Recent Trends in Unpasteurized Fluid Milk Outbreaks, Legalization, and Consumption in the United States

Conclusions From a public health perspective, the lack of consistency and comprehensiveness in measuring production or consumption of unpasteurized milk is problematic; however, this analysis provides a current best estimate of the scale of disease outbreaks due to unpasteurized milk. The potential for foodborne illness continues to be a small but real risk from consuming unpasteurized fluid milk, but analysis of data over a twelve year period demonstrates that increased access to this product within the United States has not led to increased outbreak rates. On the contrary, total reported unpasteurized milk-associated outbreaks have declined since 2011, despite increased production, and outbreak rates proportional to estimated consumption rates have declined by 74% over the twelve year period. The evidence that legalization of unpasteurized milk has correlated with decreased outbreak rates has potential implications for public policy decisions. Recent introduction of on-farm food safety training programs for unpasteurized milk producers may be a factor in the recent decline in outbreak rates. Further studies of the efficacy of such “best-practices” training will be necessary in determining the utility and efficacy of these risk-management options, and could enable the transition from prohibition-based to harm reduction-based regulatory structures. This in turn will enable the further development safe and minimally processed dairy products, to take advantage of the enor...
Source: PLOS Currents Outbreaks - Category: Epidemiology Authors: Source Type: research