[PeterPrinciple]

I know you put the sarcasm tag afterwords, but the reality is that milk was responsible for 25% of all food-poisoning incidents before pasteurization.

---

You points are good but sometime problems need to be defined well. You cite a statistic that is not current. Some points to consider is that pasteurization is NOT the only factor. Freshness, Refrigeration, transport, storage, etc were/are also factors. I also drank a lot of fresh natural milk on the farm, but it was always replaced with more fresh milk and the older milk was fed to the livestock. If a current consumer wants a product, let him/her. It may not be right for you but is for some. Living in a large city I would never go the fresh milk route for a variety of reasons. Also, I would never go into the business of fresh milk unless I knew my customers and my financial risk with them.

Also today we have too MANY regulatory govt mechanisms. Plus courts with liability enforcement, etc. And then we also have many non profits looking out for our welfare. Insurance is also a modern day factor and expanse.

My major point is that you and I have our opinion but give a little freedom to those who have other preferences. There is a tough balance between freedom and safety, even we conservatives want to impose our will on others.

[exDemMom]

You points are good but sometime problems need to be defined well. You cite a statistic that is not current. Some points to consider is that pasteurization is NOT the only factor. Freshness, Refrigeration, transport, storage, etc were/are also factors. I also drank a lot of fresh natural milk on the farm, but it was always replaced with more fresh milk and the older milk was fed to the livestock. If a current consumer wants a product, let him/her. It may not be right for you but is for some. Living in a large city I would never go the fresh milk route for a variety of reasons. Also, I would never go into the business of fresh milk unless I knew my customers and my financial risk with them.

The statistic may be dated, but it is still valid. If the practice of pasteurization were to be discontinued for some reason, the number of food poisoning cases resulting from raw milk consumption would again sky-rocket. A very recent analysis (which I believe I either linked or was linked to something else I linked) revealed that you are 150-fold more likely to get food-poisoning from raw milk than from pasteurized. Furthermore, illnesses resulting from raw milk consumption are likely to be much more serious than from pasteurized milk consumption.

My major point is that you and I have our opinion but give a little freedom to those who have other preferences. There is a tough balance between freedom and safety, even we conservatives want to impose our will on others.

The purpose of government is to protect its citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic. Regulating food safety is a perfectly valid and constitutional government function. I think many of the people complaining about regulating food safety have no idea about how big of an endeavor that is, or about the thousands of people working to make our food supply safe. They seem to think that government is hands-off with food safety, until it comes to raw milk where all of a sudden the government becomes the gestapo--and that isn't the case at all. All foods are regulated.

I actually have no problem with people drinking raw milk--if they fully understand the risk. My beef is with all the pseudoscientific quackery and almost magical belief system that people use to justify their choice to drink raw milk.