The FDA Stopping Milk Testing? That’s ‘Udderly’ Ridiculous!
By Elizabeth Skerry
On Monday, April 21, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it had stopped its milk testing program. The FDA is one of many regulatory agencies housed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) tasked with keeping the public safe and healthy. The program’s suspension comes after the firing of 10,000 employees at HHS this month. The Trump administration is really “milking” this whole government efficiency thing, aren’t they?
With raw milk enthusiast Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the helm of HHS, it is no surprise that the safety of our nation’s dairy supply doesn’t appear to be top priority. Thankfully, a dairy microbiology expert at Cornell University is saying that our milk supply should be safe to consume due to the industry being highly regulated, though a number of labs that test milk for contamination and rely on the FDA program could be disrupted and have to seek out alternatives at state level agencies.
The “swill milk” disaster of the 1850s provides a cautionary tale. In the 1850s, dairy distilleries added substances such as chalk, eggs, and flour to milk to mask the unsightly appearance of milk from dairy cows that were being kept in inhumane conditions, falling ill, and dying. These greedy distillers masked the milk’s true seedy character to turn a profit, treating the swill as a toxic cash cow.
As a result, thousands of children across America who consumed this milk died each year, causing public outcry. “Got Swill Milk?” doesn’t have the best ring to it, now does it? This led to many distilleries closing or cleaning up their act, which then led to the debate about the pasteurization of milk in the early 1900s.
It wasn’t until 1973 that the federal government required all milk sold across state lines be pasteurized. The federal Grade “A” Pasteurized Milk Ordinance of 1924 is updated every two years and has been adopted by all 50 states. This guidance document serves as a blueprint for pasteurization by providing strict standards that help keep our milk safe.
The FDA’s suspension of its milk testing program is a testament to how critical and lifesaving regulation is. Without safety standards and strict testing of goods as critical as our food, our country would be a much scarier place. I don’t want to go back to the 1850s, and I bet you don’t either.