Pasteurized milk receives a lethality treatment intended to make the milk safe. The outbreaks listed are examples of outbreaks in pasteurized milk. Infrequent outbreaks indicate that pasteurized milk or milk subject to a lethality treatment is rarely the cause of illness. Process failures at the pasteurization step and post lethality contamination are simply uncontrolled hazards in the milk production process. Which from a food safety point of view, does not make pasteurization any less important but illustrates in any lethality treatment, other uncontrolled process steps can lead to hazardous foods. The raw milk industry should not gloat about this outbreak in pasteurized milk. Raw milk advocates should be reminded about the inherent hazards in all diary products and question even more the safety of un-pasteurized milk.

Roy Costa
Public Health Sanitarian

http://www.agriculture.state.pa.us/agriculture/lib/agriculture/foodsafetyfiles/raw_milk_producers_12-19-07.pdf

In the 80's my department sampled pasteurized milk in retail stores monthly and often found SPC's in the millions with multiple days until the "sell by" date. No efforts, however, were made to identify the bacteria.

Tom Youngblood
Health Officer
Meadville, PA