The Complete Patient

Two comments posted to my most recent BusinessWeek.com column--by Molly McMullen and Chris Kowakowski--essentially raise the same question: what is the real story about the safety of raw milk? I must say I've read presentations on both sides of the question, and I've found myself wondering if the writers came from different planets. Each side cites studies and quotes statistics to argue either that raw milk is a terrible safety hazard, or the equivalent of a medical miracle.

My sense is that raw milk probably falls somewhere in between. It can carry dangerous bacteria and make people sick, but if cows are fed grass-based diets and milked under sanitary conditions, the risk goes way down. It's pretty much the same story with other agricultural products, although there's an important additional proviso: Raw milk produced by small local farms is likelier, in my judgment, to be safer than the same milk produced by mega-dairies. And it's pretty much the same story with other agricultural products as well. The outbreaks of E.coli poisoning from raw spinach and hamburger seem to originate with the mega farms, and not with small localized operations.

Anyway, I recommend two reports for individuals who want to educate themselves about the pros and cons of raw milk, and the disparity of opinions. For the pros, see a presentation made to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. It argues not only that the dangers of raw milk are wildly exaggerated by government health officials and bureaucrats alike, but that pasteurized milk is as dangerous or more dangerous than raw milk.

For the opponents of raw milk, the federal Food and Drug Administration has assembled a PowerPoint presentation that sketches out all the potential dangers from raw milk.

Each is pretty well done for what it is trying to do. But in the final analysis, we each have to make our own judgments, just as we need to do with so much of nutrition and medicine.