politics

Good analogy, actually, since masks both reduce the risk to the wearer and reduce the risk of the wearer spreading whatever they're carrying to those around them.

Unfortunately raw milk can be a vector for avian flu and if (when) it achieves human-to-human transmission, these people will be vectors.

I understand where you're coming from, but then they just become a vector for nasties (e.g. avian flu when it finally overcomes the human-to-human transmission barrier, and you can be sure they won't take adequate precautions to avoid spreading it) as well as risking the health of their children.

They will catch viruses that will kill the rest of us. Protecting the population against communicable diseases requires altruism and cooperation, of which conservatives seem incapable.

there's also a big difference between drinking minutes old raw milk directly straight out of the teet, vs commercial operations where the milk is a few hours to days old and is bottled with equipment that isn't perfectly cleaned between each bottle and then consumers sticking it in a fridge for a week. The former is just something farmers are going to do if they want and isn't really a serious public health concern imo (although still not without risk) and can't really be regulated away anyway. the latter exposes way more people and is way more dangerous, and that IS able to be regulated out of existence.

Although this is anecdotal evidence I think you have a few good points. I'd be willing to let the practice be more common as long as the product stayed local (within the county) and the cows were kept in specific conditions (not shoulder to shoulder 24/7). The data regarding this is very small so I wouldn't want stuff to start being transported hundreds of miles until there's some kind of established safety record.

Raw milk is also an active transmission vector for bird flu, which has a mortality rate, by some measures, of about 51%. COVID was about 1 or 2%.

Been only buying organic milk for 10+ years now out of preference, it stays fresh for much longer than normal milk. This is because USDA Organic milk is ultra-pasteurized in almost the same way as shelf-stable milk.

I searched and found this article and they reported that there's virtually no difference in nutrients between the options:

https://www.100daysofrealfood.com/is-ultra-pasteurized-milk-bad/

So if all the nutrients are the same, the only difference in less pasteurization is more bacteria. Fuck that!

Unfortunately it's not that simple. Avian flu and other viruses can potentially spread from cows to humans, where it's more likely to mutate and spread. It's never the risk-accepters that suffer most. It's always the sick, the poor, the very young and the very old, and the healthcare workers who suffer. The people who refused to get vaccines or take even basic precautions with COVID killed a lot of people, while the vast majority of those assholes survived.

If no one else has mentioned it, there are also those idiotic fascists (but I repeat myself) that were/are big on guzzling milk to show how "superior" they are because lactose intolerance is fairly common, but even more common among non-whites.

Extra Nazi points if it's raw milk, maybe?

In addition to what everyone else has said, I think it's also from ideas of "return to tradition" and a veneration of a kind of rural lifestyle that largely doesn't exist anymore. My extended family are farmers and even they got out of livestock when I was really young because there's not enough profit except at obscene scale. But milk fresh from the cow was a thing I grew up hearing about from cousins, it was apparently viewed as safe enough for the older kids as long as you cleaned the teat and it was really really fresh. But I wouldn't be surprised if the conditions in factory farms added another layer of risk that just wasn't there in the 90s on the last remaining family farms.

Edit: also some of them are operating under the mistaken idea that raw milk is healthier or more nutritious (it's not), or that or tastes better (actually possible, I actually heard it tasted slightly better as a kid).

I think it's one of the easiest ways they can "stick it to the man".

Brawndo hasn’t been invented yet.

Science-denying anti-intellectualism mixed with "you can't tell me what to do!"

They're like toddlers. You tell them they shouldn't and they will do everything in their power to do it anyways. They don't believe in science so everything is a "radical far left jewish space laser" conspiracy to take away their freedumbs.

The only half reasonable argument I've seen is that requiring pasteurisation (supposedly) makes it difficult for small dairy farms that want to sell direct to consumer, and forces them to sell to large milk companies for a far lower price. I have no idea how valid that argument is.

It's anti vax and anti regulation so basically a maga wet dream. Squeeze cow, milk, ta da. In reality to the other 3/4 of humanity it's a microbial breeding ground for unfiltered mutations and diseases because you're just trusting the entire food chain leading up to the cow has been healthy and unmutated.

Pasteurized milk goes through a process where you filter out unwanted microbes or unsafe mutations before bottling the milk. It's like boiling water before drinking vs drinking from a puddle.

As far as I can tell: It's partially the same shit as the anti vaccine mixed with being angry about government regulations.

A lot of the anecdotes I've heard about raw.milk being safe, are from small farms with few dairy cows.