There are a small handful of truly benchmark events in the human history of disease, misery, and death.   Joseph Lister's idea that surgeries should take place in a sterile environment, and that medical equipment should be cleaned between uses.  Edward Jenner's theory of vaccination, when he noted that milkmaids who caught cowpox did not subsequently catch smallpox.  And the nation-wide pasteurization of our nation's milk supply, which occurred in the late 1800s.

Prior to the pasteurization of milk, people consumed raw milk exclusively.  After Louis Pasteur discovered germs in 1864, raw milk was found to be positively seething with contagious disease, including tuberculosis and brucellosis, not to mention bacterial contaminants like e. coli.  It's impossible to know how many people were sickened by raw milk, but the number is surely astronomical.  Not least because the nationwide distribution system - both then and now - pooled local deliveries of milk into one giant vat for distribution.  The milk from one sick cow on one particular isolated farm can quickly spread to contaminate an entire region's milk.

At the same time, it must be acknowledged that pasteurized milk is inferior to raw milk in a few regards.  Pasteurization also destroys some of the helpful bacteria, which are required to make certain cheeses.  It also harms the taste, according to raw milk connoisseurs.

And then you have the supposed health benefits.  The helpful bacteria which are killed in pasteurization are also sold on the market as probiotics, which we have discussed before.  Raw food advocates believe that pasteurization also destroys the nutrients and vitamins in milk.  And some people believe that it has the power to cure diseases, even (rather implausibly) cancer.

Certainly, young children, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems should not drink raw milk.  And it is dangerous - Kafka may have caught his lethal tuberculosis from raw milk.  But couldn't you say the same thing about sushi, cigarettes, whiskey, and a thousand other things that are legal for sale in the United States?  

In fact, raw milk is perfectly legal for sale pretty much everywhere but the United States and Canada. In other countries, people make the informed decision as to whether they want to buy pasteurized or unpasteurized milk .  (Not to mention wacky shelf-stable UHT milk, which requires no refrigeration even after being opened.)

Twenty eight states currently do not have rules forbidding the sale of raw milk.  As for the other 22 states, the law has criminalized milk.  People who want to drink raw milk have to buy it an underground black market network of hush-hush dairy deliveries, eerily reminiscent of rum running under Prohibition.  Transporting raw milk across state lines for human consumption is a federal crime, and one which many states have been enforcing.  

Make no mistake: this is serious business.  Agents from the Georgia Department of Agriculture recently impounded a shipment of raw milk, and the milk club's leader is in danger of being charged with a federal crime.  

Regardless of whether you personally would choose raw or pasteurized milk at the grocery store, doesn't it seem a bit silly that the law requires this kind of crack down on raw milk?  For safety reasons our commercial national milk supply should continue to be pasteurized, but I don't see why people shouldn't be able to buy raw milk directly from a dairy if they choose.