But there’s a difference between grain and grass fed and homogenized and non. Unless you correct for those, who knows if they are tasting between pasteurized and non?
If the comparo had one being chocolate milk, you wouldnt think that’s legit, would you?
Is that right? How about listeriosis, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and brucellosis? Some of those are not just food borne illnesses.
To what extent do you want to rest a public health issue on assuming people will wash their hands properly? We are continuously passing cold and flu and similar viruses back and forth between each other when those are theoretically largely avoidable with hand washing.
If peanut allergies, shellfish allergies, and soy allergies had the effect of introducing things like typhoid and tuberculosis into the population and causing spontaneous abortion of fetuses, then maybe we would consider such a solution.
Indeed, we are starting to place some restrictions on peanut products in schools and on airplanes because of some of those reasons.
Whether or not we decide whether a problem is severe enough to require such restrictions, “fuck 'em, let 'em die because I want my X, Y, or Z” is not a position that should be respected in the decision-making process.
Listeria alone is a big deal. Where raw milk cheese is consumed today, listeria outbreaks happen all the time. Various bacterial infections that can be deadly, especially to children, also persist.
but it only affects those who choose to consume it. If I don’t want to get it, all I have to do is refrain from eating raw milk and raw milk products. It’s not a public health issue; it’s a personal choice. As long as they label the products clearly it’s fine by me if people want to risk their own health because it has no adverse impact on others.
The issue is that milk is a common ingredient, and many people don’t know or understand the difference between raw milk and pasteurized. People know not to serve others raw eggs or raw meat without warning them, but we already have a problem with people falling gravely ill due to raw milk products (right now, primarily artisan made raw milk cheeses). This WILL increase if raw milk becomes easier to obtain.
Note that your theory also doesn’t really help kids served raw milk by their parents.
I’m not convinced it needs to be completely illegal. But I am also terrified of accidentally being served raw milk and losing my baby. If there was some way to ensure it wouldn’t be served to others, I’d be fine. But with milk as ubiquitous an ingredient as it is, I can’t see how that’s work.
It can happen either way. If a cow is infected, the bacteria can be directly shed in the milk. Or it can be introduced by unsanitary handling, at any point between udder and final packaging.
The primary reservoirs of infection are in industrial feedlot operations, not the kind of smaller grass-fed dairies that typically offer raw milk.
Listeriosis is not commonly transmissible from human to human, with the notable exception of mother to infant. Basically, you have to ingest infected bodily fluids to get it.
And compelled true speech does not. Unpasteurized milk does, in fact, harbor living bacteria, and is, thus, accurately described as “infected”. There are of course other words one could use to describe it, some of which have more positive connotations, but the statement is still factually correct, and would more accurately convey to a poorly-educated public the actual risks.
Other food has issues - raw eggs (my recipe books all have me whisking raw eggs over hot water to kill the bacteria if I’m going to use them), oysters, raw meat. Even fruits and vegetables can become contaminated. But nothing has the combination of risk and use that milk does. i.e. not many people eat raw eggs or raw meat and fruit and vegetable contamination is pretty rare.
Not even a nice try. The question is not whether it’s technically true. The question is whether the statement, taken as a whole, is both factual and uncontroversial. See Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
If someone puts raw milk in a foodstuff and then cooks the food, it’s no longer raw. How hard can it be to avoid drinking raw milk? I don’t think anyone has ever offered me a glass of milk at any social function ever.
It really common to serve milk at social functions - if your social functions involve kids. Even with teenagers in the house, guests go through a lot of milk when there is an overnight.