A lot more than most people think, or that the CDC has said much about.
Steve Bemis digs into the Population Survey Atlas of Exposures, 2006-2007
It was huge, conducting telephone interviews with 17,372 interviewees representing a population of 45,883,553 people in the listed ten states, from May 2006 to April 2007.So, how many raw milk drinkers?
Based on the CDC’s own survey, the average number of people drinking raw milk in this 2006-2007 sampling was 3.0% of the population, ranging from 2.3% in Minnesota to 3.8% in Georgia.That's right, Georgia has the highest percentage of the states surveyed (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee; see page 13). And out of 9 million people, 3.8% would be about 342,000 people. Not bad for a state where selling raw milk for human consumption is illegal.
Or around 9 million total raw milk drinkers in the USA. Why does this matter?
From what I have read, the number of reported illnesses from raw milk, excluding queso fresco and similar raw milk soft cheeses, could vary anywhere from approximately 50 to 150 per year over the last 15 years. There were no deaths reported from consuming fluid raw milk over this entire period. Using the 9 million raw milk drinker universe and 50-150 annual illnesses, this suggests an annual raw milk illness rate in the range of 0.001% to 0.002% of raw milk drinkers.And zero deaths. Compare that to 553 Salmonella deaths, out of 1,341,873 cases. Mead PS et al. (1999). "Food-related illness and death in the United States". Emerg Infect Dis 5 (5): 607–25. doi:10.3201/eid0505.990502. PMC 2627714. PMID 10511517. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol5no5/mead.htm. 10.3201/eid0505.990502 You're much more likely to die and far more likely to get sick from eating in a restaurant than from drinking raw milk from grass-fed cows. And all the widespread outbreaks of food-borne illness have originated from factory farms. Hm, maybe we should outlaw factory farms instead of raw milk.
-jsq
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