Raw deal

You know, there are things humans used to do that we've stopped doing, and usually it's for a good reason.  Bloodletting in order to cure infectious diseases, for example.  You would think this would have gone out of vogue sooner than it did, given that the treatment so often had the unfortunate side effect of death.  But these were the days before malpractice lawsuits, so perhaps that explains it.

The problem is, there's a mystique connected to stuff our ancestors did, and a whole "back to our roots" movement amongst people who apparently have an inordinate fondness for surgery without anesthesia and no indoor plumbing.  The idea is that we need to jettison three hundred years of scientific advances, which have made us the longest-lived and healthiest human society the world has ever known, simply because it sounds appealing to do things "the old way."

As an example of this, take the whole "raw milk" phenomenon.  The idea is that the nasty technological processes of pasteurization and homogenization are screwing up the nutritive value of milk, and we need to be going back to the straight-from-the-cow stuff.  This conveniently ignores the fact that the two processes, especially pasteurization, were invented to increase the shelf life of milk and to prevent the consumption of dairy products from being an avenue for such unpleasantness as cryptosporidium, shigellosis, and TB, which used to be a serious problem.  People forget that those diseases have declined not only from the use of antibiotics to treat them, but a combination of better farming practices and higher food safety standards to stop them from spreading in the first place.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Which is something that a couple in Australia should have been told before they gave their three-year-old son raw milk that had been approved as a "milk bath" but had big "NOT SAFE FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION" and "FOR COSMETIC PURPOSES ONLY" messages on the label.  But to hell with that, right?  "Raw" means "natural" and "natural" means "good."  After drinking the raw milk, the little boy developed an E. coli infection that led to blood sepsis and thrombotic microangiopathy, which is as horrible as it sounds.  Symptoms include kidney failure, high fever, and poor blood clotting.  It's almost always fatal.

Which it was in this case.  The child died on October 4.

Under Australian law, the parents apparently can't be prosecuted, although you have to wonder what constitutes negligent homicide if this doesn't.  On the other hand, the case has prompted authorities to propose a new law that will fine someone $60,000 if (s)he knowingly gives someone a product to eat that is labeled as unsafe for human consumption.

Which, of course, is too little and too late for the child, who died solely because his parents are back-to-the-earth morons who have never heard of the naturalistic fallacy.

I know that makes me sound unfeeling, but for fuck's sake, a little boy died here.  If you want to give up technology and medical advances and go live in a yurt in the woods, knock yourself out.  But to visit your Luddite tendencies upon a child who has no voice in the matter is nothing short of child endangerment.  And apparently they're not the only ones who've done this.  Drinking raw milk -- including milk certified for cosmetic use only -- is becoming commonplace, despite the fact that it can be associated with severe health problems.  (Four other children in Australia were hospitalized in the past year with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a complication of E. coli infection, from drinking raw milk.)

The advances we've made in science are called "advances" for a reason.  Yes, I know they have come with tradeoffs -- from pollution to the profit motive -- but on balance, there is a good reason that our average life expectancy is over twice what it was in the Middle Ages.  Childhood mortality is extremely low, and hundreds of diseases that were death sentences a century ago are now completely treatable.

So if you think it's a good idea to jettison all that, that's up to you.  But don't bring your kids along on the ride.

Milk of human kindness

I'm not a big believer in schadenfreude -- taking pleasure in other people's misfortune.  The habit of compassion is just too strongly ingrained in me.  But there are times that a person who richly deserves it receiving swift comeuppance is simply impossible to ignore.

Take, for example, the West Virginia lawmakers who passed a bill last week to legalize the sale of raw milk.  Raw milk was eliminated from the market in 1987, when the FDA mandated the pasteurization of all milk and milk products.  For good reason; there are a lot of bacteria in raw milk, and in fact the consumption of raw milk was a major pathway for the transmission of such horrible diseases as brucellosis and tuberculosis.

The FDA's statement on the topic is unequivocal:

Milk and milk products provide a wealth of nutrition benefits. But raw milk can harbor dangerous microorganisms that can pose serious health risks to you and your family. According to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), between 1993 and 2006 more than 1500 people in the United States became sick from drinking raw milk or eating cheese made from raw milk. In addition, CDC reported that unpasteurized milk is 150 times more likely to cause foodborne illness and results in 13 times more hospitalizations than illnesses involving pasteurized dairy products. 

Raw milk is milk from cows, sheep, or goats that has not been pasteurized to kill harmful bacteria. This raw, unpasteurized milk can carry dangerous bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria, which are responsible for causing numerous foodborne illnesses. 

These harmful bacteria can seriously affect the health of anyone who drinks raw milk, or eats foods made from raw milk. However, the bacteria in raw milk can be especially dangerous to people with weakened immune systems, older adults, pregnant women, and children. In fact, the CDC analysis found that foodborne illness from raw milk especially affected children and teenagers.

But there are always people who are (1) doubters of hard science, and (2) resent any government interference in their god-given right to do stupid stuff.  And when these two characteristics meet, we have problems.

So the lawmakers in West Virginia passed their bill allowing the sale of raw milk, and the delegate who sponsored the bill, Scott Cadle, decided to toast their success by drinking some.

The whole lot of them were laid low a day later by nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

[screen capture from video]

Of course, that's not enough for people who ignored all of the FDA's warnings to begin with.  Delegate Pat McGeehan, in between elbowing his fellow lawmakers out of the way to reach the bathroom in time, said, "I highly doubt raw milk had anything to do with it, in my case."

I think if I had to choose my least favorite common contagious disease, it would have to be stomach flu.  Fortunately, I don't get it often, but the time I had it the worst -- a never-to-be-forgotten twelve hour period of presumed food poisoning in Belize -- I would have happily jumped off a cliff to end my misery, had I had the strength to do anything other than kneel on the floor with my face in the toilet.  But even so, I have to admit I laughed when I read about this.  It's all very well to rail against government regulation, and I actually agree that governments often go way overboard in trying to license and regulate and restrict damn near everything.  (Take, for example, a law still on the books in Philadelphia that requires bloggers to purchase a $300 business privilege license, a practice that puts 99% of bloggers in the red.)

On the other hand, there are some regulations that are there for a reason, and the restrictions on selling unsafe foods are among them.  And as far as the sick West Virginia delegates, I hope they're all feeling better by now.

But I still think it's kind of funny.