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WASHINGTON, DC-June 11, 2013 (GlobeNewswire)- Three quantitative microbial risk assessments (QMRAs) recently published in the Journal of Food Protection have demonstrated that unpasteurized milk is a low-risk food, contrary to previous, inappropriately-evidenced claims suggesting a high-risk profile. These scholarly papers, along with dozens of others, were reviewed on May 16, 2013 at the Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada), during a special scientific Grand Rounds presentation entitled "Unpasteurized milk: myths and evidence."

The reviewer, Nadine Ijaz, MSc, demonstrated how inappropriate evidence has long been mistakenly used to affirm the "myth" that raw milk is a high-risk food, as it was in the 1930s. Today, green leafy vegetables are the most frequent cause of foodborne illness in the United States. British Columbia CDC's Medical Director of Environmental Health Services, Dr. Tom Kosatsky, who is also Scientific Director of Canada's National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health, welcomed Ms. Ijaz's invited presentation as "up-to-date" and "a very good example of knowledge synthesis and risk communication."

Quantitative microbial risk assessment is considered the gold-standard in food safety evidence, a standard recommended by the United Nations body Codex Alimentarius, and affirmed as an important evidencing tool by both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada. The scientific papers cited at the BC Centre for Disease Control (BC CDC) presentation demonstrated a low risk of illness from unpasteurized milk consumption for each of the pathogens Campylobacter, Shiga-toxin inducing E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus. This low-risk profile applied to healthy adults as well as members of immunologically-susceptible groups: pregnant women, children and the elderly.