Across the country, the thirst for an illegal drink is growing. Raw milk isn’t legally sold for human consumption in many states, but about 11 million Americans drink it anyway as wellness influencers including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tout its benefits. They do this despite a known risk of illness and death: E. coli, salmonella and listeria have all been found in unpasteurized milk.

This year the list was expanded to include a new pathogen. Bird flu was first detected in American dairy cows in March, and in June an FDA study found infectious virus particles in dozens of raw milk samples. Previous bird flu outbreaks have collectively killed more than half of those infected. This week, California health officials temporarily halted production at raw milk dairy Raw Farm because they discovered bird flu viruses in its products. Mark McAfee, who runs Raw Farm, told me that “our consumers are freaking out” — not because they fear being exposed to a potentially deadly virus, but because their supplies are at stake. McAfee said concerns about further closures have left raw milk drinkers across the country “trying to get what they can.”

To most Americans, stocking up on bird flu juice may seem pointless, and yet it’s a logical extension of the ideology that drives raw milk enthusiasts. The fundamental appeal of raw milk is that its rawness – which includes all the biologically active molecules passed from the udder to the glass, be they restorative or disease-causing – makes it both healthy and safe. For the people who drink raw milk, the perceived health benefits of raw milk outweigh or even negate the risks.

Health officials claim pasteurized milk is the healthiest and safest choice. From 1998 to 2018, 202 foodborne illness outbreaks were linked to raw milk; only nine were associated with pasteurized milk. When bird flu first appeared in dairy cows, the CDC and FDA assured the public that the virus was inactivated through pasteurization, making conventional milk safe (albeit full of harmless virus particles). The dairy industry agrees with these points. “There are no proven benefits to consuming raw milk compared to pasteurized milk,” a spokesperson for the National Dairy Council told me. “Some people have a strong emotional attachment to believing this, but scientific research does not confirm this.”

Even if the enthusiasm for raw milk is not scientifically proven, the arguments in favor of the drink are scientifically based. The main health argument for the drink is that it contains biologically active compounds or bioactives – chemicals whose action in the body can provide health benefits – which are found in foods such as fruits, whole grains and red wine and can be inactivated by pasteurization. McAfee cited a 2021 study led by Tiantian Lin at Cornell University that showed raw milk may contain bioactive compounds known to combat high blood pressure, cancer, inflammation and viruses. When I called Lin this week, she told me that these bioactives are present in low concentrations in raw milk, but to get the recommended daily dose of a particular bioactive, you would have to drink a lot of raw milk – up to four liters a day for that, for example Protein lactoferrin. Pasteurized milk is sometimes fortified with additional bioactives such as calcium and vitamin D to provide health benefits. Whatever benefits the bioactives in raw milk bring, consuming this milk is simply too unsafe to recommend, Lin said.

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Raw milk drinkers also claim that unpasteurized milk boosts immunity, so consuming raw milk is not harmful but protective. According to the trade and advocacy organization Raw Milk Institute, the basic idea is that exposure to “active immune factors, biodiversity, prebiotics, intact protective proteins, and other elements” in raw milk builds the immune system, helping to fight off infection, disease, and lower rates of asthma , eczema and allergies. Like yogurt, raw milk is said to support the health of the intestinal microbiome. These arguments go back more than a century; In 1910, raw milk advocates argued at the New York Conference on Milk Problems that heating destroyed many of the milk’s nutritional properties as well as the beneficial bacteria, Pace University sociologist E. Melanie Dupuis wrote in her book Milk: Nature’s perfect food. McAfee told me he’s not worried about bird flu because the virus is “inactivated by the bioactives and antibodies in raw milk.” Some bioactive ingredients have antiviral effects, but raw milk has not been proven to neutralize bird flu. Earlier this year, wellness advocates, mostly from California, sought out raw milk contaminated with bird flu in the hopes that consuming it would cause them to develop antibodies. From this perspective, drinking raw milk is like taking children to a measles party: immunity can occur as long as everyone survives.

The other important aspect of the raw milk claim is that it is subject to higher safety standards than pasteurized milk. This is also an old argument. Dupuis told me that when pasteurization was first introduced to major American dairies in the 1890s, raw milk advocates argued that America’s dairies could simply be kept so clean that the milk they produced would be as safe as pasteurized milk. Certifying raw milk dairies is a good idea, but maintaining these high standards is so costly that the milk produced from them is completely unaffordable, Dupuis wrote Milk. This week, McAfee told me that his farm adheres to the production standards of the Raw Milk Institute, which he founded. This includes regular testing for pathogens in milk and screening for diseases in cattle, as well as maintaining the same maximum bacterial levels as pasteurized milk. Of course, this point does not fit into the argument that raw milk is not risky at all.

To date, no other raw milk farms have been closed in the United States due to bird flu. But nationwide, 695 dairy herds in 15 states tested positive for bird flu; The idea that Raw Farm is the only raw milk supplier whose products contain bird flu seems far-fetched. The exact risk posed to people who drink it remains unclear. There are no reports of people becoming infected with bird flu after consuming contaminated raw milk, but cats that did have died.

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Given this uncertain risk and rising rates of avian flu in cattle, raw milk is becoming increasingly politicized. A “Raw Milk Revolution” rally was held in Arkansas in October, preceding the proposal of a bill to deregulate sales. The Texas agriculture commissioner recently advocated legalizing raw milk in an editorial, writing, “There is nothing more American than the freedom to choose what kind of food you eat.” A few weeks ago, Kennedy, who could soon lead the Department of Health and Human Services, promised the ” to end “aggressive suppression” of raw milk by the FDA.

The basis of Kennedy’s crusade is to oppose establishment views, not only on raw milk but also on beef tallow, fluoride and vaccines. Among its supporters, California health officials’ lawsuit against Raw Farm may only reinforce raw milk’s outlandish appeal. All of this comes at a time when the threat posed by raw milk could skyrocket thanks to bird flu, which is exactly why Raw Farm has been put on hold. Even if bird flu appears in more raw milk products – and more farms are closed by the government – the thirst for raw milk will only grow greater.