Whopper of the Week: Raw Milk is Risky, RFK Jr. Wants Americans to Drink More of It

Whopper of the Week: 

RAW MILK IS RISKY, RFK JR WANTS AMERICANS TO DRINK MORE OF IT

SUMMARY

In October 2024, before joining the Trump administration, Secretary of Health Kennedy warned that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) “war on public health was about to end.” He claimed that products like raw milk, which “advance human health” but “cannot be patented,” are being “suppressed” by the FDA.

In reality, the FDA’s mission for over 100 years has been to ensure the safety of the food supply, and raw milk is simply not consistently safe to drink. Far from “advancing human health,” raw milk can be contaminated with pathogens that regularly cause outbreaks of disease and can lead to hospitalization, kidney failure and occasionally death, especially in children, the immune compromised and the elderly.

Kennedy is a long-time fan of unpasteurized milk. In 2022, speaking at the organization he founded, Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy said that over the previous year  he “only drank raw milk.” After publishing the Make America Healthy Again Report in May 2025, Kennedy took shots of raw milk with a wellness influencer at the White House in celebration. And as recently as April 2026, he refused to agree with Representive Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) that the Secretary of Health should warn the public not to drink raw milk. 
 

WHY IS THIS A WHOPPER?

Kennedy is tapping into debunked myths about the health effects of raw milk. Pasteurization has minimal effects on the nutritional value of milk. It causes small reductions in a couple heat-sensitive vitamins, while proteins, fats, minerals and most nutrients remain essentially unchanged. Pasteurized milk, unlike raw milk, is fortified with vitamin D. Pasteurization does not cause lactose intolerance. All milk, raw or pasteurized, contains lactose and can cause lactose intolerance in sensitive individuals. Despite studies that show that children who live on farms have fewer allergies than their peers, raw milk does not prevent children from developing allergies. Farm families are exposed to lots of allergens that could play a role in reducing asthma risks.

Michele Jay-Russell, a veterinarian and food safety specialist at the University of California-Davis, explains that parents who give their children raw milk risk “sickening their kids, because children’s developing immune systems are more vulnerable than those of adults.”

Raw milk is especially dangerous for people with weak or immature immune systems because it has more live bacteria. Milkborne pathogens include Campylobacter, Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli, brucella, diphtheria, mycobacterium bovis, and possibly the H5N1 avian flu virus. These germs can cause a variety of symptoms, including vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, headache and body aches, and can lead to kidney damage, paralysis, birth defects, and death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the FDA both recommend that people not consume unpasteurized dairy products.

Pasteurization is safe and is simply a method of heating milk to a high temperature for a few seconds and then cooling it so as to kill harmful germs. (See Table below). Milk pasteurization was first used commercially in Germany in the 1880s. By the turn of the 20th century, cities like New York and Chicago required that milk be pasteurized. Later, many states adopted milk safety laws. By 1947, 90% of the milk sold in U.S. cities was pasteurized. Pasteurization substantially reduces infection and illness. In the 1930s “milkborne outbreaks constituted approximately 25 percent of all disease outbreaks from contaminated food and water.” By the early 2000s only 1% of food outbreaks were traced to milk. 

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Kennedy has used his bully pulpit to promote raw milk, endangering the health of the public. Raw milk consumption is growing. A recent Food Safety and Nutrition Survey estimates that 4% of Americans consume raw milk once a year and 1.6% at least once per month. Every year there are  several outbreaks and hundreds of illnesses associated with unpasteurized dairy consumption. In 2026 the CDC reported an outbreak that sickened nine people in three states, of which half were under five years of age and three were hospitalized. 

Curiously, Kennedy seems to be backpedalling on his promise to lift the FDA’s ban on the interstate sale of raw milk. He has not taken steps to deregulate sales or even remove any of the many federal websites warning the public about the risks of raw milk. 

Kennedy's attention is now on the states. In April, Kennedy told Representative DeLauro (D-CT) that "Raw milk is not regulated by the federal government. It's regulated by the states. The FDA does not regulate it."  That is not quite true. 

The FDA has prohibited the interstate sale and distribution of unpasteurized dairy since 1987 when a federal court ordered it to act on the overwhelming evidence that raw milk was linked to disease outbreaks. Within their borders, however, states determine whether and how raw milk can be sold. Seven states prohibit any sales for human consumption, while sixteen states allow the sales of raw milk in retail stores. Most states allow some limited types of sales, including at dairy farms, through herd-share agreements, or for pet consumption. Recent studies have found that laxer state raw milk laws are associated with more outbreaks and illnesses.

If Kennedy tried to repeal the FDA ban on the interstate sale of raw milk, the change would likely be challenged and courts have historically upheld federal interstate authority over milk sales. The Network for Public Health Law notes that legalizing the cross-border sale of raw milk would also require that the FDA draft raw milk guidelines or standards and a regulatory framework governing its production, testing, inspection and enforcement. The commercial dairy industry would want to protect the reputation of their safer, pasteurized products from the impact of raw milk related outbreaks.

Kennedy talks a big game about ending FDA’s war on public health. But as Secretary of Health he seems unwilling to take on its legal authority. He may have learned a lesson from his anti-vaccine advocacy, where state legislatures turned out to be much more receptive to his ideas than science-based federal agencies.  
 

Contributions from:  Benedicte Callan, Ph.D., Aurora Hortskamp, M.D., Tara Smith, Ph.D., Bruce Mirken