"Absolutely Horrified"
Raw milk thinking... anti-this, anti-that
Last week, I admitted my primary youthful law-breaking activity: selling unpasteurized (raw) milk to families willing to pony up fifty cents per gallon, a price less than half that for milk bought at a grocery store. This was prompted by growing interest currently in raw milk – fans raving about the taste, the freshness, the health benefits (which are questionable), and lower costs, due largely to fewer steps between dairy and drinker. Nostalgia may be a factor, too; many column respondents recalled raw milk from childhood while living on or at least closer to the land.
Selling raw milk was unlawful in the 1960s and ’70s. It’s now legal in Iowa and surrounding states… on-farm transactions, plus sales through delivery, at farmers markets, wherever producer-to-consumer exchanges happen. But is raw milk safe? Ah, a more complex question. Additional safety questions have surfaced as bird flu virus – H5N1 – was traced to retail raw milk in California.
Days earlier, a child tested positive for bird flu for the first time in U.S. history, a mild case, fortunately. About the same time, a British Columbia teenager was infected and is in critical but stable condition. Genetic sequencing of this strain indicates mutations that make it more likely to infect humans. YIKES! These instances are disconcerting because almost all recent (still rare) U.S. human cases have been dairy or poultry farm workers with mild symptoms. These two examples are outliers.
Don’t be fooled by the name. Bird flu virus has been detected in mammals, including dairy cattle, cats, a backyard pig, and mice. My focus today is cattle… and milk: fifteen states, including Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, have all had viral outbreaks in dairy cattle, involving 616 herds. In Iowa, H5N1 has been detected in 13 dairy herds in O'Brien, Sioux, and Plymouth counties. The risk of getting bird flu from drinking raw milk is relatively low at present, however, on dairy farms, H5N1 “seems to spread through ingestion of contaminated raw milk and direct contact with infected animals and milking equipment.”
It was unsettling to read two recent columns in the Washington Post by Leana Wen, a public health expert, one entitled “Why we should worry about bird flu” and, “Bird flu developments to track as human cases increase,” (subtitled, “H5N1 is more widespread than we thought”). Key points in that second piece are: 1) Many human cases aren’t being diagnosed; 2) Some new cases don’t involve farm animals; 3) There will be a change in administration. Quoting Wen on this third point, “…(the) new administration has, at best, a spotty record when it comes to pandemic response. Decisions could soon be made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., … (with) a long history of anti-vaccine advocacy.”
Okay, back to milk. (Focus, Kurt!) As you already know, since I know you read last week’s column, RFK, Jr. is not only anti-vax, he’s also a raw milk proponent. Might a Venn diagram show significant overlap in those who think this way?
Currently, the U.S. has about five million vaccines doses to counter H5N1. The goal is to have 10 million, which probably won’t happen until early 2025. Immunity requires two doses, meaning five million people could be vaccinated, about two percent of the U.S. population. (The vaccine’s projected effectiveness ranges from 30 to 70 percent.) Big challenge: The H5N1 virus now infecting cattle has mutated and is different than H5N1 viruses in poultry in 1997 and early 2000s, which may have killed up to fifty percent of people infected in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It’s illogical to amass huge vaccine stockpiles when it’s highly likely the virus will mutate again before infecting people.
Wait a minute! What if we intervened earlier in the process? What if we pasteurized milk, thereby killing bacteria and viruses INCLUDING salmonella, E. coli, listeria… and H5N1? Indeed, that would eliminate all these potential problems… but there’s a give-up. People will surely moan that milk “doesn’t taste as good, is not as fresh, costs more, etc., etc.”
A quick history lesson: Pasteurization, named for French chemist Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895), has been happening in the U.S. since the 1920s. According to the CDC, within thirty years, widespread pasteurization “led to dramatic reductions in the number of people getting sick.” Safe AND effective. Nevertheless, raw milk advocates persist.
So, some straight talk. While there are many knowledgeable authorities, I’ll let Dr. Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health, New York University, speak for me. According to Dr. Nestle, the raw milk trend has food safety experts, “Absolutely horrified… pasteurizing milk is one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century.” Nestle theorizes raw milk is “part of the whole anti-authoritarian, anti-science, anti-expertise waves we’re seeing in this country right now.”
I concur. I want nothing to do with raw milk in 2024. The risk is simply too great – and growing – with H5N1 adding yet another major danger to an already long list.
Let me close on yet another history note, perhaps somewhat ironic nowadays. The word vaccine comes from the cowpox virus vaccinia, the word derived from Latin, vacca for cow. Like me, you may vaguely remember stories about Edward Jenner in the late 18th century… and milkmaids avoiding smallpox. Going back to Jenner, the connection between cattle, disease, and steady scientific progress is now 225 years old. I fervently hope this link proves sufficiently durable to overcome a wrongheaded anti-science, anti-logic, anti-expertise movement.
*****************
I’m pleased to be part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. My talented colleagues:
people die from a large variety of foods every year. We have many, and I'll wager under-reported, prescription drug deaths, or at "best" complications, from legal & supposedly approved by regulatory agencies. I drank raw milk, appro 10 years ago, for several years after finding a local connection, suffered no ill effects, and likely some benefits. I stopped only as the farmer was getting older & downsizing his herd. There's So many ways to die prematurely in our culture. I wish some of these experts would be "absolutely horrified" with the many other preventable deaths due to food & other aspects of our culture. We could all list many....
I have never been interested in drinking raw milk but didn't oppose legalizing sales for others. Unfortunately, Dr. Megan Srinivas has explained how raw milk doesn't just endanger the drinker--others can also get ill from certain diseases.
A couple of years ago I read a biography of Sylvan Runkel, one of the leading 20th century experts on Iowa plants. His first wife died of undulant fever, probably from drinking raw milk.