LOS ANGELES TIMES – Government scientists are warning consumers to stay away from raw milk, citing research showing “high viral load” of avian influenza in samples collected from infected cows — as well as a disturbing cluster of dead barn cats who’d consumed contaminated raw milk.
“We continue to strongly advise against the consumption of raw milk,” said Donald Prater, acting director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration.
But raw milk enthusiasts are doubling down on the claimed benefits and safety of their favorite elixir, and say the government warnings are nothing more than “fearmongering.”
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Mark McAfee, founder of Fresno’s Raw Farm and the Raw Milk Institute, said his phone has been ringing off the hook with “customers asking for H5N1 milk because they want immunity from it.” (Bird flu has not been detected in California’s dairy herds.)
“Deliberating consuming raw milk in the hope of becoming immune to avian influenza is playing Russian roulette with your health. Deliberately trying to infect yourself with a known pathogen flies in the face of all medical knowledge and common sense.” – Michael Payne, Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at UC Davis
Other raw milk drinkers, such as Peg Coleman, a medical microbiologist who runs Coleman Scientific Consulting, a Groton, N.Y.-based food safety consulting company, claimed the government’s warnings have no basis in reality.
Coleman, who is an advisor to the Raw Milk Institute, has provided expert testimony on the benefits of the unpasteurized dairy product in courtrooms across the nation.
“It’s a fear factor. It’s an opinion factor. It’s based on 19th century evidence. It’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said, citing research that shows healthy gut biomes and breast milk provide immune system benefits.
The process of heating milk to a specific temperature for a specific period of time and then allowing it to rapidly chill is named for the French chemist and germ theory pioneer Louis Pasteur …
Recently, the FDA reaffirmed the effectiveness of pasteurization in destroying Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) and other viruses, as well as harmful pathogenic bacteria and other microorganisms.
We Talked About This: Previous posts about raw milk dangers
Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
There’s never a good time to drink raw milk. But now’s a really bad time
