I suspect that people in every decade since the 1940s have said “we really shouldn’t have to talk about why raw milk is bad anymore, should we?” …but apparently we do still have to talk about it, and with certain high-profile characters in the US pushing raw milk, the topic isn’t going away anytime soon. So here we go again…

Pasteurization of milk was one of the biggest public health successes in history.  No matter how well animals are raised and how hygienically milk is collected, there’s some degree of risk of contamination with various pathogens. Pasteurization takes care of that risk for us, while maintaining the nutritional value of milk.

That should be all we need to say, but unfortunately it’s not enough. Raw (i.e. unpasteurized) milk continues to be promoted and sold (sometimes legally, sometimes not). Some people who consume raw milk know the risks and chose to drink it anyway. Many presumably don’t know the risks, or have been misled to assume there are no risks.

I could write posts for days about cases of raw milk associated illnesses and outbreaks, but I’ll spare you that. However, since money drives a lot of the raw milk industry and anything that impacts profits will get attention, I want to talk about a recent lawsuit from a Florida woman who is suing a dairy farm that produced raw milk she purchased, after she developed E. coli and Campylobacter infections and suffered a miscarriage. Her toddler also got seriously ill. She claims that she didn’t know about the risks of drinking raw milk.

Whose responsibility it this? Governments that allow the sale of raw milk? People who sell it? People that gloss over the risks and push it as a healthy choice? Consumers who should be expected to do some degree of due diligence?

Yes. All of them. There can be different ratios of responsibility (e.g. a consumer that was misled by false advertising vs someone who knows the risk but chooses to dismiss it), but everyone in that list has some role. That’s often a challenge with infectious diseases: no one can fix the problem alone, and many players are involved in preventing or causing disease. I’ve had lots of discussions with lawyers who get frustrated when I won’t paint a black and white picture of the lawsuit they’re planning or defending, but it’s the truth.

You could say that the consumer has a responsibility to understand what they’re purchasing and eating. The milk container label apparently indicated that it was only fit for animal, not human, consumption (more of a way to deflect liability than to warn people off, I assume). At the same time, you could say that it’s fair for a consumer to assume that someone who is legally selling a food product is selling a safe product.

The woman in this case apparently asked about the label warning, and according to a news article was told that it was just a technical requirement so sell “farm milk.” That definitely amps up the “someone’s really liable” meter.

Consider an analogy using a car accident: Should I sue a car manufacturer if I get into an accident that was an inherent risk of driving?

Is this akin to a a raw milk-associated infection? Or is it more akin to a manufacturer that sold a car despite knowing it had a correctable manufacturing defect that increased the risk of an accident? With raw milk, it’s probably more of the former, since raw milk that has been otherwise handled and produced appropriately may still be contaminated from the start.

What about the regulator? What if the government allowed a car on the road despite knowing it was unsafe and could be made safer using a practical method? I can make a stronger argument for responsibility here.

Ultimately, many people bear responsibility, and the lack of regulation against the sale of raw milk in some regions is a staggering deferral of responsibility by governments. Sale of raw milk is not legal in Canada but there’s a surprising number of US states that allow it. There’s absolutely no public harm or negative impact on food security, food production or farm income through mandating pasteurization, and one huge benefit (safer milk). So, apart from the overused “freedom” excuse, there’s little compelling reason to allow sale of raw milk. I’m not saying we need a nanny state and that freedom concerns are invalid, but it’s clear that many people (and animals) get sick from raw milk, many of whom don’t realize the risks that they are taking, and there’s an easy way to prevent all those infections.

Maybe this lawsuit will at least stop some of the blatant marketing misinformation that’s out there about raw milk, but there’s so much other misinformation circulating that it might not have much of an impact.