What do all of the people who are making such a big deal over raw milk think about people eating oysters? Raw oyster consumption is far riskier than raw milk consumption with dozens of times as many fatalities.
I don’t have anything more than a high school biochemistry education, so perhaps you can explain to me in simple terms why you “don’t care about test-tube chemistry?”
It seems to me, uneducated little ol’ me, that if the test tubes show the presence of diseases in raw milk and not the same presence in pasteurized milk, that is extremely significant. Why does it rate a “don’t care” from you? Why are live subjects’ responses so critical?
Oh, crud.
Does it help if I douse the raw oyster in vodka, tobasco, and lemon juice??
Check the numbers. Millions of children drink milk every single day. And most adults consume some kind of dairy product nearly every day.
Oysters are not consumed by nearly as many people. Nor are children given oysters to eat everyday at school. Nor are they part of an average daily diet.
Because Pottenger used live animals in 1946. And nothing has changed in science since then.
You check the numbers. Every year approximately 15 people die from eating raw oysters, but there hasn’t been a single death from drinking raw liquid milk in decades (I’m excluding the deaths from Mexican “bathtub” cheese made with raw milk). Oysters and bean sprouts are far more dangerous.
Yes, but that’s the point. Millions of people aren’t eating oysters every day of their lives. Millions of people aren’t drinking raw milk, either, but they are drinking milk of some sort everyday.
We balance the need to regulate with preserving freedoms.
Mountain climbing is more dangerous than driving a car. But there aren’t that many mountain climbers, and mountain climbing accidents have a small impact on society. Most American families have a car and drive nearly every day. Car accidents have a major effect on society to the point we require drivers have some form of insurance.
The idea that we should be more worried about oysters than raw milk is claiming we should be more concerned about uninsured mountain climbers than uninsured drivers.
This tu quoque argument doesn’t hold water.
In addition to milk being a staple food (particularly for children), potential dangers of raw oysters and sprouts have been publicized without their producers and consumers engaging in mass denialism. Nor are those products typically associated with bogus nutritional claims.
No recent deaths from drinking raw milk, just from raw milk products? I guess numerous outbreaks of severe illness, unnecessary hospitalizations and renal failure are a mere trifle.
That article actually shows that there were more illnesses and deaths from pasteurized dairy products than from raw dairy products. Maybe you should start ranting about the risks of pasteurized milk as well?
Yes. As a matter of fact, they are a mere trifle.
As noted in a previous post: less than 1% of dairy products consumed in the U.S. are made with raw milk.
That signifies a huge disprortionate risk entailed by drinking/eating raw milk products.
To make it even simpler for you: if the risk of pasteurized milk was equivalent to the risk of raw milk, then based on consumption statistics the incidence of disease due to pasteurized milk should be greater than 99 times the incidence of raw milk-induced disease. Instead, the ratio is close to 1:1 (and the number of disease outbreaks due to raw milk is more than 4 times the number of outbreaks due to pasteurized milk).
Now think of potential disease incidence if raw milk enthusiasts carry the day and the stuff greatly increases in popularity.
Then you can talk to us about “trifles”.
My point is that the risks associated with consuming either product is miniscule. Unpasteurized dairy is certainly riskier than pasteurized dairy, but neither is especially dangerous.
If we moved to a 50/50 split on raw and pasteurized milk and the rates of incidence stayed the same (and the 1% current raw market is accurate), then the updated summary table from that article would be:
Now, I’m sure that if raw milk were more openly allowed that the rate of illness would drop as it was increasingly provided by more reputable sourcing.
But it is going to have to drop an awful lot.
Not sure that exact protocol would be a very good test. You understand that for nearly all adult mammals, except the mutant one-fourth (or so) of the current human population, milk – either raw or pasteurized-- is mildly toxic?
The ‘natural’ state of affairs for adult mammals is to not drink any kind of milk at all.
I have already made the point that the risk of illness from consuming raw milk is relatively low, but that it far exceeds the risk of consuming pasteurized milk. One should wonder whether it’s a good idea to pursue a risky activity that has no demonstrable health benefit when there are much safer alternatives.
Another example is “neck cracking” performed by many chiropractors. Benefits of this procedure are highly questionable, but in a small proportion of cases strokes and even death have resulted from damage to neck arteries. Even if the risk is 1 in thousands of procedures, does it make sense to take the chance of devastating injury for extremely doubtful benefit?
At the risk of a slight hijack: The striking thing to me about obfusciatrist’s table is how risky Mexican-style queso fresco is, especially but not only when made with raw milk. I understand it’s also not recommended for pregnant women.
Drinking milk as a non-lactase producing adult may - not must - result in varying intensity symptoms of bloating, gas, flatulence, and diarrhea. None of these should ever be described as toxic.
The ‘natural’ state of affairs for adult mammals is to not eat cooked food at all. This is also true and also meaningless in terms of human behavior.