>----- Original Message ----- >From: Virginia Salares <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 12:17 PM >Subject: Raw Milk - Submission to Health Canada > > >> http://www.magma.ca/~ca/rawmilk/submission.htm >> >> Virginia Salares >> >Hi Virginia > Are you aware of the health implications involved in the A2 milk issue?? - >Google search 'A2 milk' for more info. >Cheers >Lloyd Charles
Dear Virginia, Lloyd, et. al., Back when Pasteur came up with his process of pasteurization to cure the wine industry's problems of wine turning to vinegar, he was on to something. The trouble is the same principle does not apply to milk, although in our day good old bad science has prevailed again in the face of good sense. In the case of milk, there are immune cells, sometimes called somatic cells, leukocytes or white blood cells. These fight pathogens such as the common E. coli, Staph. aureus, Strep. etc. that are rather commonly found in the envrionments of milk cattle. While grape juice has no leukocytes, and thus has no means of fighting contamination, raw milk does. And what all the immune factors are in raw milk, we cannot know, for the scope of biochemistry can only penetrate the chemistry of milk maybe 10 or 20 percent--as when we analyse it, we must kill it. Thus the subtlety of its chemistry could be far greater than the scope of our ability to analyse it. But nevertheless we know that within the immune cells we have a terrific ability to fight pathogens. Pasteurization kills not only the majority of micro-organisms that exist in raw milk, it kills all the immune cells. Thus the resulting pasteurized milk, when it gets a bad micro-organism in it, the pathogen takes over big time. And we get some types we wouldn't have seen in raw milk, such as Listeria and Pasteurella. Studies from back in the thirties--I don't have the exact reference--show that amonst people drinking raw milk none got tuberculosis, while amongst those drinking pasteurized milk 7 to 9 percent did. Tuberculosis is one of the diseases that pasteurization is supposed to protect people against, yet the research indicates otherwise. An explanation of this was given to me by no less than Charles Murphy, the chief scientist of the Georgia Milk Commission. In his words, "Any more, milk in the store has so few micro-organisms in it that when people DO get some pathogen in their milk they have no acquired immunity." This makes some sense. When people drank fresh raw milk it contained a variety of immune factors, all of which we cannot know, but some of which are documented. When pasteurized, these are lost. So we may kill the tuberculosis organisms in the pasteurized milk that we drink, but we get no immunity to tuberculosis by drinking that milk. So if we encounter tuberculosis from other sources, we are lost. Is pasteurization of milk bad science, or what? Trust that in government money talks and science walks. Money can utilize bad science and get away with it, because lawmakers are usually not scientists though they usually have a keen appreciation of money. There are, of course, some exceptions, and I do not wish to malign all politicians. But generally what is the accepted scientific wisdom on any subject is ten to twenty years in advance of the laws. In some cases, like the fertilizer laws, it is a hundred years ahead. In others it may be only a couple years ahead. But on the average, 10 to 20 seems a safe figure. Best, Hugh Lovel >> Visit our website at: www.unionag.org
