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?  

Data COVIDiocy: No, Ivermectin Did NOT Save Uttar Pradesh (India) from COVID-19

Gideon MK, an actual epidemiologist, has written an article on medium on how antivaxxers and IVM pimps such as the FLCCC, desperate to find any evidence to support their use of Ivermectin (IVM) instead of vaccines, had created a myth out of almost nothing. The article is not too long, but in case you need a TL;DR, here's a very quick summary. 

A) FLCCC made a claim that when IVM was included in the treatment protocol in Uttar Pradesh, both case numbers and deaths dropped like a rock. They even made a graph to show it. 

(Those of you who read this blog may notice this is a VERY similar claim used in the "Japan COVID cases fall after Tokyo Medical Association calls for IVM use". )

But what exactly is this "IVM included in treatment protocol"? Turns out, Uttar Pradesh did NOT include IVM in its treatment protocols until AUGUST. Since the "included in treatment" shading started in April, this can't possibly be referring to the official treatment protocol. 

Turns out, there were two separate "test, trace, and treat" efforts by WHO in Uttar Pradesh, Basically, workers went door to door offering tests for COVID, one for adults, and one for kids. If they test positive, they were told to self-isolate and were handed a medical kit. The one for children contained IVM. We don't know what's in the adult version. Based on the test numbers, even if one assumes that EVERYBODY who was tested was handed a kit containing IVM (positive or not, child or not), there are at best 5 million kits containing IVM handed out. Keep in mind that Uttar Pradesh has a population of well in excess of 200 million. Even if we take a conservative number, like 225 million (it could be as high as 250 million), 5 million kits of IVM is enough for just over 2% of the population. It could NOT have caused the sharp drop in both cases and deaths. 

Keep in mind that during most of May 2021, India's vaccination rate is BELOW 10% for even just ONE dose, much less both shots (it's like 3%). Testing efforts can't be much better. 

So the drop in COVID cases and deaths are far more likely result of the lockdown (which started in April 2021) and lack of testing than from IVM treatments. 

What's even more interesting to note is Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) COVID 19 National Task Force OFFICIALLY dropped both IVM and HQL in September 2021 in its treatment guidelines. 

If you read the comments, the IVM pimps went for "pharma shill gambit", i.e. "are you paid by Merck to write this?" While others call out what they see as "bias". 

Frankly, that's just barking up the wrong tree. 

Don't be a COVIDiot like these IVM pimps who sees IVM benefit when there was none. 

AntiScience COVIDiocy: How to Pretend to Care About Science While Spewing Anti-Science Misinformation

One of the ways antivaxxers catch the attention of sheeple is pretending to care, and one of the ways they pretend to care is by portraying their antivax attitude as "concerns about vaccine safety". Indeed, if you ask RFK jr, he would say he's not antivax, he's pro vax safety. 

And one of the most frequent sources antivaxxers like to cite is VAERS, or Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. They love to "dumpster dive" into VAERS data and claim VAERS numbers are proof that vaccine caused injuries or even deaths, even though VAERS itself CLEARLY states that VAERS does NOT establish "cause-and-effect" relationship between the vaccine and the reported adverse event. 

Here's an example of an adverse event reported to VAERS. Patient had Pfizer COVID shot on Jan 9, 2021. Patient had a single car accident on Jan 23rd, 2021. She spun out into a snowbank. She was transported to ER, treated, and released. She was found unresponsive on Feb 1, 2021 and pronounced dead. An autopsy revealed she had a brain bleed. 

Yes, that's a genuine VAERS entry, 1004811-1, of which a screenshot is included below. I can't link it because VAERS doesn't allow direct linking. You will have to zoom in the see the details. 

The death and the vaccination are clearly unrelated, but as per proper procedure, it's included in VAERS, and the report was submitted on Feb 5th, 2021. In fact, CDC instructions to health care providers were to include the data in VAERS, "regardless if the reporter thinks the vaccine caused the AE (adverse event)". The reason is simple: CDC needs a way to know if there's a side effect they never considered or expected, and the only way to know is to report EVERYTHING, so the data can be mined later for commonalities. 

So if you search for "COVID vaccine" and "death", you would probably end up counting this one, and probably dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands like it, where if you look at the details, there's just no way they could be linked. 

Not that it stopped antivaxxers and pundits like Tucker Carlson from claiming "vaccines killed thousands" when the data they cited does NOT indicate such a thing, and organizations across the country had to put out FAQs debunking such fearmongering. 

When confronted, most antivaxxers will reply with "but I just want a safe vaccine" or variations thereof, often with emphasis "but even one adverse event is one too many". 

Some antivaxxers will then trot out the "COVID isn't that dangerous" trope, esp. with the "children tend to have milder symptoms" bit. 

So you remind them "so you are comparing a KNOWN risk of COVID such as death, long COVID, and MIS-C, vs a POTENTIAL unknown risk of vaccine adverse reaction that has so far not been observed?"

Some may be smart enough to admit defeat, but some will segue into VAERS dumpster diving. 

That's when you remind them that they're processing garbage data and drawing bogus conclusions, as we had discussed above. 

And what's when they block you because they can't beat you with the truth.