Drinking raw milk is not a good idea, according to a new report published Wednesday.
One in six people who drink raw milk in Minnesota over a 10-year period have become ill, according to the study published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases
Raw milk is milk that is unpasteurized, which involves heating the milk to kill germs and then cooled quickly. The study found 530 confirmed cases of infections, which includes salmonella, E. coli, Campylobacter and parasitic infections, cryptosporidiosis. Within a decade, 21 Minnesotans became ill with confirmed outbreaks.
Thirteen percent of the people who became ill had to be hospitalized; sixty percent of cases occurred in children and teens and 25 percent occurred in children 5 years old or younger, the report says.
The study reported that most of people who fell ill, were children, and an 11-month-old infant, who died after becoming infected with toxic E. coli O157. In 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics said raw milk should not be given to children.
The Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the study may have 20,000 more unreported cases. The study reported Minnesota residents drinking raw milk between 2001 and 2010.
Trisha Robinson, an epidemiologist at the Minnesota Department of Health, stated that raw milk is often linked to foodborne illness outbreak and that the number of cases presented by media sources is only a small piece of the "actual number of illnesses associated with raw milk."
"Outbreaks associated with raw milk occur frequently and receive a lot of media attention, but our study shows that sporadic cases of illnesses associated with raw milk consumption far outnumber cases associated with recognized outbreaks," Robinson said in an email. "We hope that our findings will help inform potential raw milk consumers when thinking about drinking raw milk or giving it to their children."
A previous study found raw milk 150 times more likely to cause outbreaks, than pasteurized milk. In Tennessee, nine children got sick and five were hospitalized, after drinking raw milk. Three children were hospitalized with severe kidney problems.
But advocates say raw milk is worth the risk. Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a raw milk advocacy group and founder of A Campaign for Real Milk, a program pushing for legal sales of raw milk on all 50 states, dismisses the new report.
"Just because a raw milk drinker gets an infection, does not mean it comes from raw milk," Morell said.
Public health experts, including Robinson believe that that "raw milk fans tend to minimize the health risks of not pasteurizing milk."
"Some raw milk advocates fail to acknowledge the elevated health risk associated with raw milk consumption and minimize the significance of reported outbreaks," Robinson said. "In doing so, these advocates convey a false sense of the safety of raw milk to those who are considering consuming this product, and this sense of safety discourages a balanced assessment of the potential risks and benefits involved."
A total of 148 outbreaks associated with the consumption of raw milk have been documented in the United States, including 2,384 illnesses, 284 hospitalizations and two deaths from 1998 to 2011, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In United Stated, only 30 state have permitted the sale of raw milk.
