Idaho Won’t Identify the Dairies From Which Almost 60 Were Sickened From Drinking Raw Milk

Idaho was MAHA long before Robert Fuckwit Kennedy, Jr.’s brain worm conceived of the ironic Make America Healthy Again movement. Reject COVID vaccinations? Check. Hell, reject all vaccinations? Check. To the point where 3-in-10 Idaho kindergartners have no vaccinations? Check.

Another facet of this anti-science superstition in the pursuit of health is the raw milk movement.

On Wednesday, the State Department of Health & Welfare (full unnecessary disclosure: I worked their IT helpdesk in the 1990s) announced there had been two outbreaks of illness associated with drinking raw milk. Almost sixty people (so… fifty-nine?) were sickened with at least forty-five (so… forty-five so far?) testing positive for campylobacteriosis.

According to the World Health Organization, “the most common clinical symptoms of Campylobacter infections include diarrhea (frequently bloody), abdominal pain, fever, headache, nausea, and/or vomiting.”

Frequently bloody diarrhea etc. that lasts three to six days. If you’re under age five, or elderly, or immunocompromised, that shit can kill you, pun intended.

This is the reason we have pasteurization. Heating up liquids to kill the bacteria in them has been around since the 12th century in China and became widespread globally by the 20th century.

But to the MAHA maniacs, pasteurization is a modern thing with far too many syllables. They figure if the milk coming out of the teat is good enough for the calf, is good enough for them. Doing sciencey things to it afterward like raising its temperature is the Devil’s work. All those egghead nerds who point to study after study showing no nutritional difference post-pasteurization but decreased riboflavin and no medicinal benefit pre-pasteurization but massive prophylactic benefit post-pasteurization are just using big words to try to fool us all.

Thus, in Idaho, and surprisingly to me, many other states, you can walk into a grocery store and buy raw milk intended for human consumption. There’s a whole set of rules the Ag department has established, and woe unto you if you inaccurately or misleadingly label your unpasteurized raw milk products.

Anyway, up to 60 people have gotten to experience frequently bloody diarrhea for three to six days from drinking raw milk products that are linked to two dairy operations in the state, one in the north and one in the south.

But we don’t get to know the names of those dairy operations. Department of Health and Welfare spokesperson AJ McWhorter said the agency didn’t name the milking operations “because this is a potential risk for any raw milk producer.”

Say again? The public can’t know which two companies produced a product for human consumption that led to half-a-year in person-days of frequently bloody diarrhea because, gosh, it could’ve happened to any of the companies that sell that product?

That whole set of rules governs the permits that are given to these dairies to produce and sell raw milk for human consumption.

02.04.13 – RULES GOVERNING RAW MILK

050. PERMIT ENFORCEMENT.

01. Permit Suspension. The Department may suspend a permit whenever it has reason to believe that a public health hazard exists, …

b. Whenever the raw milk or raw milk products create or appear to create an imminent hazard to the public health, the Department may immediately suspend the permit without the prior notice procedure set forth in these rules.

“May” immediately suspend? Why is that not a “must?” Sixty (almost) people sickened by raw milk, and not only has the state not suspended their permits, the state is protecting the identity of the raw milk producers?

Anybody who has been around cows for any length of time can tell you why pasteurization is necessary—they’re filthy. The cows, not the people who’ve been around them.

But the people really want the raw milk. It’s natural. People believe in its health benefits, even though the science may not back them up. There’s an industry of farmers who produce the stuff and we must think of their livelihoods as well. Maybe every now and then there’s a small problem with some of the consumption, but overall it’s harmless to the consumers and society as a whole, and benefits society by creating jobs.

But try that argument with marijuana in Idaho, huh?