Minnesota advocates continue to push to broaden the use of raw milk products, despite their latest string of legislative failures.
Backers of raw milk are pushing to make the potentially dangerous product more widely available and easier to obtain, even as outbreaks have sickened people across the nation. More than three dozen bills supporting raw milk have been introduced in statehouses.
Pasteurization kills those germs by heating the milk, commonly to at least 161 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 15 seconds. Experts have said it has no significant impact on milk’s nutritional quality.
The local effort in Minnesota mirrors a contentious national battle that pits agricultural freedom against health experts warning of severe bacterial risks, especially for children, says Pediatrician Gigi Chawla of Children's Minnesota.
"These are illnesses like campylobacter, salmonella, e-coli, they need strong antibiotics in order to treat," Chawla explains.
During this year's state legislative session, another attempt to update various dairy standards failed to advance.
Minnesota Republican Senator Andrew Lang says it's a fight he supports. Lang represents Minnesota District 16, which encompasses Chippewa, Kandiyohi, Renville, and Swift counties, strong agricultural communities and dairy farms.
"I think that within the realm of individual freedoms, being able to consume a product should sure be allowed, and not regulated so highly," adds Lang.
He says in future legislative sessions, state lawmakers who support the move will continue to look for alternatives to loosen current dairy restrictions.
The latest attempt to expand raw milk sales in the state wasn't a simple bid for total deregulation, but instead a blueprint for a brand-new state permitting system.
Senate File 1126 would have forced unpasteurized dairy producers to pass regular inspections and complete annual herd health checks.
But that effort didn't make it far. Lang, who has authored similar dairy bills, says this push at the capitol has been a long fight.
"The state shouldn't really probably be involved in something that people have been doing for millennia," Lang adds. "As far as consumer protection, absolutely. I mean there are always those avenues."
He says the goal would be to strike a balance between safety concerns about bacteria and the interests of local farming advocates.
Top government officials and internet influencers are helping drive this momentum. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. downed shots of raw milk at the White House last May and previously promised to halt “aggressive suppression” of the product.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, a leading infectious disease expert and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, strongly warns against consuming raw milk.
"It's really a dangerous practice. I've worked up far too many outbreaks of people severely ill from consuming raw milk and getting infected with any number of bacteria and viruses. So today we'd be concerned about people drinking this milk relative to the potential to become infected with this flu virus," says Osterholm.
"The state shouldn't really probably be involved in something that people have been doing for millennia"
"The state shouldn't really probably be involved in something that people have been doing for millennia"
