Recently Robert F. Kennedy Jr. soon to be U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, said he is an advocate of raw milk and consumes it regularly. However, although the sale of unpasteurized milk is legal in 30 states, the FDA deems its consumption as unsafe for health. Pasteurization is a process known for its effectiveness in killing harmful bacteria and organisms by heating milk to a specific temperature used in many countries and in the United States since the early 20th century. However, several proponents of unpasteurized milk claim on social media that milk that has not undergone this process is much healthier, nutritious, rich in probiotics and can help improve the digestion process, keeping skin glowing, balancing hormones and repairing muscles. As the Post reports, raw milk sales increased up to 65 percent in the United States earlier this year.
However, infectious disease experts such as Uzma Syed, a certified specialist and member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, point out that consuming milk that has not undergone the pasteurization process exposes people to serious health problems, including vomiting, diarrhea and even death. In a 2023 study published in National Library of Medicine, 4.4 percent of Americans reported drinking raw milk in the past year, while 1 percent reported drinking it weekly.
Syed explains that unpasteurized milk can harbor bacteria that cause common foodborne illnesses such as salmonella, listeria, campylobacter and E.coli. “There are many risks in consuming raw milk. Pasteurization has allowed safe consumption of milk for decades. The risk of getting sick from disease-causing bacteria in raw milk is ‘very high,'” she says. Probiotics may be added. “There are no probiotics present in raw milk unless there is fecal contamination of the milk, and there are no additional enzymes in raw milk that help digestion or immune response,” the expert stressed.
Syed also mentioned that given the presence of avian flu virus found in dairy cows, the CDC has warned that it may be possible to contract the disease by drinking unpasteurized milk.
