By 11:30 a.m. on a recent Thursday, the raw milk that Bishop’s Orchard in Guilford receives weekly from Baldwin Brook Farm in Canterbury was just about gone. The dozen or so raw milk regulars, who are acutely aware of the delivery schedule, had picked up their bottles. The remaining nine half-gallons went into the bottom shelf of a cooler — first come, first served. Half an hour later, only two were left. “They know it’s delivered on Thursdays, and it’s like vultures,” said Sarah Bishop Dellaventura, chief operating officer at Bishop’s and the family’s sixth generation to own and operate the farm and market. “We actually have a wait list. I’m not sure what this new fascination is.” Only two containers of raw milk were left just a few hours after the weekly delivery arrived at Bishop’s Orchard in Guilford. Credit: Jan Ellen Spiegel It is something of a head-scratcher. Raw milk’s popularity has grown in Connecticut and elsewhere, despite recent headlines that have stirred even more controversy than the typical internet-driven debate over whether raw milk is a miraculous health food or a seriously dangerous product. Among the current factors is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Donald Trump’s pick as secretary of Health and Human Services, who, along with his anti-vaccine and anti-fluoride views, is a big fan of raw milk. The deregulation, anti-government sentiments that Kennedy’s views engender have pulled in Republican support, whether they drink raw milk or not. Another factor is avian flu. Beyond racing through chicken populations, it is now infecting dairy cows in the U.S. and causing the disease in humans who have worked around sick cows. And then there’s the longstanding concern about an array of pathogens that have plagued raw milk — well — forever. Connecticut has had its own run-ins with raw milk. In 2008, 14 people, including three young children, were sickened with E. coli found in raw milk produced by a dairy in Simsbury. Two of the children suffered kidney problems. It remains among the worst such incidents in the country. The dairy closed in its aftermath. Since then, there have been another four incidences in Connecticut, including one in October, for a total of 39 human illnesses from raw milk contamination in Connecticut caused by pathogens. But not only is raw milk still in demand — its popularity is growing. Connecticut is no exception. At the Willimantic Food Co-op, which has carried raw milk since before general manager Patty Smith started working there 17 years ago, demand is so intense they recently brought in another producer — Buttercup Farm, also in Canterbury — to supplement their supply from Baldwin Brook. Buttercup Farm in Canterbury has a herd of 14 cows. They produce about 70 bottles a day that owner Megan Johnson sells raw. Credit: Buttercup Farm “We just couldn’t keep up with the demand with the one farm,” Smith said. “I think we have a lot of customers who are looking for the most unprocessed versions of food that they can get, and raw milk is one of those. There’s a lot of people who really do buy it for the perceived health benefits. That it’s got live enzymes. Some people find it easier to digest than pasteurized milk.” Is raw milk unprocessed food? Yes. Does it have special health benefits? Lots of people believe it does. Scientists and medical experts are generally not among them. How people have come to believe in the powers of raw milk is hard to say, but relentless and organized assertions on the internet for more than two decades have played a big role. There are several pro-raw milk organizations, such as the Raw Milk Institute and the Weston A. Price Foundation, that publish extensive lists of what they identify as “peer reviewed studies” showing the health benefits of raw milk, but these days the FDA and CDC are fighting back more forcefully than they have in the past. Lengthy documents on their websites take on the various questionable health assertions and myths point by point with citations for studies and research to back them up. Health benefits or dangers aside, however, some people just prefer the way it tastes and are willing to invest additional time and money to purchase it. All-natural doesn’t always mean all-safe Raw milk is the slightly more upscale name for unpasteurized milk. It’s milk straight from the cow (or goat or sheep). There’s nothing done to it — just like in the old days. Those would be the same old days when people got sick a lot more often than they do now from food-borne illnesses in dairy products. Pathogens like E. coli, listeria, campylobacter, salmonella — many transmitted to cows from ambient sources such as feces-contaminated mud that may have gotten on a cow’s udder — often contaminated the milk that came through it, causing illnesses in people who drank it. Pasteurization, developed in the late 1800s, corrected that and revolutionized milk production. The process involves heating raw milk for a period of time to kill any pathogens. That process was still pretty haphazard until exactly 100 years ago with the adoption a key regulation — the federal Pasteurized Milk Ordinance. It standardized milk production procedures with the goal of having all states adopt it so milk quality and safety would be identical across the country. It is guidance, and not mandatory, but states do use it, and indeed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cites research that shows incidences of milk-based foodborne illness dropped from 