Page 90 - Summer2015

More MORE ILLNESSES FROM Compared to many foods whose legality

recent data PASTEURIZED MILK goes unquestioned, even the FDA, USDA, and
We conducted our own analysis of illnesses CDC estimate that raw milk is extremely safe.

suggest that attributable to raw and pasteurized milk over the For example, a joint analysis produced by these
as many as 3 years 1980 to 2005. These data indicated that agencies concluded that the risk of listeria, on
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to 4 percent there were almost eleven times more illnesses a per-serving basis, is about ten times higher
attributed to pasteurized milk than to raw milk. in deli meats and hot dogs than in raw milk. It
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of Americans Using the estimate that 1 percent of milk is con- makes no sense for these agencies to single out
consume raw sumed raw, we calculated that, on a per serving raw milk when they themselves estimate it as so
milk, and basis, raw milk is less than twice as danger- much safer than far more commonly consumed
ous as pasteurized milk. Yet we can have little foods, and it is a distortion of perspective to sup-
using these confidence in the claim that 1 percent of milk is port such an argument by comparing raw milk

data instead consumed raw. Even the Langer and Johns Hop- exclusively to pasteurized milk, regardless of the
of the kins papers treat these figures as guesstimates. quality of data used to do so.
More recent data suggest that as many as 3 to 4
1 percent percent of Americans consume raw milk, and BIAS IN THE DATA
figure would using these data instead of the 1 percent figure The third principal flaw is that far too much

make would make pasteurized milk appear up to twice confidence is used in the attributions of illness
to raw milk given the intrinsic difficulties of
as dangerous as raw milk on a per-serving basis.
pasteurized It may be the case that only 1 percent of interpreting the data. The authors of the Johns
milk appear Americans drank raw milk in the 1990s and that Hopkins study do acknowledge these difficulties
up to twice as consumption has risen dramatically since then. when they write, “nothing short of a clinical trial
For example, in 1998, there were forty sources of could remove all the potential confounding that
dangerous as raw milk listed at realmilk.com, and today there underscores any outbreak review,” but this note
raw milk on a are more than 2000. Since we promote pasture of caution never tempers their final conclusions.
per-serving feeding, clean milking, storage, and distribution As such, the media are likely to magnify the
practices, and careful attention to quality, we overconfident conclusions rather than the pitfalls
basis. believe our campaign has made raw milk not of reading too much into such low-quality data.

only more available, but also safer and healthier Outbreak reports are observational in nature.
than it would be without this attention to quality. Observational studies are considered useful for
Food frequency questionnaires are notoriously examining whether things statistically correlate
unreliable, so it is not at all clear that data on with one another, but not necessarily for examin-
raw milk usage are accurate. When combined ing whether one thing causes another. Clinical
with clear reasons to believe that raw milk usage trials, by contrast, are designed to develop solid
and raw milk quality have been changing over evidence of cause-and-effect relationships.
time, little confidence should be placed in these Among observational studies, outbreak re-
calculations of per-serving risk. ports are subject to a particularly high potential
for bias. They do not examine whether a random
RAW MILK VERSUS OTHER FOODS sample of people who drink raw milk are more
The second principal flaw is the question or less likely to get sick over time than a random
being asked. If the Johns Hopkins paper is meant sample of people who drink pasteurized milk.
to inform a decision of whether to liberalize Instead, people who get sick report their sick-
raw milk laws, the appropriate question is not nesses themselves and public health officials look
whether raw milk is more dangerous or safer than for any link they can find. Raw milk has been
pasteurized milk. Rather, the question is how the heavily politicized and demonized for decades as
safety of raw milk compares to other foods whose a source of foodborne illness, so biases toward
legality we take for granted and whether there finding links with raw milk are strong.
is anything uniquely unsafe about it that should We analyzed seventy studies that attributed
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outweigh the right of the consumer to purchase outbreaks to raw milk and found that 96 percent
and use it. of them lacked either a statistical correlation
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