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?