Freedom to Be Sick

Pasteur

We know the great French scientist of the 19^th Century, Louis Pasteur, as one of the fathers of “germ theory”.   He created the rabies vaccine, preventing certain death from the bites of rabid animals.  And, he was a practical man.  He developed vaccinations for not just rabies, but also anthrax and cholera.  

When I was a child, I read the “Landmark Book” of Louis Pasteur. He occasionally bent the rules of “science”.  It was only after brief experimentation (fifty dogs) that Pasteur applied his rabies vaccination to a human. He used it on nine-year old Joseph Meister, badly mauled by a rabid dog.  In fact, Pasteur didn’t have a medical license, and so he supervised the process as the actual injections were made by a doctor.  

While it was really a no-lose situation – if the boy developed rabies it would surely kill him – it certainly wasn’t up to scientific standards even then.  But the boy survived, and rabies vaccinations today are improved from the original, incredibly painful, seventeen shot series  (one per day) in the stomach.  It’s now  four or five shots in the arm, similar in pain to tetanus shots.

Germ Theory

Pasteur applied his germ theory to prevention of disease.  So, he invented the process named after him, pasteurization.  It raised the temperature of a product, such as milk (and since he was French, wine of course) to kill bacteria.  This allowed for not only safer products, but also increased the shelf life.  Diseases such as tuberculosis, brucellosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and Q fever were prevented, as well as food poisoning from salmonella, listeria,  and Escherichia coli (Michigan).  That was in the 1860’s.

So, unless you grew up on a dairy farm and took a “straight shot” after milking,  all the milk we consume is pasteurized.   And looking at the disease list above, it’s a good thing.

Liberty

This week, some Republicans in the Ohio State Legislature are proposing to legalize raw milk production for human consumption.  One of the co-sponsors of the legislation, Kellie Deeter of Norwalk, says the quiet part out-loud:

“I’m personally not a raw milk advocate; I’m a liberty advocate,” Deeter said. “As long as people understand what they’re consuming,” (Newark Advocate).

And that’s a problem.  “In Florida, 21 people — including six children younger than 10 — have suffered infections since January after drinking raw milk from a dairy farm.”(Newark Advocate).

It’s the new MAGA-Republican “mantra”; freedom over science.  So what if non-pasteurized milk can cause all of the diseases.   It’s all about the “liberty” to make dangerous choices for themselves, their children and even unborn children.

Raw, unpasteurized milk has a cult-like following in some health food circles.  It’s one of the recommendations from Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr as part of his “MAHA” (Make America Healthy Again) program. Raw milk advocates even have a slick website put together, the Raw Milk Institute, extolling the virtues of raw milk, and displaying pictures of cute children pouring glasses of it. They claim it’s “just like human breast milk”.  But it’s not.

Science

Science proves it.  Pasteur fixed it, 165 years ago.  But today, science doesn’t “count” anymore.  After all, there’s a website, and there’s folks with letters after their names (MD, DVM, PhD, MS) that say raw milk’s great!! So who needs to listen to science?  Like pharmaceuticals, they claim it’s “Big Dairy” that’s keeping the “wonder” of raw milk from American consumers; forcing us to drink cheap, unsanitary, long-shelf-life “CAFO” milk (CAFO – Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, a “dirty word” for big dairy farms). 

It’s the so-called mystery of our time, the “specter” of big business, keeping health away from us regular folks in order to sustain their profits And while there may be a kernel of truth in that, there’s also a reality:  a product that has known dangers shouldn’t be marketed as a “wonder food”.  Remember, cigarettes in the 1930’s were “physician tested and approved!” (Healio).  Even more, good public health should do whatever it can to mitigate risks.  That’s not just common sense, but financially sound.  Treating folks who get sick costs all of us in one way or another.  If public health can prevent those expenses, it makes all health care a little bit cheaper.

What we shouldn’t do is allow already known dangers to be legal in the name of “FREEDOM”.