Originally Posted by
Leo M
There could be sources of these microbes rather than raw milk. If they could be proved to be useful, it would be safer to eat food inoculated with pure cultures of them, which is easy to do. But there would not be enough money in it to justify the research, so it won't be done.
Before pasteurization many people died of milk-borne diseases. I mean many, not just a few. These are bacteria present in most cattle, even with excellent animal husbandry. They include bacteria causing tuberculosis, brucellosis and listeriosis. People still die during outbreaks of Listeria-contaminated cheese. There is no way to eliminate a certain level of deaths from these diseases without pasteurizing milk. Years ago pelvic X-rays of a large proportion of old people revealed calcified tuberculous lymph nodes from drinking raw milk. The germs entered the intestines, and then the lymph nodes in the mesentery.
I agree adults should be able to do anything they want, so long as it doesn't harm others and the doer is solely responsible for all costs and consequences. But feeding non-pasteurized milk to children will result in the death of some of them from time to time. You would need to prove a very large benefit to them from drinking raw milk before I would think it's OK to let a few die now and then. And raw-milk-drinking adults with children will die from time to time, leaving the children without parents. I don't want to pay for bringing up somebody else's children.