HMN 2025: How conservatives embrace uncooked milk: Regulators say it is harmful

In summertime, cows wait beneath a cover to be milked at Mark McAfee’s farm in Fresno, California. From his Cessna 210 Centurion propeller airplane, the 63-year-old can view grazing lands of the dairy firm he runs that produces merchandise comparable to unpasteurized milk and cheese for nearly 2,000 shops.

Federal regulators say it is dangerous enterprise. Samples of uncooked milk can comprise fowl flu virus and different pathogens linked to kidney illness, miscarriages, and demise.

McAfee, founder and CEO of the Raw Farm, who additionally leads the Raw Milk Institute, says he plans to quickly be ready to alter that message.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist President Donald Trump has tapped to run the Department of Health and Human Services, recruited McAfee to use for a job because the FDA’s uncooked milk requirements and coverage adviser, McAfee mentioned. McAfee has already written draft proposals for potential federal certification of uncooked dairy farms, he mentioned.

Virologists are alarmed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends towards unpasteurized dairy that hasn’t been heated to kill pathogens comparable to fowl flu. Interstate uncooked milk gross sales for human consumption are banned by the FDA. A Trump administration that weakens the ban or extols uncooked milk, the scientists say, may result in extra foodborne sickness.

It may additionally, they are saying, elevate the danger of the extremely pathogenic H5N1 fowl flu virus evolving to unfold extra effectively, together with between individuals, probably fueling a pandemic.

“If the FDA says uncooked milk is now authorized and the CDC comes by way of and says it advises consuming uncooked milk, that is a recipe for mass an infection,” mentioned Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and co-editor-in-chief of the medical journal Vaccine and an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University in New York.

The uncooked milk controversy displays the broader tensions President Donald Trump will confront when pursuing his second-administration agenda of rolling again rules and injecting extra shopper alternative into well being care.

Many insurance policies Kennedy has mentioned he desires to revisit—from the fluoridation of faucet water to vitamin steering to childhood vaccine necessities—are backed by scientific analysis and had been established to guard public well being. Some doctor teams and Democrats are gearing as much as battle initiatives they are saying would put individuals in danger.

Raw milk has gained a following amongst anti-regulatory conservatives who’re a part of a burgeoning well being freedom motion.

“The well being freedom motion was adopted by the tea celebration, and conspiracy web sites gave it momentum,” mentioned Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who has studied the historical past of the anti-vaccine motion.

Once-fringe concepts are edging into the mainstream. Vaccine hesitancy is rising.

Arkansas, Utah, and Kentucky are weighing laws that may calm down or finish necessities for fluoride in public water. And 30 states now permit for the sale of uncooked milk in some kind inside their borders.

While solely an estimated 3% of the U.S. inhabitants consumes uncooked milk or cheese, efforts to attempt to prohibit its gross sales have riled Republicans and supplied grist for conservative podcasts.

Many conservatives denounced final yr’s execution of a search warrant when Pennsylvania agriculture officers and state troopers arrived at an natural farm tucked off a two-lane street on Jan. 4, 2024. State inspectors had been investigating instances of two youngsters sickened by E. coli micro organism and gross sales of uncooked dairy from the operation owned by Amish farmer Amos Miller, based on a criticism filed by the state’s agricultural division.

Bundled in flannel shirts and winter jackets, the inspectors put orange stickers on merchandise detaining them from sale, and so they left toting product samples in massive blue-and-white coolers, on-line movies present. The 2024 criticism towards Miller alleged that he and his spouse offered dairy merchandise in violation of state regulation.

The farm was well-known to regulators. They say within the criticism {that a} Florida shopper died after being sickened in 2014 with listeria micro organism present in uncooked dairy from Miller’s farm. The FDA mentioned a uncooked milk pattern from the farm signifies it was the “doubtless supply” of the an infection, primarily based on the criticism.

Neither Miller’s farm nor his lawyer returned calls looking for remark.

