CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 181, 2 August 1944, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

RAW MILK AND PiISTEBKESED' (To the Saitor) Recent correspondence in. your columns shows that there is still a certain amount of superstition prevalent concerning the advantage of raw -mitts over pasteurised. Those who are interested in investigating this subject (and this should include all those who wish to make public statements on the matter) would do well to study the report of the Milk Commission, and the scientific evidence placed before it, as well as the report of the League of Nations Nutrition Committee. These authorities maintain unanimously that the onlv safe milk for city supply is "pasteurised milk The facts are " briefly these: Widespread nutritional "tests on animals and. children have failed to show that raw milk has any advantage over pasteurised. Milk is an animal food, and as such a fine medium for the growth of bacteria of all kinds. When it leaves the cow it may be already infected by the organisms of bovine tuberculosis and undulant fever. The first disease, which causes the crippling of so many children, may be "safeguarded against to some extent by a frequent and elaborate system of herd testing, but there would still be room for fatal error. The infection causing undulant fever, a lengthy and debilitating disease which modern diagnosis shows to be on the increase among humans, is widespread among the herds, and recent experiments show that it is almost impossible to keep a herd free from it. On its long journey from the cow to the table of the city housewife milk is_ exposed to many more perils, which efficient pasteurisation and bottling remove. M. MARTIN-SMITH, President, New Zealand Women's Food Value League.