25% of all disease outbreaks due to infected foods and contaminated water in 1938 to less than 1% now. But raw milk was still allowed, with states regulating it if and how they chose. Concern over its safety and loosely or completely unregulated raw milk from one state causing illness in another resulted in a 1987 regulation by the FDA banning the interstate sale of raw milk. Raw milk cheese falls under federal rules. Whether domestic and imported, it may only be sold if it’s aged at least 60 days. And those are the basic rules still in place. Each state still gets to set its own raw milk rules. The current rules range from flat-out bans — which still would allow someone with a cow to drink their own raw milk or give it to others — to allowing sales on a farm, to allowing retail sales in stores not affiliated with a farm Connecticut is broadly in that last group, making it one of the easiest states in which to buy raw milk. Retail and on-farm sales are allowed. Licensing is required, and the inspection regimen was strengthened after the 2008 incident. In Connecticut, retail stores and farms selling raw milk are inspected by the Department of Agriculture quarterly. Raw milk is sampled monthly. The department tests for pathogens and brucellosis quarterly. They also make regular visits to monitor herd health. Among the roughly 80 dairy farms in the state, there are about a dozen raw milk dairies, though a few of them use their milk only for cheese production. But rather than the inspection regime, it was two illnesses that exposed the recent contamination from campylobacter at Nature View Dairy in Bridgewater. A third case turned up later. “We’ve got to balance a couple things. One, obviously public health, and risk management. And I think that our current program does find a balance there,” said Bryan Hurlburt, Connecticut’s agriculture commissioner. Hurlburt noted the huge interest in raw milk, calling it a value-added product for farmers because of its high price. He did not comment on whether he believes the current regulations are adequate but seemed disinclined to restrict raw milk sales. An effort after the 2008 incident to limit them to farms failed in the legislature.  “We still have a responsibility to make sure that safe products are getting to consumers, and that’s where our testing program and our work with the farmers comes in, and where the labeling requirements are so that consumers are buying the safest product they can,” he said. “This isn’t going to your neighbor who has a cow and saying, ‘hey, can I get a half-gallon milk off of you?’ We want to make sure that if you’re choosing raw milk, that you’re choosing the best possible avenue to purchase it. In November, with avian flu spreading, the agriculture and public health departments jointly issued information and guidance for consumers about milk safety, raw milk and the rules in Connecticut. “Our message (is) that pasteurized milk is THE safest way to prevent risk of infection from any number of things,” said Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani. “The updates and regulations are to try to reduce the amount of harm if people are going to want to do something, despite our advice and our desire to educate, engage and evolve their behavior.” But Dennis D’Amico, a professor at the University of Connecticut who is a food scientist specializing in food microbiology, especially raw milk cheese, said monthly testing may not be enough to find common pathogens because they tend to be sporadic. “Once a month — that’s their way of feeling good that the raw milk supply from that farm is safe. Which is silly, because it’s a single point in time, and it’s not a predictor of whether it was there yesterday or will be there tomorrow,” D’Amico said. Bird flu is another matter, he said. Cows shed it into their milk so testing is more conclusive. In early December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would begin nationwide bird flu testing of cows and their milk on Dec. 16, initially in six states — California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon and Pennsylvania. For Connecticut, though, a Centers for Disease Control study that looked at food-borne illnesses from milk between 1998 and 2018 had some ominous findings. It showed, as did previous similar studies, that states like Connecticut with greater and easier access to raw milk had many times more disease outbreaks from raw milk. Its discussion reads in part: “In our analysis of outbreaks based on state laws, 78% of outbreaks linked to unpasteurised milk occurred in states where the sale of unpasteurised milk was expressly allowed in retail stores, on farms and/or in farmers markets, or in states that expressly allowed herd shares. This finding is consistent with findings from other studies. We also found that among states where sale of unpasteurised milk was allowed, those that allowed retail sale had significantly more outbreaks than states where only on-farm sale was allowed. This suggests that greater access to unpasteurised milk through retail sale increases outbreak occurrence.” It’s often pointed out, however, that people who want raw milk will manage to get it whether it’s easy, like going to a store, or if it takes more of an effort, like going to a farm, or if it’s obtained through some of the loopholes that exist. Some places allow raw milk sales for pet food, without a way to know who or what is consuming it. And then there are states that permit, or at