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Diseases From Raw Milk Consumption

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. Click on the links below to read a few reports of human illness caused by the consumption of raw milk or raw milk products:

Below are some diseases associated with drinking raw milk.

10 Diseases	Organism	Symptoms and Complications
Campylobacteriosis	Campylobacter sp.	bloody diarrhea
Salmonellosis	Salmonella sp.	bloody diarrhea
Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome	E. coli O157:H7	diarrhea, kidney failure, death
Yersiniosis	Yersinsia enterocolitica	diarrhea
Listeriosis	Listeria monocytogenes	meningitis, blood infections
Tuberculosis	Mycobacterium tuberculosis	tuberculosis; pneumonia
Brucellosis	Brucella sp.	blood infections, heart infections
Cryptosporidiosis	Cryptosporidium parvum	diarrhea
Staphylococcal enterotoxin poisoning	Staphylococcus aureus	vomiting
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--52.

2. Hazards of raw milk product consumption.

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