Both the Federal Food and Drug Administration and the Center for Disease Control agree: drinking raw milk is dangerous. “Before the invention and acceptance of pasteurization,” the CDC reports:
raw milk was a common source of the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, diphtheria, severe streptococcal infections, typhoid fever, and other foodborne illnesses.
Montana’s House of Representatives disagrees, or perhaps just doesn’t give a damn. Yesterday on the second reading of HB-574, Rep. Champ Edmunds’ (R-Missoula) bill to all dairy farmers with “small” herds to sell raw milk directly to consumers, it approved the measure 98-2. Only Republicans Christy Clark (Choteau) and David “Doc” Moore (Missoula) had the good sense to oppose it.
Today, HB-574 was whooped over to the Senate 96-3 on the third reading in a lip-smacking rollick of shameful disregard for public health and food safety. Only Rep. Rob Cook (R-Conrad), Clark, and Moore voted against the bill. Bozeman Democrat Franke Wilmer, who voted "Aye" on the second reading, was excused.
To the detriment of sound public policy, whether to sell raw milk in Montana has been framed not as issue of protecting public health, but as an issue of personal liberty in which safety based restrictions on the production and sale of food are considered totalitarian chains on individual freedom. As Bitterroot dairy farmer Jennifer Holmes put it to the Missoulian:
“We are fighting for the right to have whatever in our fridge that we want in our fridge.”
The state passed laws in 1998 requiring all commercial dairies to pasteurize their milk, meaning small-scale producers like Lifeline had to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of processing equipment. Still, Holmes said her efforts aren’t about making more money.
“It’s more of a personal belief that people should have the right to choose what food they want to eat or drink,” she said. “Yes, we would be able to make more money on our milk, because processing is three-quarters of the cost. But the fact that we’ve been legislating what people can drink for years is wrong to me.”
Holmes believes that raw milk is better for both the mind and body.
“Raw milk is better for brain development,” she said. “The pasteurization process kills off a lot of the beneficial bacteria which I think leads to lactose intolerance and digestive problems. Every time you turn around there is some new product for digestive disorders. It’s all tied to the highly processed foods we eat. We should have the choice to get food in a more basic form. Most of our past Presidents were raised on raw milk. Everyone who signed the Constitution was probably raised on raw milk. Everybody talks about what awesome minds they had. It’s directly related – you are what you eat.”
Holmes believes that raw milk is safe to drink and that pasteurization was required by the state because large processors stand to gain from it.
The FDA disagrees, emphatically, that raw milk is safe:
Jeff Lewis, a member of the board of the Montana Department of Livestock, reported the Missoulian in an excellent story, believes selling raw milk is an unsafe practice:
“This whole raw milk thing, there is people getting sick all the time,” he said. “There was a bunch of people that got sick in Alaska recently. The people that advocate this forget to tell people about that. I drink my own raw milk. I don’t sell it, because it’s too much of a risk for me. The people that would sell raw milk would have a huge liability. My milk is cold instantly when it leaves that cow. If you set that milk in a fridge in a bucket, the bacteria will go through the roof in 15 minutes. If it’s above 50 degrees, the bacteria is doubling every minute. If that milk is not cold immediately, you will have bacteria. Every single drop of my milk is tested every single time. Those are the things that people just don’t quite understand. There are so many links in the chain and if one thing is mishandled, you are going to get sick people.”
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Steve Merritt, the public information officer for the Montana Department of Livestock, said that raw milk accounts for less than 1 percent of total milk sold in the U.S. but is responsible for 30 percent of dairy-related illnesses.
“There are a whole bunch of agencies, like the FDA, the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, that advocate not drinking raw milk,” Merritt said. “Raw milk is the most common culprit for zoonotic diseases (infectious diseases that are spread from animals to humans) in the world. Countries that don’t have pasteurization have a lot of problems with brucellosis and other diseases.”
Lewis was referring to a February outbreak of campybolacter that sickened at least 24, and hospitalized at least two, Alaskans who drank raw milk from a Kenai peninsula dairy. Selling raw milk is legal in Alaska, but discouraged by public health officials:
Dr. Brian Yablon, an epidemiologist with the State of Alaska, said that, with raw milk, infections like this are virtually unavoidable.
“The bottom line for any operation that is providing raw milk,” Yablon said, “[is] there’s no way to make a sterile product… and that’s why, from a public health perspective, we encourage people if they’re going to drink milk, to just drink pasteurized milk.”
Backers of the nationwide raw milk movement have claimed that unpasteurized, unhomogenized raw milk — from appropriately clean farms — can provide a range of health benefits. But Yablon said the realities of milk production make raw milk inherently risky.
“No matter how safe the process is thought to be, there is always potential for contamination,” he said. “You have the absolute best of intentions, and the best of practices, but just the way the cow’s anatomy is, the udder being so close to where the cow is excreting, the fact that the tail can flick things around, there are many different steps along the way where contamination and be introduced.”
Both raw milk supporters and opponents testified at the House’s hearing on HB-574, but it’s clear from the outcomes in the committee and on the second and third readings that food freedom advocates won the hearts and minds of the legislators. I find that incredible. The science on the subject is beyond dispute — pasteurization prevents illness and saves lives — but inexplicably 96 legislators chose to ignore that science.
They also chose to ignore the Montana Department of Livestock’s opposition to HB-574:
The Montana Department of Livestock has come out publicly against H.B. 574. Executive Officer for the department, Christian MacKay said that if people want to drink raw milk, they can do so now as long as they harvest the milk from their own animals, but that raw milk should not be sold.
H.B.574 would allow farms with fifteen cows or less to sell milk directly to consumers, but MacKay believes this would put Montanan’s at significant risk to pathogens. “Fifteen cows can produce roughly 80 gallons of milk a day and that could expose 80 to 100 families per day. That’s a much bigger exposure than someone simply consuming their own product.” KGVO TV news.
Ultimately, those 96 legislators chose to abdicate their responsibilities to the people who elected them, and to ignore Section 3 of Article II of Montana’s constitution:
INALIENABLE RIGHTS. All persons are born free and have certain inalienable rights. They include the right to a clean and healthful environment and the rights of pursuing life’s basic necessities, enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and seeking their safety, health and happiness in all lawful ways. In enjoying these rights, all persons recognize corresponding responsibilities.
Safety and health are not protected when raw milk is sold. When 96 Montana legislators voted for HB-574, they violated their oath of office as set forth in Section 3 of Article III of Montana’s constitution:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, protect and defend the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Montana, and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity (so help me God).
Let us hope that the Montana Senate will discharge its duties more responsibly and toss HB-574 on the legislative manure pile, where it belongs.