least don’t prohibit, what are known as herd or cow shares in which people can actually buy a share of a cow, which allows them access to the milk. A driving force, which has existed for more than two decades, may be the relentless internet presence of groups advocating universal raw milk availability and continuing to present a laundry list of largely debunked claims about the benefits of raw milk. “Consumers are often confused about this product because it’s marketed as a health food,” said Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a food and health watchdog group. “It’s marketed as something that’s going to enhance your health when you’re really exposing yourself to extreme risk of undermining your health and developing organ damage that could affect your health for the rest of your life.” Public health concerns The biggest battle in the public debate is over whether raw milk is more nutritious and healthier than pasteurized. Scientists like John Lucey, director of the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin, say it is not. “It’s very surprising to me that it’s considered a health food. I don’t know where that comes from, to be honest,” said Lucey, a food scientist who grew up on a dairy farm in Ireland. “There’s soil, dirt on the farm, manure. All of these places are places where bacteria, spores and pathogens live. So we just can’t escape that fact.” Lucey said a study of the university’s own herd a couple of years ago showed that over 70% of the animals were carrying listeria in their manure. “This idea that we can say there’s no risks to consuming raw milk from dangerous pathogens is just nonsense.” Other points-counterpoints focus on whether pasteurization also destroys vitamins in milk. There is a small diminishment, the highest percentage of which is in vitamin C. But vitamin C exists in milk in such tiny amounts to begin with that its loss doesn’t matter. People do not drink milk to get their vitamin C for the day. FDA and CDC documentation also challenges claims that raw milk can help cure asthma, allergies, lactose intolerance and a host of other ailments and that it has any number of beneficial properties, including that it can boost the human immune system. “There are no demonstrated or proven benefits from consuming raw milk,” said Lucey who does not dispute contentions that it may taste better or be creamier because it is not homogenized, leaving the cream layer on top. “But there’s no proven benefits from it at all. And it has been looked at quite significantly. This idea about vitamins is a complete red herring,” Lucey said. Government agencies are emphatic, as are researchers and medical experts, that the risk of pathogens in raw milk is extremely dangerous for children, pregnant women, older people and those with compromised immune systems and other ailments. And the notion of giving raw milk to any of them for the purpose of preventing things like asthma or any other reason is misguided. “No one in their right mind should recommend giving your child raw milk to prevent something that you don’t know is going to happen when there’s a high chance that something is going to happen that’s going to make them very sick,” D’Amico said. “Very few people develop asthma in the first place. So you’re trying to prevent something that probably isn’t going to happen at the risk of potentially killing your kid.” D’Amico refers to the scenario he sees playing out as confirmation bias. People looking up raw milk are probably doing it because they’ve heard things about it that interest them, he said. “If you go to a proponent site, advocate site, there’ll be lots of information to support whatever that decision you wanted to make was. And you’re not going to look at it with a skeptical eye, you’re gonna say, ‘wow, everything I’ve been hearing is true.’ “It’s a lot more fun to read about all the potential benefits than ‘it’s going to kill you.’” Among the most prominent of the groups advocating for raw milk is the Weston A. Price Foundation, now with a quarter-century of efforts. Its internet name is Real Milk, which states “raw milk is healthy!” and has a video of RFK Jr. saying he only drinks raw milk. The site asserts a number of claims the scientific community has debunked: that pasteurization destroys the nutrition in milk, and that raw milk protects against allergies and can treat any number of ailments. The website also raises doubts about whether the FDA is being truthful about finding bird flu in milk and whether it can affect humans if it was found. It claims that lies are behind what it calls “the latest attack on raw milk.” It’s assertions like these that has Juthani at Connecticut’s health department so concerned. “Our attempts to educate people that there could be a risk from raw milk of avian flu seems to have been countered by information out there that people are putting out to say that if you drink raw milk that may have bird flu in it, you will develop immunity,” she said. “It’s a hard message to counteract, and this is going to be a continual challenge for us in public health.” It’s also not true, according to the CDC. And it’s also the reason, she said, that raw milk sales are up despite the threat of bird flu. Three of the four raw milk producers reached by The Connecticut Mirror did not want their farm publicized because demand already exceeds what they can supply. But all said that demand has been growing steadily for several years. Megan Johnson, owner of Buttercup