WASHINGTON — An alliance of food activists and anti-regulation libertarians is battling to legalize raw, unpasteurized milk, despite warnings from health officials about the rising toll of illnesses affecting adults and children alike.
As the popularity of raw milk has grown, so too have associated outbreaks. They have nearly doubled over the past five years, with eight out of 10 cases occurring in states that have legalized sales of the unpasteurized product, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Public health officials have documented how pathogens in raw milk have produced kidney failure in more than a dozen cases and paralysis in at least two.
But distrust of government and a thirst for the milk have helped fuel the movement to do away with federal and state restrictions despite the warnings.
In states where raw milk remains banned, black and “gray” markets have emerged for enthusiasts seeking “moonshine milk” in the belief that bacteria-killing heat from pasteurization also kills powerful enzymes and eliminates other properties that can cure allergies, asthma, even autism.
During this legislative session, 40 bills have been introduced in 23 state capitals, all seeking to legalize unpasteurized milk within state borders.
And in Congress, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who raises grass-fed cattle and says he grew up drinking unpasteurized milk, introduced two bills last week that would get the Food and Drug Administration out of the business of policing raw-milk sales.
It is illegal for raw-milk dairy farmers to sell and transport their product across state lines — a ban the FDA is charged with enforcing. But every day, thousands of gallon-sized glass jars, filled with the creamy white stuff, move from state to state, arriving at consumers’ front doors through co-ops and buyers clubs and from friends and relatives who sometimes pack it with dry ice and ship it via FedEx.
Consumers will pay as much as $12 a gallon for raw milk from cows and goats. And the CDC estimates that 1 to 3 percent of Americans are drinking it. Sometimes the only jars they can find are labeled “For Pet Consumption Only.”
“No one is feeding this to their pets,” said Massie, who calls his bills “Milk Freedom Legislation.” “They are buying raw milk for themselves and their families. And they are doing it because we have some very stupid laws out there.”
Fueling the movement is a Washington-based nonprofit, Weston A. Price Foundation, co-founded in 1999 by nutritionist Mary Enig and Maryland dairy farmer Sally Fallon Morell.
Its website directs members to write and call lawmakers in support of raw-milk legislation, connects consumers with producers and targets the FDA’s “secret war” on unpasteurized milk.
“The government is not listening to what consumers are asking for,” said Fallon Morell, whose farm is in Maryland, where raw-milk sales are banned. “People are sick and tired of industrialized food.”
796Number of people in 24 states who became sick after consuming raw milk between 2006 and 2011, according to the CDC40Bills introduced in 23 states seeking to legalize unpasteurized milk
