Allegations of salmonella seem fishy in Lavon Farms of Texas raw dairy case

From The Complete Patient blog:

Todd Moore (second from left) and family being recognized at a livestock show.

“On the face of it, the case against Lavon Farms looks open and shut. Milk from the Plano, TX, raw dairy, the largest in the state, has been genetically linked to four illnesses from salmonella–three of them involving children–over the last few months, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. 

Huffington Post equates drinking raw milk with shaking hands with someone who didn’t wash after using the toilet!

It’s nice to think that the bleeding hearts at the Huffington Post are trying to do their bit to stick up for the underdog — which is this case is pasteurized milk — suffering as it does from all the publicity that its black sheep cousin, raw milk, is getting. And it’s always good fun to hear pasteurization advocates trying to defend the practice. Here’s an excerpt from that recent HuffPo story by Glen D. Braunstein, titled “Got (Safe) Milk?“:

“Let’s start with a short quiz. Two men exit bathroom stalls after having a bowel movement. One washes his hands and the other doesn’t. Which one would you rather shake hands with? If you value your health, the answer is pretty obvious. Why take a chance of picking up somebody else’s colonic bacteria, which you will undoubtedly transfer to your mouth, unless, of course, you immediately wash your hands with copious amounts of soap and water?

Basically, this is the issue with pasteurized versus raw milk.

Got Milk? Keep it Raw

So says this writer of a recent letter to the editor in the Surrey Leader. See excerpt below. Surrey is a suburb of Vancouver, where local raw milk suppliers Alice Jongerden and Gordon Watson of Home on the Range cowshare will be in court Monday defending people’s right to choose.

"A letter writer argues that exposure to dirt and grime is helpful to children, for building immunity to asthma and allergies...." Photo via Surrey Leader

“The doomsayers who are utilizing Louis Pasteur’s theory for labelling our raw milk products a health hazard almost make me feel I am lucky to be alive, considering that was the only kind of milk available to me for the first 17 years of my life.

They conveniently forget that he is also the founder of the science of immunology, and ignoring the fact that pasteurizing is the simplest part of the legacy he left us. Just heat the stuff to a certain temperature, and hope that the good bacteria will still be alive.