Farm, has been producing raw milk for 12 years from a herd of 14 cows. That’s about 70 bottles a day. “It’s been a crazy couple of years. I guess since the pandemic, business has just been, it’s just booming, and I can’t possibly keep up with it all. But you know, I do have fun trying.” Cows on milking machines at Buttercup Farm. Owner Megan Johnson says business has been booming since the pandemic. Credit: Buttercup Farm She said drinking raw milk helped her arthritis. “And then people were like, ‘Hey, I’m having issues. I could use some raw milk to help autism, sight problems, deficiencies,’ and that’s how it all began.” “I just started milking one cow, and then three cows, and then when I hit seven cows, I gave up my day job,” Johnson said. The bird flu X-factor According to the CDC, as of Dec. 20, there were 875 herd infections in 16 states since March, when the bird flu virus first spread to dairy cows. You can see real-time data here. There were 64 confirmed human cases of bird flu, nearly two-thirds of which are linked to cows. The real-time data is here. On Wednesday, California declared a state of emergency for avian flu due to detecting its spread to herds in the southern part of the state. So far it has not turned up in Connecticut, in either cows or people. The virus does concentrate in a cow’s mammary glands, according to Lucey at the Center for Dairy Research. So far, no human is known to have gotten sick with bird flu from drinking raw milk. Transmission seems to have come through contact such as spray from the milking process. Cats, however, may turn out to be the canaries in the coalmines — pardon the mixed metaphor. A number of farm cats that drank raw milk or found infected birds got sick and died — alerting health officials that something was up. Testing at the University of Wisconsin Influenza Research Institute, a very high-level virus lab, gave mice milk from one of the infected herds. The mice got sick. Lucey is blunt. “So if you drank milk from an infected cow, I hope you’ve got good health insurance,” he said. “I wouldn’t like to take that kind of risk.” What also has him and many others worried is that in addition to Kennedy’s anticipated leadership at HHS, there is speculation the Trump administration will end the ban on interstate sales of raw milk. “Really bad idea. Really just a terrible policy idea,” Lucey said. “Speaking as a member of the public, it’s just really dumb.” “I think it’s going to be just a wild west, not just for raw milk, but it will weaken the whole system for people who want to consume safe, regular milk,” he said. Removing the ban has been tried multiple times by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, including earlier this year as well as 2014, 2015, 2019, 2021, and as an amendment to the farm bill in 2018. Even the milk industry opposed it. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, said the idea of ending the ban on the interstate sale of raw milk is “not just misguided, it’s dangerous.” DeLauro has been a relentless advocate for food safety, repeatedly introducing legislation covering many aspects of it. As a toddler, she survived a bout with salmonella. “Public health must always take precedence over fringe deregulation efforts that put families, especially children, at unnecessary risk. We cannot compromise on food safety — this is about protecting our children’s health and lives,” she said in a statement. “There’s been a huge push at the state and local level to deregulate on food safety, and this is part of that push — so called food freedom laws,” said Sarah Sorscher of CSPI who called such efforts misguided in that they seek to promote small businesses by exempting them from food safety best practices. “The efforts to deregulate raw milk are part of that broader push to deregulate the food industry.” Sorscher said because the ban exists as a regulation, the Trump administration could have an easier time undoing it. She called it “one of the last barriers protecting consumers from just walking into a grocery store and unknowingly purchasing this really dangerous product and drinking it, thinking it’s safe.” “I would anticipate that we would have more infectious disease outbreaks,” said Juthani, noting that it would be harder to track down the source of any outbreak. And she said cooperation between states could be more challenging. “I would hope that if Congress acted in such a manner, then they would also take the appropriate precautions and put in a national standard, like they do with pasteurized milk,” Hurlburt said. UConn’s D’Amico agrees removing the ban on interstate sales could mean big trouble. “You can’t just take away a ban without having a support system in place to mitigate that risk you’ve just unleashed,” he said, adding that even the FDA would have a hard time regulating it. “It’s going to still be a mess.” But D’Amico also takes the practical approach that people will get raw milk regardless of whether it’s legal. “We should do our best to make it safer. And, you know, some of my colleagues will say, ‘Yeah, it’s called pasteurization’. I’ll say, ‘Yes, I understand that, but people who aren’t going to drink pasteurized milk are going to drink raw milk, and we need to help make those products safer,’” he said. “You should be really working hard to make sure that that product is as safe as any other product you’re allowing, rather than the ‘Well, we want nothing to do with it … so don’t yell at us when you get sick.’”