Could those consumers just go for pasteurized milk and let others have the choice they want?

> Could those consumers just go for pasteurized milk and let others have the choice they want?

People can have the choice they want. It requires that you shoulder the risk yourself, rather than having it pushed on you by someone who is financially benefitting from it.

No, through painful experience we have arrived at a system where people can go to a store and purchase food without needing to develop the expertise and expend enough time to be reasonably confident that it won't kill them.

For the same reasons we also restrict the sale of expired meat or adulterated baby formula.

You didn't answer them. Why isn't the consumer allowed to make the decision for themselves.

Yes there are liars and cheats out there as in everything. Why can't the consumer decide who is lying and who isn't and what is safe and what isnt

What makes you think consumers have the bandwidth to do that for every single product they consume? What makes you think that requiring every single person does this contributes to a healthy economy? As a simple counterargument, how many children are you willing to let die due to contaminated raw milk in order for this absolute "freedom" to be honored, and what makes you think those values make sense at societal scales?

Have you seen the thread yesterday where someone was complaining that they are dying and the government is preventing them from trying an experimental treatment? You guys should talk :)

And there were so many comments lamenting the total lack of sense of forbidding certain treatments....

As in many situations, there is a balance to be struck. It's just so sad seeing so many people, presumably smart people, complaining about how an opinion opposed to theirs can't possibly make any sense whatsoever. This is why we can't have nice things.

We can't have nice things because people ignore nuance in order to make bad faith arguments :)

There is a difference between "we don't know the effects of this treatment, there is reason to believe it could work but we have no statistics, so the risk is on you" and "we know the negative effects of this product, we have plenty of statistics on the empirical risk, so we made a decision to limit the behaviors of those providing the product".

Thinking this experiement a few steps further:

1) Government bans nothing, citizens are expected to do their own research for their protection

2) Business models are developed to communicate reliable, trustworthy products.

3) Unscrupulous businesses lie about the benifits of their products, and sue the other businesses doing (2) for libel. The courts, already overwhelmed, back up, and these bad businesses can take their money, disolve, and vanish before their cases finish, leaving consumers harmed and misled with no recourse.

There are companies that are rather efficent at coming into existance to bring a few products, and then vanishing, for whatever reasons.

> Why can't the consumer decide who is lying and who isn't and what is safe and what isnt

Expertise, incentive, and efficiency. We had the approach you suggest, we got rid of it because we tired of people dying.

I greatly enjoy being able to purchase things without regularly having to send them off for analysis. If you'd like to drink raw milk buy a cow.

If you want pasteurized milk, buy pasteurized milk.

You're claiming that a federal agency is useful because of efficiency. My sides.

Yes, yes, don't think, just mock.

People being defrauded, injured, poisoned, and dying must be much more efficient. That's the reality that drove the formation of these agencies.

I'm sure an inability to trust the safety, quality, and accuracy of the things one buys wouldn't have any negative effect at all on a market.

The illustrious and unbesmirched track record of the worlds major auditing, accountancy, and credit firms has demonstrated beyond doubt that private enterprise can truly be trusted to handle these matters in a manner that puts society's needs at the forefront.

Since we're already laughing, I propose we go further! Privatising the military would unleash the inherent good and efficiency only found within corporations. A free market of privately held armies, competing against one another for the benefit of society. Federal taxes would drop drastically, what could go wrong?

> That's the reality that drove the formation of these agencies.

I said federal agencies are inefficient. You argued they were created for a reason. This isn't exactly an argument.

The argument is that they're more efficient than the alternatives:

> People being defrauded, injured, poisoned, and dying must be much more efficient

> I'm sure an inability to trust the safety, quality, and accuracy of the things one buys wouldn't have any negative effect at all on a market.

And that private business is not an alternative, having given rise to the need for such an agency in the first place and a demonstrated inability to oversee, audit, or classify honestly:

> The illustrious and unbesmirched track record of the worlds major auditing, accountancy, and credit firms has demonstrated beyond doubt that private enterprise can truly be trusted to handle these matters in a manner that puts society's needs at the forefront.

That's not to say that the public agencies responsible couldn't be improved but the idea that privatisation of these matters leads to increased efficiency is farcical.

Pasteurization switched from the old to new method [0]; the health issue with milk is not just the condition when it was produced, but the growth of pathogens afterwards, during the supply-chain:

* From c. 1910-end 1960’s, milk was treated by batch pasteurization at 63°C/145°F for 30 mins (pathogenic bacteria killed off as measured by 1960s technology, but flavor barely affected)

* Since then industry switched to HTST pasteurization at 72°C/162°F for 15 seconds (kills more pathogens; 120 times faster but affects flavor)

* Even higher-temperature methods are HHST and UHT [1]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization#Efficacy_agains...

