of all,” said Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, “is that the incidence of foodborne illnesses from dairy products, whether pasteurized or not, is extremely low. For the 14-year period that the authors examined, there was an average of 315 illnesses a year from all dairy products for which the pasteurization status was known. Of those, there was an average of 112 illnesses each year attributed to all raw dairy products and 203 associated with pasteurized dairy products.
“In comparison, there are almost 24,000 foodborne illnesses reported each year on average. Whether pasteurized or not, dairy products are simply not a high risk product.”
Because the incidence of illness from dairy products is so low, the authors’ choice of the time period for the study affected the results significantly, yet their decision to stop the analysis with the year 2006 was not explained. The CDC’s data shows that there were significant outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to pasteurized dairy products the very next year, in 2007: 135 people became ill from pasteurized cheese contaminated with e. coli, and three people died from pasteurized milk contaminated with listeria (wwwn.cdc.gov/foodborneoutbreaks/Default.aspx).
Outbreaks from pasteurized dairy were also a significant problem in the 1980s. In 1985, there were over 16,000 confirmed cases of Salmonella infection that were traced back to pasteurized milk from a single dairy. Surveys estimated that the actual number of people who became ill in that outbreak were over 168,000, “making this the largest outbreak of salmonellosis ever identified in the United States” at that time, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
According to Fallon Morell “In the context of the very low numbers of illnesses attributed to dairy in general, the authors’ decision to cut the time frame short, as compared to the available CDC data, is troubling and adds to questions about the bias in this publication.”
According to Fallon Morell, the CDC’s authors continue to obscure their study by failing to document the actual information they are using. They rely on reports, many of which are preliminary. Of the references related to dairy outbreaks, five are from outbreaks in other countries, several did not involve any illness, seven are about cheese-related incidents, and of the forty-six outbreaks they count, only five describe any investigations.
Perhaps most troubling is the authors’ decision to focus on outbreaks rather than illnesses. An “outbreak” of foodborne illness can consist of two people with minor stomachaches to thousands of people with bloody diarrhea. In addressing the risk posed for individuals who consume a food, the logical data to examine is the number of illnesses, not the number of outbreaks.
“The authors acknowledge that the number of foodborne illnesses from raw dairy products (as opposed to outbreaks) were not significantly different in states where raw milk is legal to sell compared with states where it is illegal to sell,” notes Judith McGeary of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance. “In other words, had the authors looked at actual risk of illness, instead of the artificially defined “outbreaks,” there would have been no significant results to report.”
This does not end the list of flaws with the study, however. The link between the outbreaks and the legal status of raw dairy mixed an entire category of diverse products. Illnesses from suitcase style raw cheese or queso fresco were lumped together with illnesses attributed to fluid raw milk, a much less risky product. In the majority of states where the sale of raw fluid milk is allowed, the sale of queso fresco is still illegal. The authors had all of the data on which products were legal and which products allegedly caused the illnesses, yet chose not to use that data.
Similarly, to create the claimed numbers for how much riskier raw dairy products are, the authors relied on old data on raw milk consumption rates, rather than using the CDC’s own food survey from 2006-2007. The newer data showed that about 3 percent of the population consumes raw milk—over nine million people--yet the authors chose instead to make conclusions based on the assumption that only 1 percent of the dairy products in the country are consumed raw.
The authors also ignored relevant data on the populations of each state. For example, the three most populous states in the country (California, Texas, and New York) all allow for legal sales of raw milk; the larger number of people in these states would logically lead to larger numbers of illnesses than in low-population states such as Montana and Wyoming and has nothing to do with the fact that raw milk is illegal in those states.
“It would hardly be surprising to see some sort of increase in foodborne illnesses related to a food where that food is legal,” said McGeary. “If we banned ground beef, we’d see fewer illnesses related to ground beef products. Yet this new study fails to prove even that common-sense proposition, even as it claims to prove a great deal more. What the data really shows is that raw dairy products cause very few illnesses each year, even though the CDC data indicates that over 9 million people consume it.”
The Weston A. Price Foundation is a 501(C)(3) nutrition education foundation with the mission of disseminating accurate, science-based information on diet and health. Named after nutrition pioneer Weston A. Price, DDS, author of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, the Washington, DC-based Foundation publishes a quarterly journal for its 13,000 members, supports 500 local chapters worldwide and hosts a yearly conference. The Foundation headquarters phone number is (202) 363-4394, http://www.westonaprice.org,
info@westonaprice.org
Contact:
Kimberly Hartke, Publicist, The Weston A. Price Foundation
press@westonaprice.org
703-860-2711, 703-675-5557
Also:
http://journal.livingfood.us/2011/08/01/government-data-proves-raw-milk-is-sa...
"... the actual scientific facts stripped of the hysteria and devoid of unsubstantiated dogma. ...":
http://www.realmilk.com/real-milk-pathogens.html
Oct. 14, 2011 - "his month's lab test results are in at a small cow-share in California. "As usual, our milk is testing cleaner and lower in bacteria than any CDFA-regulated milk." Lab tests don't lie. The labs depend on the truth of those tests. Pasteurization propagandists lie! Their jobs depend on it!"
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Notes:
[1] https://www.rawmilkinstitute.org/updates/udder-preparation-for-raw-milk
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Keywords:
raw milk, raw milk truth, raw milk whole truth, raw milk science, raw milk safety, raw milk testing, raw milk tests, low risk raw milk
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