“I’ve put a couple kids in the hospital, and they have been sick, but they recovered,” McAfee acknowledged before my visit. “But here’s the thing: I’m a pioneer. And I’m going against the grain here. I’m climbing a mountain they say you can’t climb.”
…
“We catch these things and divert the milk immediately,” McAfee said of the pathogens.
I assumed that after diverting batches, the farm discarded them.
Later that day, I learned otherwise.
“We have a red-flag system here, where if there’s anything that gets really out of whack, they can immediately tag the milk, and it doesn’t go to anything but cheese,” McAfee told me. “Because, you know, cheese is resistant to pathogens.”
Research has shown that raw cheese is not, in fact, resistant to pathogens; while aging can mitigate some risk, harmful bacteria can still survive the usual 60-day maturation process.
Exactly how I feel about vaccines, except then people who are immunocompromised are additionally placed at risk.
Here’s what we should do: every adult who wants raw milk should be given a gun with one round in the chamber. Let them make it quick.
I mean with vaccines it’s about herd immunity. No vaccine is 100%, but if close to 100% of people get vaccinated the disease can die out. If it’s only half of us vaccinated we’re all still at risk.