Is the Controversy Surrounding Raw Milk Real or Manufactured?

One could spend hours researching websites, studies, and testimonials on raw milk without a sure answer. But one fact might start to make the picture clearer. Did you know that the California State Department falsified data on raw milk in the 80s? Apparently, pasteurized diary felt a significant threat from local farmers producing raw milk, and decided to corrupt the health department and EPA for their purposes. Who knew that the dairy industry could be so nefarious? But are they the only players? Given the overactive role of the FDA, CDC and media in slandering raw milk over the years, there may be other motives at play. 

A Google search brings up mostly either news articles with anti-raw milk bias, or studies that seem to have a similar bent. For anyone trying to do objective research, the apparent censorship and intentional flooding of the market with so much content from only one point of view, can make it a very difficult task, and a further sign they havn't given up trying to denigrate raw milk's benefits. To top it off, the “top hits” brought up are usually using the same rhetorical and alarmist language we would expect from a tabloid. We are subjected to various ploys to prompt public dismissal of anything counter to the official line on the issue, and it may at first seem like they are citing real data. However, what we're really getting is just statements without evidence or highly-skewed representations of data.

One of their ploys is seen consistently in the negative bias in studies against raw milk’s health benefits over pasteurized milk and synthetic formula. They bascially select only certain claims of raw milk advocates to falsify, ones that are most easily testable, such as how some nutrients like calcium are not destroyed in pasteurization, to show there is negligible nutrient difference. However, one of the arguments by raw food advocates is that the number of unknown phytonutrients and other compounds that are destroyed by heating is very large. The damage to cells is unmistakable from a microscopic perspective. So there are two things going on that need to be assessed. One, is the raw nutrient value before and after pasteurization, and the other is the extent of damage caused to the body having to process raw milk versus pasteurized.  For example, a review study in the Journal of Food Protection only looked at the levels of well-known heat-resistant vitamins after pasteurization, but nevertheless found that B12, Vitamin E, and B2, B1, and folate were significantly reduced.

Damage to Microorganisms and Immune Factors

Raw milk contains all of the same probiotic organisms that come in mother’s breast milk, including the L. Ruteri, and B. Bifidum strains, which are not found in pasteurized milk. Numerous studies show that infant microbiomes are highly dependent on the raw breast milk for their nutrition, and that formulas, even if organic and pure, and far inferior.

Why Did Dr. Hulda Clark Recommend Pasturization?

Dr. Clark did not speak much on the topic, but did recommend that while detoxing and removing parasites, that one should only drink pasteurized milk. The reason is that she wanted to eliminate the risk of toxic bacteria and parasites that were present in all milk, that could become pathogenic and could take advantage of the absence of competitors.  

Dr. Clark recommended making homemade yogurt and buttermilk for replenishing the probiotics lost through cleansing the GI tract. She wrote that: “Our dairy foods are polluted with Salmonella and Shigella bacteria. It is impossible to operate a dairy without getting some cow manure into the milk. Although udder wash contains antiseptic it does not kill all manure bacteria. Later, when milk is pasteurized, many heat sensitive bacteria are killed like the “friendly” streps and staphs, but not all the harmful Salmonellas and Shigellas. Some survive to colonize the milk, then later infect the consumer.” (p.104, Cure for All Diseases).

It seems that Dr. Clark was far more concerned with all milk being contaminated with bad bacteria, since pasteurization only kills the good bacteria, and leaves some of the most toxic remaining. Sterilization was her recomendation to avoid any contamination while cleansing. 

Recent Controversies

Besides the raids on small farmers for selling raw milk, the government has simultaneously falsified reporting on dangerous chemicals in the food supply from pesticides. The EPA was recently found to have falsely reported the amount of PFAS (forever chemicals) they detected in samples. A freedom of Information Request found that the EPA indeed detected PFAS in samples sent from a researcher, but then made a press report later that year saying they did not detect any PFAS in the pesticides. However, the researcher who sent the samples in fact purposely spiked the samples with PFOS in order to test the agencies analytical method. Science Policy Director at the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), said that the EPA is lying and that this behavior, “lulls the public into a false sense of security that these products are PFAS free” (3).

