CDC raw milk rhetoric vs. data

[billooo2]

Just wondering......does the rhetoric match the data????

Having spent my career in the medical field, I have read hundreds, if not thousands of research articles in various medical journals. I find some of the CDC's terminology to be interesting. The use the term "reports," as opposed to the term, "confirmed." A report of something implies that something (i.e. contaminated raw milk being suspected of causing an illness), but that furhter documentation needs to be made before iit is confirmed to be a "fact."

This link refers to incidents over 11 years.....1998-2008. The total number of "outbreaks" was 86 outbreaks/year, 1676 illnesses......and fewer hopitalizations, and 2 deaths. I believe that makes for an average of 8 "outbreaks"/yr, and 152 illnesses/year. And a little less than 20 illnesses/outbreak??? I wonder why the CDC data is not for "confirmed cases vs. "reported" cases? Is it possible that the "confirmed" cases would be a much smaller number??

http://www.cdc.gov/Features/RawMilk/

These numbers seem somewhat meaningless without the context of the total number of people consuming raw milk. The CDC has evidence indicating the number of people drinking raw milk.......but they did not include it........gee, why not?

If you page down in the next link......the data says that in the states sampled, approximately 3% of the population of those states drink raw milk. (Okay, I did not do the precise math, I just "ballparked" the number).

I am told the the population of the USA at that time was about 300 million.

If 3% of the population of the USA was drinking raw milk, then I believe that means that there were about 9 million people in the USA drinking raw milk.

If my math is correct........if there were 152 illnesses/year, then that means that 8,999,9848 people that drank raw milk did NOT get sick!!!

Actually those don't sound like bad "odds" to me!!!

What do you think???

Remember, these numbers come from the CDC site itself!!!!!

http://www.cdc.gov/foodnet/surveys/F...as0607_508.pdf

[geo in mi]

Since no comments in about five hours, in the lingo of the milk world, I think the raw milk teats have been stripped dry. Got another topic?

geo

[Lazy J]

Time to move on, this cow's been beaten to death!

[willow_girl]

3 percent seems awfully high to me.

[arabian knight]

It sure does,,, and I have my doubts if it is anywhere near that. ANd I agree it is time to give this a rest.

[mekasmom]

I personally think the raw milk is evil rhetoric has a lot to do with $ and very little to do with facts. And I think the government should keep their noses out of the diets of American citizens. Just my opinion.
If they want to regulate something then regulate the imports into this nation not the milk a person makes on his own farm or gets from his own neighbor. Regulate retail sales of food products not private sales of small farms.