Wellness Craze: The Cult of Raw Milk and Its Dangers

A recent news item about a salmonella outbreak in 2023 that sickened WELL OVER ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE who drank "raw milk" reminded me of this wellness craze that's completely unscientific. To summarize, "Raw Farm" of Fresno California was definitively traced as a source of the salmonella outbreak that had sickened at least 165 as of February 2024, based on reports recently released to the public. The actual outbreaks happened in late 2023. 

"Raw milk" advocates make a wide variety of claims such as "more nutritious", "help with _____". However, they have NO SCIENTIFIC DATA, just unverifiable anecdotes, to back up any of those claims, only naturalistic fallacy: it's "natural" thus it must be good. Mark McAfree, CEO and founder of Organic Pastures, a raw milk producer in California, was quoted by bon appetit stating, "Raw milk is like breast milk: non-allergenic, full of good bacteria, the ultimate immune-booster..."  He claims that "thousands" of his customers have told him that they and their kids feel better, have less symptoms of _____, yet there are really no scientific studies recently on these so-called benefits, much less verified benefits. 

Even the so-called "Raw Milk Institute" can only cite a few papers sourced from Europe to justify their position, and those papers only indicate that the children studied that consumed raw milk seems to have reduced infections. Most of their updates are guidance on how to clean equipment to reduce contamination. 

If you study those research papers from Europe in detail, you'll notice a couple things: 

• They're only testing RURAL babies and toddlers, who are LESS likely to catch common childhood illnesses since they don't congregate, and this was only 1st year of life. They are NOT URBAN babies and toddlers consuming raw milk. 
• They are relying on weekly "health journals" (i.e. self-reporting)
• One criteria of healthier is lower levels of C-reactive Protein (CRP), but do we really know how much the CRP varies in babies and toddlers? 
• Nice of them to test 4 milk variations: raw milk, boiled milk, pasteurized milk, and ultra-heat-treated milk. 
• Their conclusion was mostly drawn comparing raw milk to UHT milk, NOT pasteurized milk. 
• Even they agree that "health hazards of raw milk" prevents widespread consumption
• The study was from 2014.  

These research papers basically ignored the health hazard of raw milk consumption, because that was NOT what they were studying. They were NOT trying to weigh the risks vs benefits. They ONLY said that there seem to be some benefits based on the data they collected. 

Even if we take their study at full value... 30% less infections in 1st year of life.  Out of 37306 person weeks reported, only 602 have CRP value and at least one "occurence", which I assume to be infection of some sort (RTI, rhinitis, etc.) That's 1.6%. Reduce that by 30%, and you're looking at 1.1%. 

I guess the question here is, are you willing to risk your baby's death for 30% fewer infections?  

Twitter COVIDiocy: Spamming is not Winning

A while back, someone made a remark "I don't know of anyone with vaccine injury" on Twitter.

I replied that "ever notice it's usually antivaxxer's friends or family that have those alleged vaccine injuries?"

Then an antivaxxer dropped a Snopes-verified bogus entry "Pfizer victim" and claim "people don't start antivax, we start because we saw our loved ones suffer"

You saw a BOGUS suffering that NO ONE can verify, eh? 

So I pointed out his bogosity and linked to Snopes debunking the one he linked. 

Guess what he did next? 

He spammed 20+ more other alleged vaccine injuries, while claiming "only fully vaxxed have problems". 

Edit: Make that 37. 

The only treatment you'll get is "mute". I'm not going to debate you and waste my time when you don't give a **** about evidence and science, by leading off with a bogus vaccine death. 

Leading off with a snopes-verified bogus entry. Really smart you are (not), antivaxxer. 

Oh, AND you're getting reported. 

WTF? Youtube removed harp video (with a distortion pedal) due to... "child endangerment"?!?!?! UPDATE: RESTORED! And idea about a better moderation system

 First, I suck at instruments. So much kudos to anyone who can play a harp. And Emily Hopkins briefly owned the YT one day by attaching a distortion pedal (that's something usually used with electric guitars) to a harp's output. It was... interesting. 

Then came news that some griefer had apparently flagged her video for "child endangerment"?!?!?! And YT took it down briefly (video response). It has since been restored. 

Frankly, Youtube's enforcement of its terms is just outright WEIRD and inconsistent, and too easily "gamed" by griefers or people with agendas wanting to silence the opposition. Want to call out people who are scamming other people? Get flagged for "hate speech" or "harassment". 

And it's also been flooded by mememakers who publish outright crap (such as videos featuring recipes that are impossible to do in life) just so it looks good enough to be shared. It's the equivalent of urban legends that it spawned a new category: debunking videos explaining why some videos are crap and bogus. 

Then there are the reaction videos where people post reactions of themselves watching certain videos. This is basically YT version of "selfies", which are so... last century. 

Youtube's confusing policies had lead to various alternative platforms such as Twitch and Vimeo and in some way, OnlyFans. Twitch has its own problems such as "hot tub" streams and later... "ear lick streams", when it's supposed to be for gamers. and OnlyFans... Basically known as an adult site without the word "porn" in the title. 

Can something be done? Maybe. Hear me out...

Introducing: reputation points. For every X minutes of videos you watch, rate, or otherwise engage with the content (subject to filters to stop abuse / robots) you get reputation points. An account sitting idle does NOT get such points. 

If you want to make a complaint, you are asked if you want to reinforce the complaint with your reputation points. Basically, you are putting your own reputation at risk to prove you are SERIOUS about that complaint. It can still be anonymous. I would set the minimum to make a complaint to be at least a typical "week's worth" of points. The points are taken from your account. 

The complaint then goes to the review team, who probably will take the ones with reputation points attached more seriously or more expeditiously. At least, that's the idea. 

If the complaint was validated, you get your points back, plus maybe a small bonus (10%?) to reward you for helping the community. 

If the complaint was dismissed, nothing else happens. 

If you consistently make the right complaints (i.e. your complaint was validated by mod team) many times you may be invited to sort through the mod queue and offer some suggestions as a "sorter", like "please prioritize this" or "this is bogus" (thumbs up or down). Obviously your votes will be taken in aggregate with other "sorters". This will help the mod team prioritize the review queue. Not sure how YT can reward you for it, or this will just be a volunteer position. This will last one month or one week, depending on how YT wants to run it.  

If your thumbs up/down agrees with most of the team you may be asked to come back. 

So what does reputation do for the rest of YT? Good question.