by: Ethan A. Huff
(NaturalNews) The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) refuses to acknowledge that, based on all available statistics, raw milk produced on clean, small-scale farms is actually far safer than pasteurized milk from factory farms. But the agency did admit earlier this year, after being pressed and warned of a potential Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request if it failed to comply, that not a single person has died from raw milk consumption in over a decade.
After repeatedly petitioning the CDC for clarification about its questionable raw milk statistics and getting nowhere, Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures Dairy Company (OPDC) in California, finally threatened to file a FOIA request to get to the truth. Shortly thereafter, he received a response from an unidentified official at the CDC's information office explaining that the one "raw milk" death that occurred between 1998 and 2008 was actually linked to illegal raw queso fresco cheese.
The agency has not yet provided details about the other death, but it is likely that it, too, was linked to some adulterated raw milk product rather than to raw milk itself. If and when the agency finally fesses up to the truth about that case, it will also be inadvertently admitting that it has lied to the public for many years about the nature of raw milk.
The CDC's continual avoidance of talking about the much worse dangers associated with pasteurized milk further illustrates its raw milk bias. In 2006 alone, there were at least 1,300 people who got sick from pasteurized milk just in California — and yet the CDC only talks about the roughly 39 reported illnesses every year in the Golden State that are alleged, but not necessarily proven to be, linked to raw milk.