Raw milk cheese is a regular part of my diet. Some of it is from tiny producers who certainly wouldn't have the finances to arm themselves against regulations that are designed to put them out of business.

"But in its own tests using milk inoculated with pathogens, the FDA has found pathogens surviving in aged cheese, prompting some cheesemakers to worry that the FDA might throw out the 60-day rule and ban all raw milk cheeses, aged or not."

It's interesting that the FDA had to inoculate the cheese with the pathogens (that can form in unpasteurized milk), because clearly it wasn't there to begin with since raw milk producers maintain what's called "cleanliness". These pathogens must be exceedingly rare for raw milk and raw milk cheese producers as none of these articles EVER point to ONE SINGLE CASE of sickness.

This history of safety can lead to complacency, so ultimately I suppose it is a good thing since it drove the producers to form this group which will establish useful standards to keep raw milk related products safe. After all, that is in the best interests of those who don't want these products banned.

And thanks to the FDA for wanting to prevent one illness that hasn't happened yet. Lord knows if a chemotherapy patient gets sick after unwittingly visiting a TB sufferer, a child with measles, and a leper, it would be blamed on the fact that he walked by a stranger who was purchasing a sealed package of raw milk cheese. Problem averted, perhaps they might want to divert their attention to a drug or two that might be responsible for the odd death or two thousand.

I'm so tired of the Government meddling.  They had to "innoculate" the cheese to get something to grow.  Something very fishy.  I can't afford raw cheese, but...I do make kefir with raw milk and then make kefir cheese.  On one hand it's good, because it means our voices are being heard, on the other hand, it's not right to dictate and try to stop something that never sickened anybody...grrrrr

Ask yourselves the Occum's Razor Question (invariably the simplest answer tends to to be the correct one):  How did America ever get along prior to FDA (formed under the 1938 US Cosmetic & Food Act)?

You mean, Uncle Russ, people here in America, for hundreds of years, consumed RAW products...!!!??? 

The scandal of it all.

When Upton Sinclair wrote THE JUNGLE, exposing the overt atrocities in the meat industry in America, Uncle Sam saw the opportunity to federalize and regulate the meat and food business.

Are we better off, generally speaking, now, as a result?

I think you can make your own conclusions on that.

Uncle Russ

Hello:

I have been considering starting on raw milk, but have been unsure as to its safety, so I started some research. These are my results, for those who care. All of this is based on data from the CDC and USDA.

I’m a scientist by training, so I’m always looking at data. Here’s some that I came up with.

I found this on the CDC website:

” From 1998 to May 2005 CDC identified 45 outbreaks of foodborne illness that implicated unpasteurized milk, or cheese made from unpasteurized milk. These outbreaks accounted for 1,007 illnesses, 104 hospitalizations, and two deaths. The actual number of illnesses was almost certainly higher because not all cases of illness are recognized and reported.”

(note that they say “implicated” and not “laboraatory confirmed.” But I’ll assume this means “confirmed.” And also, you can make this argument about under-reporting for ALL food–borne illnesses, so that last comment is a boondoggle.)

That is about 6 outbreaks a year, with 143 people getting sick each year from drinking unpasteurized milk. At first, it’s tough to tell what that means, because there aren’t that many people drinking raw milk in the US.

The more important piece of data would be what percentage of people who drink raw milk get sick. It’s tough to tell, because it’s tough to tell how many actually drink raw milk. I finally DID find this info, in a very roundabout way! Keep reading!!!

I compared this to the CDC data on overall “food-borne illnesses.” In 2006, 17,252 “laboratory-confirmed cases” of food borne infections were counted in a cohort of 15% of the US population. Extrapolating from this, that would indicate that there were about 115,103 cases of food-borne illnesses in the US in 2006 alone. From the other CDC data, 143 of these cases came from drinking unpasteurized milk.

(Note this are only LAB-CONFIRMED cases. According to another CDC website, “Approximately 76 million Americans suffer from a foodborne illness every year, and 5,000 deaths each year are attributed to foodborne illness,” said Cecil B. Wilson, M.D., American Medical Association Trustee.)

143 cases of raw milk borne illness compared to a total of 115,103 cases of food borne illness. That is about one tenth of one percent of all food borne illnesses about 1 in 800.

Still, it’s tough to tell what the “real” risk is since I didn’t know the percentage of americans that driink raw milk. If 5% drunk raw milk, then the percentage of illness is very small. If only 1 out of 100,000 drink raw milk, then the percentage of illness is very high. THAT is the DATA I wanted!

But FINALLY I found some DATA!

The data I found for what I wanted was for the pathogen Listeria. Very interesting information. I just realized this ALSO will allow me to estimate how many servings of raw milk are consumed in the US per year! Then I can go back to calculate estimates for the above data. THIS I think you’ll really like!!!!

Here’s the link. Scroll down to page 25, Summary Table 4

www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/Slides_092806_JSofos.pdf

This table gives total cases of listeria in the US as well as their food source. Most interesting, it estimates the total number of cases per serving of that food eaten. THAT is the data I wanted.

