(NewsNation) — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, has long been a proponent of natural food choices.
One includes raw milk, which has become mainstream in the health and wellness communities recently. Kennedy has admitted when he drinks milk it is solely the unpasteurized variety.
Last month, he proclaimed on X the “FDA’s war on public health” would come to an end, including “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”
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The FDA wrote about “the dangers of raw milk” in May, suggesting it “can harbor dangerous germs that can pose serious health risks to you and your family.”
An April article from the CDC says pasteurization is “crucial for milk safety, killing harmful germs that can cause illness.”
The CDC adds raw milk “can carry dangerous germs such as Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, Campylobacter, and others that cause foodborne illness, often called “food poisoning.”
It adds that 2,645 illnesses and 228 hospitalizations occurred between 1998 and 2018 from drinking raw milk.
Some champion positive health returns from drinking unpasteurized milk, including raw milk farmer Cliff McConville.
“I can tell you that I used to get sick like three times a year, like, you know, with colds or flu, and I almost never get sick anymore,” McConville said.
Farmers and raw milk advocates argue that the dairy industry is against raw milk because it’s bad for their bottom line.
Conversely, health advocates argue that we have the tools to make milk safer now, and ignoring that is a step backward.