The Millers’ legal professional filed a preliminary objection that mentioned “shutting down Defendants would trigger inequitable hurt, exceed the authority of the company, represent an extreme nice in addition to disparate, discriminatory punishment, and contravene each important Constitutional safety and powers reserved to the individuals of Pennsylvania.”

Regulators in Pennsylvania mentioned in a press launch they need to defend the general public, and particularly youngsters, from hurt. “We can’t ignore the diseases and additional potential hurt posed by distribution of those unregulated merchandise,” the Pennsylvania agricultural division and legal professional normal mentioned in a joint assertion.

Unpasteurized dairy merchandise are answerable for nearly all of the estimated 761 diseases and 22 hospitalizations within the U.S. that happen yearly due to dairy-related sickness, based on a review printed within the June 2017 subject of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

But conservatives say raiding an Amish farm is authorities overreach. They’re “harassing him and attempting to make an instance of him. Our authorities is actually uncontrolled,” Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Doug Mastriano mentioned in a video he posted to Facebook.

Videos present protesters at a February 2024 listening to on Miller’s case included Amish males wearing black with straw hats and locals waving do-it-yourself indicators with slogans comparable to “FDA Go Away.” A court docket in March issued a preliminary injunction that barred Miller from advertising and marketing and promoting uncooked dairy merchandise throughout the commonwealth pending attraction, however the order didn’t preclude gross sales of uncooked milk to prospects out of state. The case is ongoing.

With Kennedy, the uncooked milk debate is poised to go nationwide. Kennedy wrote on X in October that the “FDA’s battle on public well being is about to finish.” In the submit, he pointed to the company’s “aggressive suppression” of uncooked milk, as one instance.

McAfee is prepared. He desires to see a nationwide uncooked milk ordinance, just like one which exists for pasteurized milk, that may set minimal nationwide requirements. Farmers may attain certification by way of coaching, persevering with schooling, and on-site pathogen testing, with one normal for farms that promote to shoppers and one other for retail gross sales.

The Trump administration did not return emails looking for remark.

McAfee has detailed the system he developed to make sure his uncooked dairy merchandise are protected. He confirmed the method for KFF Health News: cows with yellow-tagged ears graze on grass pastures and are cleansed in washing pens earlier than milking. The uncooked dairy is held again from shopper sale till it has been examined and located away from pathogens.

His uncooked dairy merchandise, comparable to cheese and milk, are offered by quite a lot of shops, together with well being, natural, and pure grocery chains, based on the corporate web site, in addition to uncooked dairy pet merchandise, which aren’t for human consumption.

He mentioned he would not consider the uncooked milk he sells may comprise or transmit viable fowl flu virus. He additionally mentioned he would not consider regulators’ warnings about uncooked milk and the virus.

“The pharmaceutical trade is attempting to create a brand new pandemic from fowl flu to get their inventory again up,” mentioned McAfee, who says he counts Kennedy as a buyer. His view is just not shared by main virologists.

In December, the state of California secured a voluntary recall of all his firm’s uncooked milk and cream merchandise because of potential fowl flu contamination.

Five indoor cats in the identical family died or had been euthanized in December after consuming uncooked milk from McAfee’s farm, and exams on 4 of the animals discovered they had been contaminated with fowl flu, based on the Los Angeles County Department of Health.

In an unrelated case, Joseph Journell, 56, mentioned three of his 4 indoor cats drank McAfee’s uncooked milk. Two fell sick and died, he mentioned. His third cat, quickly misplaced the usage of his hind legs and had to make use of a specialised wheelchair system, he mentioned. Urine samples had been constructive for fowl flu, based on a replica of the outcomes from Cornell University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

McAfee dismissed connections between the cats’ diseases and his merchandise, saying any potential fowl flu virus would not be viable by the point his uncooked milk will get to shops. He additionally mentioned he believes that any sick cats obtained fowl flu from recalled pet meals.

Journell mentioned he has employed a lawyer to attempt to recuperate his veterinary prices however stays a staunch proponent of uncooked milk.

“Raw milk is sweet for you, simply not if it has fowl flu in it,” he mentioned. “I do consider in its therapeutic powers.”

2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.