As we can see, unpasteurized milk is actually the fourth highest risk for listeria illness, with 7.1 EXP(-9) illnesses per serving. However, take a note that the HIGHEST risk is deli meats, which have ten TIMES the rate of listeria illness per food serving, at 7.7 EXP(-8)

To put that in perspective, for every serving of deli meat you eat, you have a TEN TIMES GREATER RISK of getting sick from listeria than from drinking a glass of raw milk. However, one should note that raw fluid milk has a seven times greater illness per serving rate than pasteurized fluid milk does. So there is increased risk compared to pasteurized milk. But compared to deli meats—which are served without question millions of times a day in restaurants, grocery stores, and Yankee Stadium— raw milk is only 10% as dangerous on a per serving basis.

THAT is the data that I was looking for. On a per serving basis, YES, raw milk is more dangerous than pasteurized milk when it comes to listeria infection, but DELI MEATS are TEN TIMES MORE DANGEROUS than raw milk is!!!!

In summary, according to that chart, cold hotdogs, deli meats, and pate have a higher risk on a per serving basis for contracting listeria illness than drinking raw milk. Smoked seafood (like lox, from bagels and lox) and pre-cooked shrimp have about the same rate as raw fluid milk.

So why is everyone up in arms about drinking raw milk? Especially when the rate of illness (at least for listeria) is TEN TIMES GREATER for deli meats!!

You’re putting your children at a TEN TIMES greater risk for contracting listeria by giving them a bologna sandwich for lunch than by giving them a glass of raw milk!!!!

Would they be “safer” by giving them pasteurized milk? Yes, when it comes to listeria. That is what the data says. I can’t argue with it. Yes, drinking raw milk is more dangerous when it comes to contracting listeria than drinking pasteruized milk.

That is a FACT.

However, they are not really unreasonable odds—espcially when you weigh the health benefits. When you add the questionable health “benefits” of deli meats with their listeria infection rate, I’d say salami and bologna are MUCH more dangerous than raw milk is. And especially since folks eat salami, pate, cooked shrimp, and lox every day without thinking twice.

Why isn’t the USDA going after Oscar-Mayer?!??! TEN TIMES greater listeria illness rate in per serving basis in deli meats than raw milk, and 77 TIMES greater than pasteurized milk!!!!

Seems very unfair.

Think about that.

Now, from this data, I can ALSO calculate how many servings of raw milk are served per year in the US. There were 3.1 cases of listeria from drinkng raw milk per year, according to that chart. There alse were 7.1EXP(-9) ilnesses per serving. From this I can reverse calculate that the USDA ESTIMATES there are a total of 437 million servings of raw milk consumed in the US per year. (I can do the same thing for pasteruized milk. From that I conclude that there were 9,080,000,000 servings of pasterized milk drunk in the US per year. That is NINE BILLION servings. That is 20 times the number of servings of raw milk, which leads me to conclude about 5% of the population, more or less, are drinking raw milk, and 95% drinking pasteruized.)

Out of a total of 437 million servings of raw milk in the US per year, 137 people got some sort of illness. On a per serving basis, that is 3.14 EXP(-7). That means you would have to drink 3.18 million glasses of raw milk before you might expect to get an illness of any kind due to that milk. (It is actually HIGHER than that, because those 137 illnesses also included raw cheese, not just raw milk.)

Let’s even assume that the CDC is correct in that all the raw milk borne illnesses were NOT reported. In fact, let’s assume that 90% of them WEREN’T reported. Then there were 1370 who got ill per year instead of 137. In fact, let’s even assume that 99% of them weren’t reported. That is, only ONE PERCENT of the people who got sick from drinking raw milk bothered to report it. Then 13,700 people would be getting sick every year from drinking raw milk. EVEN IF THIS WERE THE CASE (which I highly doubt), you would still have to drink 31,800 glasses of raw milk before you would expect to get some sort of sickness because of it. Assuming you drink a glass a day, that is 87 YEARS of drinking raw milk before you would expect to get sick from it a single time.

Is there a chance? Yes. Many people get food-borne illnesses per year. There is always a chance.

But to me, it seems as if the chance— and that is according to the CDCs and the USDA’s OWN DATA, their OWN DATA, MIND YOU!!!!— is pretty small.

Plus, you can probably increase your safety level if you go only to very careful and reputable sources.

Just thought I’d share my investigations so far.

-Greg

PS

Just to give some perspective, 16.5% of all broiler chickens tested by the FDA in 2006 contained salmonella bacteria. The cases of human salmonellosis in the us was 14,7 cases per 100,000 people in 2004. This is about 4200 people who have salmonella poisoning in the US per year. Since 16% of the poultry have confirmed salmonella bacteria in them, one might assume that a lot of those cases come from eating chicken. But we don’t hear a big uproar about that, do we? The USDA hasn’t banned people from eating chicken.

At first this seems like a lot of people. But then again, I bet 70-80% of Americans eaat chicken at least three times a week– so the percentage of likelihood of getting sick from salmonella for any PARTICULAR chicken meal is probably pretty low.