[graybeardhacker]

Drinking untreated water also only has the _potential_ to cause disease. Playing Russian roulette with a loaded revolver only has the _potential_ to cause death.

Luckily, science can quantify those potentials and determine when the reward outweighs the risks.

If we, as a country, decided to let people who drank unpasteurized milk or untreated water to die without burdening the medical system, it would truly be their own choice. Once a society decides it will care for those people at a cost to the general public, it becomes necessary to protect the public from the burden of their ignorance.

[pokstad]

I guess you never drank from a fresh water spring?

[_blk]

Honestly the overburden to the health system sounds like lame excuse. We don't have an overburden there because of the massive consumption of raw milk. Try to buy some legally and you'll get the picture of how hard it is to find and how expensive it is. I'll happily wave any rights to be emergency treated for any reason (traffic accidents included) if you grant me the right to live in peace and buy the milk and meat from sources I like because that's what this freedom is worth to me.

Anyone that I know that drinks raw milk, raw uncured meats, untreated water hasn't seen a doctor in over a decade.. not terribly scientific but a good indicator that I won't buy pharma-money backed "scientific" studies that show that low-fat, low-sodium and oats-in-cereal-bars are the solution to health issues. I'm all for science and capitalism but they're both not substitutes for common sense.

[ceejayoz]

> Anyone that I know that drinks raw milk, raw uncured meats, untreated water hasn't seen a doctor in over a decade.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Survivorship-bias.sv...