An August 21, 2006 article by Becky Fenger notes that ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava warns against the raw milk fad:
Raw milk, unfortunately, is being romanticized by the Birkenstock-wearing set of "natural" food fanciers. Raw milk is unpasteurized milk. As Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D. and Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org) writes, drinking raw milk can cause outbreaks of E.coli O157:H7 infection in children, "an infection that can result in permanent kidney damage, if not death." Risk your own health with this fad, parents, but please refrain from killing the kiddies.
I am a walking editorial against the practice of drinking raw milk. When I was growing up in Iowa, a farmer gave some of his favorite neighbors buckets of milk right out of the cow as a "sweet treat." Well, that unpasteurized treat from Bessie cost me nine months of my young life in bed with brucellosis -- or Malta Fever, as our country doctor called it. Writes Dr. Kava: "It's ironic that a food process instituted back in the 1920s and 30s to prevent real, milk-borne disease, is now being demonized as a cause of nutrient depletion." Pasteurization does not deplete nutrients, Kava would have you know. Listen to her...
Asked by an organic farmer what people did before pasteurization came along, [Dennis] Avery gave the simple answer: "They died young."