While federal agencies are busy preventing people from knowing the truth about PFAS in the food supply, they are actively trying to prevent people from consuming raw milk, despite the fact that it causes only a fraction of foodborne illnesses compared to other food products, such as produce like lettuce and spinach. In fact, the vast majority of the dairy products that caused disease were actually pasteurized. Also, there has been no single case of death attributed to raw milk since the 1980s (4). This is not what you would every hear from the CDC, however, which broadly and illegitimately claimed that raw milk is responsible for outbreaks of illness 150 times greater than that of pasteurized milk. However, the data they used is kept hidden, and the methods conflate the different between abolute and relative values. Using the same logic, one has 1 in 93,000 chances of being affected drinking raw milk, but 1 in 8,500 in getting in a fata car accident. According to research, the following food items have a less chance of illnesses than dairy:

• Seafood caused 29 times more illnesses than dairy
• Poultry caused 15 times more illnesses than dairy
• Eggs caused 13 times more illnesses than dairy
• Beef caused 11 times more illnesses than dairy
• Pork caused 8 times more illnesses than dairy
• Produce caused 4 times more illnesses than dairy

The CDC has been playing this game for a long time, and in previous reports, has inflated raw milk illnesses, such as in 2015 in Minnesota. One researcher notes that, “Using unusual epidemiological methodologies, along with curious mathematical modeling and extrapolations, a CDC-sponsored study reckoned there were more than 20,000 illnesses from raw milk in Minnesota, rather than the 21 that had been previously reported by public health authorities as attributable to raw milk” (5).

Why would the CDC mislead the public and outright lie about the dangers of raw milk?

One suspected reason is that raw milk actually prevents disease over a lifetime, while industrial dairy and pharmaceutical products like vaccines can produce disease over a lifetime. The newest disease threat being used to stoke fear about raw milk is the bird flu (H5N1). At the same time, fears about bird flu are prompting an increasing number of both conservatives and progressives are starting to consume and advocate for raw milk for its immune enhancing benefits.

What are the Immune Benefits of Raw Milk?

Several studies have shown that raw milk during childhood is associated with fewer allergies later in life, indicating an immune protective effect. Other studies have found anti-microbial properties that prevent pathogenic bacteria from growing in the milk, which is why many believe raw milk can be curdled naturally, without adding additional probiotics.

Besides probtioic organisms, which are capable of creating beneficial biofilms, nutrients and immune factors, Raw milk contains many components that are lost during pasteurization. For example, Vitamin B6 and Vitamin C are largely destroyed with heat. Another important compound in milk is beta-immunoglobulin, a protein that is heat-sensitive and needed for proper intestinal absorption of Vitamin A. Destroying this component of raw milk may be a key factor in the nutritional difference between raw and pasteurized milk.

Yet another important nutrient in raw milk is the high level of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which is much higher in raw milk than pasteurized, due to the fact that raw milk is from grass fed animals to a much larger extent. Therefore, raw milk also has far more omega-3s in a stable, non-oxidized form.

Conclusion

Raw milk has been part of the human diet for tens of thousands of years, and makes an incredibly healthy drink, as well as flavorful cheese, yogurt and kefir, which have additional benefits being supercharged with probiotics. However, various industries seem to have a vested interest against this basic food group, and as we've seen with raids on farmers for decades, fraud going back to the 1980s, and the current statistical misrepresentation of illnesses, multiple industries are colluding to make it harder to obtain raw milk. Countless times they have failed, however, and grassroots efforts from citizens, scientists, and advocates will continue to fight this misuse of the public's institutions and the coercision of health protection agencies to go against their own missions. 

Further reading:

The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid, ND

Resources

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362028X22128449
2. Asdf
3. https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/EPA-accused-misreporting-PFAS-data/102/i17
4. https://chriskresser.com/raw-milk-reality-is-raw-milk-dangerous/comment-page-3/
5. http://www.alternet.org/food/how-cdc-transformed-21-raw-milk-illnesses-20000