Antibiotics in our milk and bovine health, Part 1

As I noted before the manufacturer of Posilac (manufactured by Elanco Animal Health (Eli Lilly), developed by Monsanto) states on the label that among other risks associated with Posilac are clinical mastitis (visibly abnormal milk) and sub-clinical mastitis (invisibly abnormal milk).  Mastitis is a serious inflammation of breast, or in this case, udder tissue.  What is visibly abnormal milk?  It is milk that is discolored with blood and pus.  Blood and pus are not visible in the milk with sub-clinical levels of inflammation.  Does the dairyman always pick up on this?  The farmer is supposed to perform checks on the milk collected and I assume that if this is noted the milk is discarded.  If it goes undetected, I would hope it would be found out at the processing plant. Farmers do checks, so do processing plants.  Microscopic problems could escape checks.   When they do, pasteurization would take care of bacteria and virus.  The greater risk would be to drink raw milk.  I have and I probably will continue to drink raw milk.  The farmers I get this unprocessed milk from are guys (and gals) who are ethical, extremely vigilant of their animals (know the cows and can spot a problem early) and all round good animal husbandry folks…. Oh yeah! And they don’t drug their animals with synthetic hormones either.  Back to the milk of the cows which aren’t so fortunate: Federal inspectors check milk about four times a year.  They check for the presence of antibiotics in the penicillin class- the only drugs “permitted, hence legal” to treat mastitis.  If the federal inspectors find the presence of penicillin, the entire contents are dumped.  (While legal to use, the law states there must be a withdrawal period before the milk can be collected for consumption.)  Farmers can, and do, medicate their cows with antibiotics from outside the pcn class however.  Those antibiotics- since they’re not tested for- do escape detection.  Thus we have antibiotics in our milk as well as hormones.  Pasteurization destroys the bacteria, but not the drugs.  Without your knowledge or consent, you and your family are being dosed with drugs, rendering those potentially lifesaving drugs weak or impotent should you ever need them.  And remember that cows on rBGH have much higher incidence of mastitis than untreated cows.  Sick cows are given antibiotics, and if they don’t respond to treatment, they’re  slaughtered.  You could potentially be getting meat AND milk from an animal recently treated with antibiotics and hormones.  (Dairy cows are typically ground up into hamburger.)  Continued.