Not so much for the parents, who are idiots.

getting something really good? I mean, on top of the antivaxxer stuff.

I haven't bought any goat milk in a while, but it's much more expensive than cow milk. The manufacturer in question handles all the production and distribution and they are a small producer. I doubt the markup is all that high.

It is usually produced by very small-scale local farmers.

I grew up on a small family "hobby"" farm (Dad had a regular job too), we had goats and cows, and we very occasionally sold goat's milk to someone whose child was medically unable to to digest cow's milk. We couldn't afford pasteurization and I know in that case purchasers had to sign something acknowledging the risk and holding us harmless. Or something like that (I was pretty small at the time so don't know the legal details. Maybe it wasn't really binding and that could explain why we didn't pursue it as a business).

But anyway even if mass-produced I'm sure, based on my experience, that goat's milk would be quite a bit more expensive than cow's milk.

Oh and to my knowledge I never ever got sick from drinking the raw milk from our goats or cows. But there are hygienic and unhygienic ways to get the milk. (the hygienic way means, among other things, that the barn cats get at least a couple squirts from each cow. That was the fun part. )

The reason why milk producers rarely get sick from drinking their own raw milk is because they get it as fresh as possible. Raw milk does not have nearly the shelf life of normally pasteurized milk and especially UHT pasteurized milk. It needs to be consumed within a few days of purchase and preferably obtained as local as possible.

yogurt or cheese.

Cows were fed diets insufficient to combat infections. Milk was extracted in extremely unsanitary conditions. No testing was being done. There was little to no infant formula that wasn't dairy based, so people fed milk to infants who either weren't breastfed or were weaned early.

prevents TB, brucellosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and Q fever.

When I was small my father was a dairy farmer and we drank the milk without pasteurization and were okay but the conditions of many farms were very bad. Plus when you milked a cow the milk was all poured into the same storage cans. If one cow was sick her milk went into that can also making all of it dangerous. I do remember some testing but do not know what it was for. The inspector would come and stay at the house over night. To this day I wonder why they did that.

Today many of the diseases that cattle got then are stopped by the antibiotics they put in the food for the animals. Which in itself is causing troubles. I wonder which diseases would come back if they stopped using the antibiotics?

...but it's just a matter of cause vs effect. With proper regulation and consumer education, raw milk is a perfectly safe product.

The primary reason antibiotics are given to livestock because they boost milk production (for dairy) and it boosts animal weight. In both cases the gain is around 10%, so it makes those products that much cheaper. The cost of this practice is antibiotic resistant diseases in animals.

at them. What I saw was some really sickly looking pigs - skinny, listless. If it were not for the resistance problem I can definitely understand the use of antibiotics.

Just wait until they start turning themselves blue with their colloidal silver obsession.

As Janet Jackson once said, "Flushing out the sad cells."

Delusional people. Fad bullshit. All of it!

Now where did I leave my neti pot?

if you are an adult, have a conversation with your doctor about antibody testing, yes they can do that.

Mine, came back to the point of are you sure you ever got vaccinated? So got the MMR.

And most adults do not think about this one.

Just thought I'd help out the local anti science crowds

Do you mean Monsatan?

your title is blatantly false. Anti-vax has nothing to do with this story other than serving as a convenient red herring.

Just sayin'

It's freedom, damnit!
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

This was a misleading title. Too bad, since both issues are important, although unrelated. Very poor journalism from Rawstory. Too bad it got reproduced here on DU, with an even poorly worded thread title.

drinking raw milk.

People say "Oh, heck, people used to drink raw milk all he time and didn't get sick!" But the current strains of e coli and the like are deadly. I know there is a difference between un-pasteurized and raw but the message needs to get out that this stuff is nothing to play around with.

Raw oysters, sushi, raw spinach and other raw leafy vegetables are just a few examples. Is there an increased risk of consuming all of these things compared to other foods? Perhaps, but one needs to consider how much to make an informed decision. Lots of people consume raw food products. Very few get sick. Cooked foods and pasteurized products aren't without risks either. The biggest risks of pathogenic contamination exists right in people's own kitchens.

That's why public health laws requiring pasteurization were enacted-- in response to a very real public health problem.

raw cow's milk. What bitter irony: the regimen he followed because of obsessive concern over his health is what led to his contracting the disease that killed him.

I sometimes read the blogs of people who offer extreme dietary and behavioral advice. (I have a kind of anthropological interest in such things.) I gasp at some of their bizarre suggestions--and at the fact that there are people who actually follow their advice.

Actually as an adult, she still is and drinks goats or almond milk. Lactaid doesn't work. While I breastfed her until she weaned herself at 20 months, her pediatrician recommended goats milk as supplement at 9 months old. I bought powered goats milk (not sold in containers in supermarkets then) and mixed it myself. In fact, I gave it to her throughout her school years. A few years ago, she bought, as an adult, goats milk at a farm. Not pasteurized.

...the natural sugar in milk - the condition called lactose intolerance. That is totally different from being sensitive to the protein - milk allergy.

BUT...

These are people obsessed with "natural" stuff, food and whatnot.

So I'd say it's a good bet that some of the parents are anti-vaxx.

Here in Wisconsin a few farmers want to sell (at a hugely inflated price, of course,) "raw" cow's milk.

They claim (with no evidence, of course,) "raw" milk is "better for us."