Three quantitative microbial risk assessments (QMRAs) recently published have demonstrated that unpasteurized milk is a low-risk food.
June 11/Washington/Globe Newswire -- Three quantitative microbial risk assessments (QMRAs) recently published in the Journal of Food Protection have demonstrated that unpasteurized milk is a low-risk food, contrary to previous, inappropriately evidenced claims suggesting a high-risk profile. These scholarly papers, along with dozens of others, were reviewed on May 16, 2013, at the Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver, BC (Canada), during a special scientific Grand Rounds presentation entitled "Unpasteurized milk: myths and evidence."
The reviewer, Nadine Ijaz, MSc, demonstrated how inappropriate evidence has long been mistakenly used to affirm the "myth" that raw milk is a high-risk food, as it was in the 1930s. Today, green leafy vegetables are the most frequent cause of food-borne illness in the United States. British Columbia CDC's Medical Director of Environmental Health Services, Dr. Tom Kosatsky, who is also Scientific Director of Canada's National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health,welcomed Ms. Ijaz's invited presentation as "up-to-date" and "a very good example of knowledge synthesis and risk communication."