Mom learns the hard way: Raw milk can be dangerous

Ingestion of unpasteurized milk should be avoided.

To those who swear that drinking unpasteurized milk is the ultimate health elixir, this story should give you some pause. What began as a two-night getaway at a farm in Lancaster County, Pa., turned into a calamity of nightmarish proportions for me and my two kids when we drank raw milk. My friend and I took our children to a working farm during spring break. They milked cows, fed bottles of milk to calves and ran free on acres of land - a rarity for these city kids. They also drank the milk that was on the breakfast table, a milk I might add, that was the most silky and delicious any of us had ever tasted. We were told it was unpasteurized, but made to believe it was safe. (I assumed it was at least boiled). A day after returning home, we knew we had made a terrible mistake. The first to fall ill was my five-year-old daughter, who had a high fever, then stomach flu symptoms, then my four-year-old son, then me. My friend and her family had become violently ill as well. We spent seven days worried that our kids could dehydrate and forced them to drink gallons of Gatorade. My friend did get dehydrated and needed intravenous fluids in order to return to her job as a nurse. After a week of this torture, medical tests showed we had contracted campylobacter, a bacterial food poisoning that can be found in unpasteurized milk. The six of us were prescribed antibiotics.
Thankfully, we're all going to be OK.
To be fair, Campylobacter can also be spread by contact with raw or undercooked poultry, as the farm owners later told us, but the likely culprit according to my doctor was the raw milk. The kids missed an entire week of school, made endless round-the-clock trips to the bathroom and suffered through sleepless night. I had to adjust my work schedule and get help from family. Then there was the fear we had contracted a more severe and chronic illness, as we later learned could have happened (arthritis, tubercolosis and Salmonella, to name a few). Raw milk enthusiasts claim it can cure everything from asthma to allergies http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/. They even regularly cross state lines to buy unpasteurized milk in Pennsylvania, since the sale of such products are illegal in New Jersey.
Maybe it does have health benefits. But after my experience, it's not worth the risk.
Drinking raw milk is like playing Russian roulette with your health.
When it comes to my children's health, it's not a risk I'm willing to play.

Source: http://blog.nj.com/parentalguidance/2008/04/carmenmilk.html

Aporte: Guillermo Figueroa