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14. The pasteurization decision
Ontario was the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce mandatory pasteurization
legislation in 1938. It took until 1991 for federal legislation to be enacted. The decision to
use pasteurization exclusively, rather than a raw certified system or a combination of the
two, can now be reviewed and evaluated for its impact on the public in terms of
pathogenic safety, product pricing and nutrition, both for retail sales and direct sales.
Mandatory pasteurization has resulted in lower consumer prices for dairy products but
with lower nutritional value and in our opinion lower consumer safety, for both direct and
retail consumption. The latter stems from the fact that under pasteurization, farmers have
moved to more economical high intensity operations, relying on pasteurization to
compensate for the increased pathogenic risk introduced by their operations, which now
make raw milk which is a public health hazard in its raw state. This raw milk has found
its way into retail products without being properly pasteurized e.g. the Canadian raw milk
cheese outbreak discussed above, which has caused large scale outbreaks, which could
have been averted under a certified system because raw certified milk is safe without the
need for pasteurization.
Conversely, a raw certified milk system results in a higher priced consumer product with
higher nutritional value and higher consumer safety for direct and retail consumption.
Raw milk at source would be safe for human consumption directly from the farm and it
would provide consumers with an extra margin of safety in retail dairy products - the raw
material is safe to begin with, rather than being a health hazard needing the extra
manufacturing step of pasteurization to make it so.
Peculiarly, the pasteurization decision has been defended on the basis of safety, which is
contrary to our findings. Rather, it should properly be defended on the basis of
economics, i.e. a cheaper dairy product, which consumers have a right to, but consumers
should also be informed of the associated increased health risks and reduced nutritional
value. Studies should also be conducted and consumers duly informed of the longer term
health impacts of consuming pasteurized dairy products having reduced nutritional value.
Should the government decide to maintain its prohibition on the sale of raw drinking milk
in the interests of public safety, we would argue that a certified system of raw drinking
milk is in fact a safer overall system, and that pasteurization should be banned.
Therefore, we respectfully request that consumers be given free choice to decide for
themselves which class of dairy product they want – raw or pasteurized, and that the sale
of raw dairy products be legalized.
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