Holy cow! Raw milk good for you?

Farmers say it's warm, healthy and udderly delicious

- SALLY FALLON MORELL

DURING the last few years bureaucrats and public health officials have been quiet about raw milk, but then lowa legalised its sale last May.

The accompanying publicity in the New York Times and USA Today, plus many other publications has resulted in a flurry of pro-pasteurisation, anti-raw milk internet posts.

One of these appeared on December 8, 2023, by Claire Dunavan, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Dunavan cannot understand the 'risky allure' of raw milk. She asks: 'ls it buyers' faith in 'Nature's perfect food' or sellers' pure, naked greed?' Her main claims are:

Inthe 1890s Nathan Straus (co-owner of Macy's) started a private foundation to dispense pasteurised milk after his son died of typhus during a vacation in ltaly the death blamed on raw milk. Dunavan claimed there was a drop in U.S. infant mortality from 125 per 1,000 to fewer than 16 per 1,000 between 1891 and 1925.

Raw milk consumers are 840 times more likely to suffer illness than those who drink pasteurised dairy.

Recent outbreaks of illness blamed on raw milk have occurred in California, Utah and ldaho.

Raw milk contains dangerous pathogens like campylobacter and salmonella.

Raw milk may cause Guillain-Barré syndrome.

People are avoiding pasteurised milk because of milk allergy 'as opposed to a serious, even life-threatening infection'.

The real villains are the people who sell raw milk 'because they believe there's an audience out there that will buy it' even though they 'know' that raw milk will harm some people.