Earlier this month, public health officials rang alarm bells when a suspected case of bird flu in a California child may have resulted from the kid drinking raw milk. Fortunately, the child ultimately tested negative for bird flu, but the incident brought to the forefront yet again the potential dangers of consuming so-called raw milk, also known as unpasteurized milk, while the country is dealing with a bird flu outbreak that appears to be escalating. Just this week, the state of California declared bird flu a health emergency, and health officials announced they discovered a severe case in a Louisiana resident.
At the same time, the H5N1 avian flu virus has been detected in raw milk over the last month. One product, from a company called Raw Farm, led to a recall. While one might expect this would lead to consumers avoiding the product, raw milk sales are up by 65% . Red states, like Wisconsin, are even preparing for the raw milk industry to grow under a Trump presidency.
For decades, raw milk has been consumed by alternative health types, typically those who intersected with the “raw food” movement, a diet fad where people would eat only raw food. But recently it’s become popular among conservatives. It’s not hard to see where this is going. As scientists and public health officials warn consuming raw milk is unsafe amid the bird flu outbreak, conservative politicians and extreme wellness advocates are increasingly becoming bigger proponents of it, trying to create an "us versus them" situation. Mark McAfee, the CEO of the California-based company Raw Farm, — the company that recalled their raw milk after it was detected in California — recently claimed that public health regulators don’t want raw milk to “thrive.” The country’s potential incoming Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long promoted the consumption of raw milk. Just this past summer, Kennedy bragged to an audience at an event that he only drinks raw milk, and more recently, claimed the Food and Drug Administration’s so-called “war on public health” includes “suppression” of raw milk.
How did raw milk become an alternative health trend MAGA conservatives can rally around?
“Since the pandemic, we have seen a strong nexus between wellness culture and the far right,” Dr Stephanie Alice Baker, Associate Professor at City St George’s, University of London, told Salon. “This could be seen as part of a return to tradition, but more so an emphasis on purity and the sanctity of the body.”
Indeed, what alternative health types who might have previously been viewed as “progressive” and far-left have in common with many Trump supporters is an anti-establishment sentiment. Both can unite around the idea that the past was better in some way than the present, which might include a time when the country didn’t pasteurize its milk. Some might call this declinism, the belief that a society or institution is on the decline, and it tends to spark a romanticized nostalgia, which can manifest as a raw-milk comeback being promoted by so-called homesteaders on social media and conservative politicians alike.
“It builds on the assumption that unprocessed products are healthier and more nutritious,” Baker added. “What is rarely discussed are the health risks associated with consuming unpasteurized milk.”
Pasteurization began in the United States in the 1890s after the discovery of germ theory to control the hazards of highly contagious bacterial diseases which could be easily transmitted to humans through raw milk. It played an important role in decreasing infant mortality at the time. Once pasteurization became more common, infectious diseases with high infant mortality rates decreased by 50%. The CDC states today that pasteurization is “crucial for milk safety,” which can kill harmful germs that can cause illness. But raw milk advocates say that drinking unpasteurized milk is a “natural” food that contains more amino acids, vitamins, minerals and fatty acids. There have also been claims that it's better for those with lactose intolerance, asthma, and allergies. However, those claims have been widely discredited.
“The distrust of pasteurization is part of the distrust of big food corporations and industries in general,” Baker said. “It builds on the idea that nature is perfect in its original state.”
Derek Beres, co-host of the Conspirituality Podcast which investigates wellness grifters, told Salon he recalls buying and consuming raw milk in 2008 in Brooklyn, New York. At the time, and he said this remains true today, part of the appeal to raw milk was that it’s had “little contact with modern society.”
“And that is just absurd, but that is how people in these spaces think,” Beres said. “I think now because of the MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] movement, it’s become a much bigger issue than it was before.”
RFK Jr., Beres said, helped bring raw milk into the spotlight this year. However, its rise in popularity, especially among conservatives, is a reflection of people not trusting the system. But this line of thought can be fatal, literally, especially when it comes to health. For example, it was recently reported that flu vaccines among kids were at a record low within the last decades despite pediatric influenza cases rising. In September, the CDC reported that the total number of U.S. pediatric deaths for the 2023-2024 season was 200, exceeding the previous high reported for a regular flu season.
“It’s just evidence of people not trusting any system,” he said. “And I hate to be so reductive, but every time it comes back to ‘owning the Libs’”
There is also, Beres said, an undercurrent of “chemophobia,” as in a fear of chemicals.“Which underlies all of this wellness grifting,” Beres said. “But the irony in this case, is that there are no chemicals, it’s just heating, but because it falls under the broader umbrella of intervention, people don't care.”
He added that when it comes to conservatives supporting and promoting raw milk, a part of this trend can be attributed to the Reagan era
“America is built on this idea of rugged individualism and that that has always been the connective tissue between the right and the left in conspirituality spaces,” he said. “Reagan's tenure really kind of hits the modern version of this, when the idea is that individual health is all that matters.”
Meanwhile, reports continue to roll in about the dangers of raw milk during this time — and it’s not only humans who are at risk. The Los Angeles Health Department reported that it’s possible two cats died of bird flu after consuming raw milk.
“The risk of H5 bird flu remains low in Los Angeles County, but this suspected case of the virus in a pet cat that consumed raw milk is a reminder that consuming raw dairy products can lead to severe illness in cats," Dr. Barbara Ferrer, Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said in a media statement.
