I can't imagine any benefits from drinking raw milk. Megan Davis is an environmental health professor at Johns Hopkins. Bloomberg. Were you surprised that there is a recall of raw milk in California? I was not surprised to hear this because right now, [00:00:15] California is the epicenter of the current outbreak of H5n1 in dairy cows. Despite the risks, raw milk has some high profile proponents. Health and Human Services nominee Robert F Kennedy Jr. Two years ago I was here. [00:00:30] Last year I only drank raw milk. A producer of raw milk is being forced by the state of California to suspend their operations after the bird flu virus was found in its products. And it just so happens that the CEO of that company is being recruited by [00:00:51] future HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, to be part of the department tasked with keeping Americans safe. Can't make this stuff up. Here's what's happening. All operations at Raw Farm, a Fresno based producer of raw milk, cheeses, [00:01:08] pet foods and other dairy products are currently under quarantine from herds to bottled product, which means that all raw milk product distribution is suspended. Steve Lyle, director of public affairs for the California Department of Food and Agriculture, said in a statement on Monday. [00:01:25] The bird flu virus, also known as H5n1, was found in samples collected last month. The suspension comes not long after Raw Farm voluntarily recalled two of its raw milk batches, after the Santa Clara County Public Health [00:01:43] Department detected bird flu in them. What threat that poses to humans who drink raw milk isn't totally clear yet. Doctor Richard Webby, an infectious disease expert, says, my gut feeling is that humans are probably a little bit more resistant to the virus than other species, [00:02:01] but we just don't know the answer. But seeing what this virus is capable of doing. Even taking that risk in my mind, is crazy. If you're unfamiliar, raw milk is pretty much just milk straight from the cow's udder. [00:02:16] It doesn't go through pasteurization, the process in which milk is heated up to kill dangerous bacteria like salmonella, Listeria, and E.coli. Drinking raw milk largely began as a fringe movement among hippies [00:02:31] and California health nuts, but has gained popularity in recent years among libertarians and right wingers. Proponents claim it boosts immunity and treats allergies and asthma, which the vast majority of health experts say is false. [00:02:47] Representative Thomas Massie, a daily raw milk drinker, has introduced a bill with nine fellow Republicans to legalize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk. The MAGA youth voter organization Turning [00:03:04] Point USA, sells a goat raw milk t shirt. Infowars hosts are shouting about how bird flu is a plot to take raw milk away. On his show, Joe Rogan has decried the government's war on raw milk. [00:03:23] RFK Jr says he won't even drink regular pasteurized milk anymore, and soon this guy will be in a position to shape national policy. As Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of health and Human Services, Kennedy has said he would put an end to the aggressive suppression of raw milk, [00:03:43] beginning most likely with a repeal of the Food and Drug Administration's ban on interstate sales. He even wants the guy running the company who just got suspended for selling contaminated raw milk to have a position at the FDA. [00:03:58] In a fact sheet shared with CNN. On Monday, Raw Farm said its CEO, Mark McAfee, has been asked by the RFK transition team to apply for the position of FDA advisor on raw milk policy and standards development. [00:04:15] Rfk's running mate, Nicole Shanahan even visited the raw farm facility back in June. Take a look. Hi. I'm here in Fresno at the state's largest raw milk producer, Raw Farm. Learning about how it's done. [00:04:32] I'm here with the owner, Mark. Hi, Mark. We love Nicole. She's awesome. That's a super clean udder right there. Look at that. There's a little bit of milk coming on right there. There she goes. Okay. Utterly clean. Yes, literally. [00:04:50] John, what do you make of this? I look, if you want to drink raw milk, I don't care. Like, I assume the right is desperate to have this be a thing that will get tribal about. I don't care about whatever milk you drink, I don't care. [00:05:07] I will just say that this seems. This seems insanely politically masturbatory is what it feels like. This. Seriously, this is the war. Like we all disagree. I think about, you know, why Trump won. [00:05:24] I don't think it was this. I don't think millions of Americans were like, oh, the tyranny stopping the raw milk is the problem. Like, this just feels like a random thing that RFK Jr brought up. And you know, Joe Rogan lets on crazies and goes wild about what they like, [00:05:41] what they could just be talking