Dear Irony

[trish]

Answer to my question was "Same as before, NONE".
A. No
B. No

you can sling all the ad homs your heart desires

Thank you, I will continue to pay you back in kind. So you can stop complaining, you little wimp.

Risk is part of life

Take all the risks you want, except those that risk the lives of those around you.

[martin48]

Here's a clear balanced piece:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...aw-milk-debate

Of course, you can just insult me.

[broncofan]

###

Wow so CNN has the "full" stats as opposed to the actual study cited previously.

So let us take the numbers referenced in the article:

1,676 illnesses over 10 years from Raw Milk

or approximately 168 Raw Milk illnesses each year.

TOTAL Number of food borne illness including "legal" but improperly handled/cooked food...

= 3,000 per year

So of the 3,000 people sickened each year, Raw Milk represents 5.5% while your spinach, chicken, eggs, beef represent 94.5%

Phew good thing the FDA arrests those terrorists farmers selling Raw Milk.

Just curious, did you account for the difference in the number of people consuming raw milk and spinach, chicken, eggs, and beef? I'm not saying you did not, but I imagine many fewer people consume raw milk than these other items. I know I buy pasteurized at the store.

[broncofan]

This CDC article I am looking at says that only 1% of the milk consumed is raw. Therefore, we can assume that if everyone drank raw milk there would be approximately 100 fold the number of illness outbreaks that are currently attributed to raw milk. This would not be 168 per year, but 16,800. This would then dwarf the number of people make sick by those other items you mentioned. I am not saying I am right on this but this is how the math works out for me.

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/20..._outbreak.html

The 168 number I got from you (which you supposedly deduced from their numbers), and the 1% of all milk number is one of their estimates.

[broncofan]

100 times the number of people made sick, not outbreaks. 168 people a year would presumably be about 16,800. Right?

[broncofan]

###

• 319 million gallons of Raw Milk consumed annually in U.S. (1)
  
  
• Over the course of a 13 year study, 3 people fell ill and eventually died from the consumption of Raw Milk. (2)
  
  
  
• 2000 to 2010 - 452,000 Deaths from Accidental overdose or adverse reaction of FDA approved Prescription Drugs. (3)

It is important to note though that when the FDA approves drugs through its pre-market approval process it tries to determine safety AND efficacy. Very dangerous drugs can be released to the public if the illnesses they treat have no medical alternatives. When the FDA is investigating drugs, they are often balancing safety against efficacy and are willing to accept greater risks for promising treatments.

I am someone who is alive because of drugs approved by FDA for asthma and the several cases of pneumonia I've had. Yet, steroids used to treat asthma and lupus as well as other autoimmune type illnesses are very harmful over time. However, the risks are outweighed by the benefits when properly prescribed.

Moreover, let's be fair and divide the deaths you report above from drugs by 10 which you do for the raw milk related illnesses reported over a decade. This makes 45,200 per year. Now it might not be a bad idea to take out those who accidentally overdosed from these drugs since the FDA requires thorough pharmacological and toxicological data to fill out a New Drug Application. If someone accidentally overdosed, it could be the result of their doctor not giving them proper instructions, or accidental misuse. A product is not inherently dangerous just because someone takes far too much of it. Futher, people who have terminal cancer receiving high doses of opiates would be included in your statistics, as would people receiving life saving treatments such as chemotherapy who have to take toxic doses in the hopes of increasing their chance of survival.

Finally, there is an important consideration that weighs against this comparison. Unpasteurized milk does not save lives, prescription drugs do. Should we not also subtract from the legitimate number of deaths from prescription drugs the number of lives saved every year by the availability of safe and effective drugs? Has raw milk ever saved anyone's life or made their last minutes bearable?