Today’s Quiz: How Many Raw-Milk and Pasteurized-Milk Listeria Illnesses in the Last 32 Years?
I saw a very clever movie this weekend, “The Illusionist”. That movie, together with comments on my previous posting—citing evidence suggesting that potential dangers from listeria monocytogenes may be overstated—got me thinking. Since last December, New York state has branded as dangerous five of its farms for selling raw milk contaminated with listeria monocytogenes,. Yet, curiously, no one has become ill.
So I decided to re-review the data Pete Kennedy of the Weston A. Price Foundation obtained recently from the Centers for Disease Control about outbreaks of foodborne illness from milk between 1973 and 2005 (which I discussed in a previous post, and I have now posted separately; sorry about the sideways statistical pages).
Want to guess the number of raw-milk illnesses from listeria monocytogenes? After you deduct the 36 illnesses from queso fresco, the Mexican cheese sprinkled on tortillas, it is zero. That’s right, no illnesses from actual raw milk between 1973 and 2005. The vast majority are from campylobacter, with salmonella and E.coli 0157:H7 as way-distant followons.
The number of pasteurized-milk illnesses from listeria monocytogenes? There were 69 cases in 1983 and 69 more in 1994 (from chocolate milk), for a total of 138. Not a serious problem in the entire scheme of things, but a great deal more serious a problem than for raw milk.
Remember, we are dealing here with government-supplied statistics, certified under penalty of perjury to be “true and correct.”
So here’s New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets shuttering and slandering small farms in the name of protecting citizens from…what? Nothing, as far as I can see. If they want to be searching out listeria monocytogenes, seems they’d have a better chance of protecting citizens by searching out problems in pasteurized milk.
If you haven’t seen “The Illusionist”, I highly recommend it, as a very entertaining illustration of the truism that what you see isn’t always what you think you’re seeing. I wonder if the New York agriculture authorities are taking a few lessons from it.
The Complete Patient
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Sincerely,
Don Neeper
Time to turn your investigative sights on the State of Georgia. Appears to be another state ’fabricated’ outbreak down there.
The pattern here is obvious…..
We must expose these liars for what they are.
According to the report, the average number of illnesses per outbreak is 21 for raw milk, compared to 425 for pasteurized milk. While some of that difference is attributable to a significantly higher modal range for pasteurized vs. unpasteurized milk products (spread pretty evenly across the report’s longitudinal span), most of it results from a single pasteurized-milk salmonella outbreak in 1985 that caused a whopping 16,659 illnesses. Needless to say, that sort of thing can only happen when processing is centralized. Any small-farm problems will necessarily have limited, local impact.
Lastly, we mustn’t ignore the CDC’s introductory letter caveat that “Food vehicles identified are not necessarily confirmed with statistical or epidemiological evidence.” Since there IS evidence that Departments of Health are prone to willy-nilly damning of raw milk, these statistics are likely more favorable to the raw milk cause than their quite favorable surface appearance.
On another topic, I just read where A NY farmer's insurance company wants to drop her because she makes raw milk cheese.
Also, what is the difference between raw milk and unpasteurized whole milk?
I think the Washington data are there--third from the last entry on the last page.
We have to assume raw milk and unpasteurized whole milk are the same.
David
From Pete's FOIA document, the numbers do look favorable, as far as cases of L. monocytogenes related to raw milk/dairy. L. monocytogenes is apparently not so benign though. According to the latest MMWR surveillance survey of foodborne-related outbreaks, L. monocytogenes caused more deaths than any other pathogen from 1998 - 2005, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5510a1.htm. Dairy wasn't implicated as a major vector for L. monocytogenes , but rather, deli meats. I'd venture to guess that the protective factors in raw milk would have something to do with that.
Not surprisingly, the FOIA document is not a full and accurate representation of cases related to dairy. Beginning in 2001, the web-based surveillance system, eFORS, was implemented. At first glance, the FOIA document doesn't include eFORS data for 2001 and 2002, but upon further inspection, the three years preceding use of eFORS don't add up either:
'98 - FOIA document - 136 cases, 6 outbreaks (MMWR - 492 cases, 18 outbreaks)
'99 - FOIA document - 4 cases, 2 outbreaks (MMWR - 199 cases, 15 outbreaks)
'00 - FOIA document - 181 cases, 12 outbreaks (MMWR - 300 cases, 22 outbreaks)
In addition, just for 2002, those inaccurate numbers don't reflect well on raw dairy, given the fact that of those 348 cases in the FOIA document, 180 were attributed to raw dairy, while 178 cases were attributed to pasteurized dairy. Unfortunately, given the disparate ratios between raw/pasteurized dairy consumers, 2002 is nothing to crow about on the safety front for raw dairy advocates but rather, could be used to demonstrate the 'success' of pasteurization. Nonetheless, raw dairy isn't even close to knocking out any of the top five offenders for foodborne illnesses, of which, we as consumers are still free to consume ... at least for now.