What You Should Know about Raw Milk Safety

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At Heart and Soil, the H&S Crew discuss the safety of raw milk, writing:

PLEASE NOTE: The information in this blog is for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Consult your healthcare provider if you’re seeking medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment. 

Is Raw Milk Safe? 

Pasteurization became commonplace in the early 1900s in the United States after milk was linked to outbreaks such as tuberculosis (21). By 1900, an estimated 10% of human tuberculosis infections came from milk consumption, and in 1910, a tuberculosis epidemic impacted over 300,000 cattle in Illinois (22). But there’s a reason…

These outbreaks were often due to cows being raised in unnatural city environments, without pasture, in filthy conditions, and on poor diets (23). Cows were even fed byproducts from alcohol distilleries.

Many government agencies now ban raw milk due to prior outbreaks of pathogens such as salmonella, listeria, tuberculosis, and E. Coli (24). The CDC in the US and Health Canada advise that women, children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems may be at risk of serious illness from raw milk consumption (25).

Dairy can be contaminated by the passage of cow blood into the milk, fecal contamination, contact with insects, contamination from human skin, or udder infection (26).

Current outbreaks from raw milk are often connected to dairy farms that haven’t received proper training on hygienic milking or hazard reduction (27). Outbreaks connected to raw milk consumption are also subject to detection bias as it’s easier to trace issues back to a niche community with fewer consumers (28).

At this point, you may be asking, how many people actually get sick from raw milk consumption? The exact number is unclear, but here’s what we do know.

A review of dairy-associated outbreaks from 1993-2006 discovered 1,571 cases, 202 hospitalizations, and 2 deaths from unpasteurized products (29).

Another study reported these statistics on pasteurized and unpasteurized dairy outbreaks from 2005-2016 (30):

Despite increased distribution, outbreaks connected to raw milk have been declining since 2010, and the outbreak rate since 2005 has decreased by 74% (31).

Producers across the globe have demonstrated that raw milk can be produced safely (32).

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