Unpasteurized milk, touted as the ultimate health food by some, is 150 times more likely to cause food-borne illness outbreaks than pasteurized milk, and such outbreaks had a hospitalization rate 13 times higher than those involving pasteurized dairy products, a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds.
By Markell DeLoatch, AP
Raw milk is bottled at a dairy in Pennsylvania that was identified as the source of a campylobacter outbreak.
The survey found 121 outbreaks linked to dairy products in which it was known whether the milk was pasteurized or unpasteurized (also called "raw"). Of those, 60% were caused by raw milk and 39% by pasteurized milk.
"When you consider that no more than 1% of the milk consumed in the United States is raw, it's pretty startling to see that more of the outbreaks were caused by raw milk than pasteurized," says Barbara Mahon, senior author on the paper and deputy director of enteric diseases at CDC.
The 13-year review, published in this month's edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, is one of the largest done to date. It also found that states where the sale of raw milk is legal have twice as many outbreaks as states where it is illegal.
Pennsylvania is in the midst of a campylobacter outbreak linked to raw milk from a dairy in Chambersburg, Pa., that had sickened 77 people as of Tuesday. Of the cases, 67 are in Pennsylvania, five in Maryland, two in New Jersey and three in West Virginia, says Thomas Hostetterwith the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Raw milk proponents say they believe it can cure a host of illnesses and protects against disease. They are engaged in an ongoing struggle with state public health agencies, many of which are concerned about increasing illnesses.
People who got sick from outbreaks tied to raw milk were also younger than those sickened in outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk. About 60% were younger than 20, whereas in pasteurized milk outbreaks, 23% were younger than 20. "It's just tragic when, for example, a parent gives a child raw milk because they're trying to do something for them and they end up making them sick," Mahon says.
The rate of outbreaks involving unpasteurized dairy products was higher in states that allow the sale of raw milk and dairy products. These included fluid milk and cheeses made from unpasteurized milk that were aged less than 60 days. In cheeses aged more than 60 days the aging process kills off bacteria, Mahon says.
Pasteurization is the process of heating milk to kill microorganisms. Typically milk is held at 161 degrees for 15 seconds, a process called flash pasteurization. Under federal law, products made from unpasteurized milk may not be sold or traded across state borders. Thirty states allow the sale of such products within their state, and 10 allow people who buy "shares" in a cow to legally get the unpasteurized milk from those cows, says Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation.
A nutrition activist organization, the foundation fights for the legal sale of unpasteurized milk and a ban on soy-based formulas for infants, based on the theories of Weston Price, a 20th century Cleveland dentist. It is a major supporter of raw milk consumption. The Foundation believes that pasteurizing milk destroys vitamins and damages health-giving enzymes in milk.
Fallon believes that more Americans than just 1% consume raw dairy products, citing a 2007 survey "that showed that 3% of the population had consumed raw milk within the last seven days." She also says that the CDC study did not break down illnesses due to fluid raw milk and soft cheeses such as queso fresco "which is often made illegally."
The Price website is host to many testimonials by raw milk drinkers that unpasteurized dairy products have reversed "allergies, asthma and behavior problems in children; and digestive disorders, arthritis, osteoporosis and even cancer in adults."
Mahon disagrees. "It is very clear that raw milk is a risk to human health. I know that there are people who believe that it has health giving or curative properties, but I have never seen any studies that support that, and it's widely discredited in the public health community," Mahon says.