about hemp or something. They could be talking about like you're they sent Nicole Shanahan to a raw milk place. Why don't we have her walk around in like, a pork processing plant? Why don't we have her walk around in a place where where chickens are raised? Like, yeah, that was a clean udder or whatever. [00:05:59] And I'm sure some right wingers now take the raw milk thing seriously. Although, you know, eight years ago it would have been a joke on Portlandia that right wingers would have mocked. Like when lefties would talk about high fructose corn sirup. They called them soy boys or whatever. [00:06:14] But now you guys are obsessed with the raw milk. It's just such a random thing, considering the insane food that most people cram into their gullet all day long, that this is where they're going to draw the line. I don't know why this has become a culture war thing. I again, don't care what kind of milk people have. [00:06:32] It's just such a weird thing to become this hyper focus for the incoming administration. It is. It is strange. It's bizarre that this is an issue they're focused on. But I think these types of issues that they latch onto to us, [00:06:49] to people watching, to normal people, we wonder why is there so much focus on this? I think it's because this is just my theory. They see this as an avenue to plant that seed of government distrust and control, that then they can easily spread from there into other aspects of their life, [00:07:07] which ultimately leads to a distrust in institutions that they can exploit. So first it's hey, yeah, why is the government telling you what you can think? And often these are anti-scientific. You know, they did it with vaccines. They did it with lockdowns, things that are generally good. We discovered a long time ago that if you just heat up milk, [00:07:26] it kills the bacteria that can harm you. The government says, okay, that's the way we're going to do things because we want to keep people safe. Stupidly, they are pushing this idea, hey, you shouldn't do that. That's that's not that's your right to drink dangerous milk. [00:07:41] Milk that can make you sick. And from there, it's okay. Well, yeah. Also, vaccines are bad. Also, lockdowns are bad. Like, no, these are things that are generally good. It's a public health issue. And this type of like anti-scientific [00:07:57] fearmongering and like anti-government messaging that they have used avenues like this to distort people's perceptions, to undermine their faith in the system. And like there are plenty of criticisms. [00:08:12] I'm not saying the government is immune from criticism or that the institutions are sacrosanct. It's that the criticisms are on other areas, not the FDA on this specific issue. Like and to your point, if they want to like, make it in their backyard and drink it. [00:08:28] Sure. But safeguards to prevent this becoming from becoming a like widely available consumer product in stores, with people not fully understanding the risks associated with it because of how they've been misled by people like RFK Jr and this this cabal of cranks around him. [00:08:48] That's something I'm totally fine with the government getting involved in. It's just it's so strange to me that this and it's horrifying, honestly, that these types of ideas have permeated and become way more commonplace. Yeah. And look again, RFK, maybe if he was consistent and if he was allowed to do [00:09:08] a whole bunch of different stuff that wasn't just anti-vax and pro raw milk or whatever, could maybe do some good in the area of food. I just find, again, it's the hyper focus on this in the context of all of the other positions they have that I find so wildly hypocritical. [00:09:25] Like we're supposed to believe. Like they they love this because it's a thing that they can say, oh, it's the government that's evil. So we're going to deregulate or whatever. Meanwhile, all of these Republicans, when the Dems were pushing for like added sugars to be added to labels, every Republican was like, no. [00:09:43] Don't do that. That's great, because they wanted to protect industries. That's what they were doing. And like, how many of these Republicans like, I get that Joe Rogan's not one of these people. But like I, many of the Republicans that are part of this movement think you should, you know, be able to have hepatitis ridden milk or whatever. [00:09:59] And that's your God given right. But how dare you roll up a plant and smoke it like it's just it's so it's so wildly inconsistent. I just I don't buy it, I just don't I don't buy it. I think it's weird. I also, I don't even know how I know that Infowars and Joe Rogan talk about it. [00:10:16] So clearly there's some on the right that find this interesting, but I don't know how broad this is as an interest amongst conservatives. It just it seems too niche. It seems way too like old school crunchy granola lib for them.