Milk is an important part of a person's diet. Unfortunately, it can
also carry certain organisms that can cause severe disease in humans (1).
One way to prevent this is by pasteurizing the milk. Pasteurization kills
the organisms that cause disease without destroying the milk. It also increases
the shelf life of milk by destroying proteins and bacteria in the milk
that cause it to spoil. Some people do not like the idea of pasteurizing
their milk and feel raw milk (unpasteurized milk) is better. With this
practice of drinking raw milk comes some increased risks of getting sick.
Click
here for one example of a raw milk product causing an Escherichia
coli O157:H7 outbreak in Wisconsin (United States). Below are some
diseases associated with drinking raw milk.
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| 1.Campylobacteriosis | Campylobacter sp. | diarrhea |
| 2. Salmonellosis | Salmonella sp. | bloody diarrhea |
| 3. Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome | E. coli O157:H7 | diarrhea, kidney failure, death |
| 4. Yersiniosis | Yersinsia enterocolitica | diarrhea |
| 5. Listeriosis | Listeria monocytogenes | meningitis, blood infections |
| 6. Tuberculosis | Mycobacterium tuberculosis | tuberculosis; pneumonia |
| 7. Brucellosis | Brucella sp. | blood infections, heart infections |
| 8. Cryptosporidiosis | Cryptosporidium parvum | diarrhea |
| 9. Staphylococcal enterotoxin poisoning | Staphylococcus aureus | vomiting |
| 10. Q fever | Coxiella burnetti | high fever, severe headache, muscle aches (can infect the liver and/or heart) |
For more information on how milk is pasteurized click on the University of Guelph's Dairy Science and Technology page.
1.Potter ME, Kaufmann AF, Blake PA, Feldman RA. Unpasteurized milk: the hazards of a health fetish. JAMA 1984;252:2048-2052.
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