[1]: https://www.idfa.org/pasteurization

(PS: By a twist of history, Al Capone was also responsible for expiration dates on US milk bottles)

US milk producers also refused to pasteurize for decades after some European countries started, only because it would slightly decrease their profits. So they put formaldehyde and other stuff in it instead.

Then you just inact harsh punishments for farmers that do so, like every other criminal law ever made? Why would you ban restaurants entirely because people might get sick eating from one every so often.

If you'll sell $2000 more raw milk when you lie about its safety and the potential fine is $200k that will ruin your life if you're caught doing so, the trade off is not worth it. This is also the problem with corporate America in general, the fines are too damn small and are just taken as operating costs instead of nuclear deterrent.

> Why would you ban restaurants entirely because people might get sick eating from one every so often.

We do "ban" restaurants that sell to consumers while failing to take the proper precautions in the storage and handling of food.

When selling to consumers, the proper precautions for the storage and handling of milk is to pasteurise it.

So is cooking or curing meat before eating it, but sushi restaurants haven't been blanket banned. There's a difference between driving one farmer that poisons people out of business and prohibiting it entirely.

Even stuff like fugu which can genuinely kill you remains legal. The difference is being told the caveats upfront loud and clear, instead of trying to hide it and lying to people. That's the crux of the issue isn't it, after all? Being informed enough to be able to make your own decisions, and making those disclaimers required by law. That's what needs addressing, not banning shit because it's easy.

> So is cooking or curing meat before eating it, but sushi restaurants haven't been blanket banned. There's a difference between driving one farmer that poisons people out of business and prohibiting it entirely.

I'm not sure why people always bring up sushi restaurants so incorrectly when discussing this topic.

Much like the requirement to pasteurise milk, when fish are caught we require they are processed to destroy bacteria and parasites via freezing.

> Even stuff like fugu which can genuinely kill you remains legal.

I had trouble establishing how widespread the legality of Fugu is. Some articles claim it's widely banned, whereas others that it must be imported from Japan, which requires the individual to be licensed.

The other difference is that fugu is entirely safe when prepared with care. Applying safety measures to the production of unpasteurised milk can reduce the risk of introducing new/more bacteria but it cannot remove any already present.

Someone dies, someone gets a fine, all good now, let the free market train continue.

Raw milk products are routinely consumed in France, I've never heard of someone getting sick from it.

I'm not a big fan of milk consumption, but maybe the US should just send farmers and industrials to jail when they put people lives at risks.

> Raw milk products are routinely consumed in France, I've never heard of someone getting sick from it.

Raw milk itself is not routinely consumed though. Apparently, 95% of the milk used by consumers is UHT[0]. People do get sick from unpasteurised end-products as well:

> In France over the last decade, 34%, 37% and 60% of outbreaks of salmonellosis, listeriosis and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) infections respectively have been linked to the consumption of raw-milk cheeses.[1]

April this year[2]:

> Five people are sick in France, two seriously, and one in Belgium after drinking a brand of raw fermented milk.

In 2019[3]:

> The Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O26 outbreak was from March to mid-May. In total, 19 cases were identified, with 18 confirmed, of which 17 had HUS and were hospitalized. One child and an adult only had diarrhea. Of HUS cases, eight had neurological complications.

The article mentions another outbreak in 2018.

[0] https://www.filiere-laitiere.fr/en/milk-products/drinking-mi...

[1] https://www.anses.fr/en/content/raw-milk-cheeses-what-are-as...

[2] https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2023/05/six-e-coli-infections... fermented-raw-milk/

[3] https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2020/12/report-details-2019-f...

Sounds more like inadequate testing than any deficiency in raw milk. It’s still absurd to deny people who want raw milk from obtaining it. Gatekeeping of the worst kind.

People are prohibited from selling it. You may obtain all you'd like, no one's stopping you shooting it straight from the teat.

An ice cream maker and husband of a dairy farmer puts it better than I could[0].

> My wife is 53 and has drunk raw milk pretty much daily all her life. However, we know the hygiene of our cows and of our milking process, and we know our herd is free of TB and MAP.

> I am NOT a raw milk advocate for the simple reason that these health and safety issues are tough, and serious. So I would not drink the raw milk from another farmer’s cows. There’s simply too much risk.

[0] https://www.quora.com/Why-does-raw-milk-taste-different-from...