‘So much misinformation’: Health officials fear popularity of raw milk will cause diseases to spread

well not long ago the popular question in saying was got milk but now more people are changing that up and they're instead asking got raw milk I guess it tastes sweeter those who drink it that's what they say not everybody's on board with this though Public Health officials say it's unsafe and the benefits are questionable so I went to a local Farm to see how raw milk is prepared and to talk to people about why they are so passionate about drinking it we take four squirts out of each quarter from a cow like silver fox so from the cow here 100° goes in here and this is where it gets cooled yep okay that's as pure as you can get it to a container on the Shelf at the Oak null Farm in Foxboro you kind of just drink it right out of the bottle it's the only way to do it right right now we have people driving 2 hours to the farm here you know to purchase milk raw milk sales are on fire these days and uh I've loved every sip I've taken social Med influencers T The Taste and benefits they say are abundant in raw milk I found raw milk because of my son's allergies Some people prefer to get a single Source you know when they get milk from our farm it's straight out of the cow's udder there's nothing added you know we just make it colder we feed the cows whether it's 10° Terry lton is owner of the oak null Farm it's one of about two dozen farms in Massachusetts which are certified to sell raw milk directly to Consumers she believes raw milk is also more popular because of the co pandemic it really hit home to people how much we're dependent on trucking how much we're dependent on factories and really removed from our food sources and I think people as as a reaction to that became to question where is our food coming from now raw milk is not the type of milk you find on your grocery store shelves that milk is pasteurized it's a heating process that kills any parasites virus or bacteria that could be in there this is a major Public Health Innovation that has saved countless countless lives so if we're not pasteurizing milk people are going to come into contact with various microbes that can exist this includes salmonella food poisoning but something that many of us have probably not experienced in our lives is the possibility that we could get sick with bird flu in California Health officials suspect a child got sick from bird flu after drinking raw milk Matt ma is a professor at The Bu School of Public Health where he's been studying the health impacts of raw milk he worries these individual cases of illness could potentially Start Spreading from person to person one day raw mil consumption is a public health risk it stands to make all of us sick and potentially sick in ways that we haven't really seen in American public life or in in the world in quite some time but in reality raw da actually has active and bioavailable enzymes and about the reported health benefits that they're not scientifically accurate there's so much misinformation out there on social media still business is brisk at Oak Farm Jordan stck drives about 45 minutes to pick up raw milk not only for her family but for her neighbors as well so we love it do we love it yeah what is it about it I mean I'm just a big fan of local farms how they treat their cows lotton runs a top-notch facility here in Foxboro practicing safety measures and is regularly inspected by the state even with that she doesn't believe that raw milk is for everyone our stance is we're more interested in providing consumers choice no food is 100% safe but our goal is to minimize the risk associated with raw milk now raw milk is far from being universally loved it's illegal to sell in States like Rhode Island Hawaii Nevada several other states only allow it for pet consumption it could however get a big boost Robert F Kennedy Jr big proponent of raw milk and it could become more mainstream if he is approved the Secretary of Health and Human Services and and in another sign of raw milk's popularity the oak null Farm there in Foxboro currently building a bigger barn and modernizing equipment