Organic milk consumers like buying dairy products knowing that the cow that produced the milk has never received antibiotics. They also believe that the cow lives an idyllic life on the farm where she gets to walk in green pastures, sleep on fresh hay every night and spiders in the rafter’s spin webs with words in them.

Let me start with the word ‘organic’; it is extremely misleading, but that discussion is for another time. Regarding the antibiotics… well, that part is mostly true. Mostly true in the sense that all milk sold commercially has been tested and is required to be antibiotic-free.

The National Council of Interstate Milk Shipment (NCIMS) has been conducting pilot studies on the possible presence of trace antibiotics in milk. The first phase of the study included testing for the following antibiotics: Beta lactams, Tetracycline, and sulfonamides. The findings have been extremely eye-opening.

The most notable finding is that there actually might be trace antibiotics in your milk. Phase One of the pilot program study was run from October 1, 2017, to September 30, 2018. Out of the 4,201,236 samples taken, 584 were positive for antibiotics or 0.014% of the sample. 32,890 samples were taken after the pasteurizer and of those, 4 were positive or 0.012% of the sample. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Animal Recovery Mission (ARM), Organic Consumers Association (OCA), and almond producers are probably all jumping for joy right now, screaming, “See, we told you,” in response and for their own special interests. Here is the thing to keep in perspective. Of all the samples taken, 0.00000095% of positive antibiotics dairy products made past the pasteurizer into finished goods, as the rest were caught and rejected prior to being unloaded into the processor plant raw silos.

Let’s put these findings into perspective.

You have three times more chance of getting hit by lightning than finding antibiotics in your glass of chocolate milk. You have eight times the chance of dying from fireworks, accidental firearm discharge or drowning than finding antibiotics in your yogurt. You have twice the chance of having an accident in an airplane.

As a member of the scientific community, I must acknowledge the truth that there is a chance of antibiotics being present in milk products. As a realist, I understand that the chances are extremely remote. The results of the study are really a compliment to the rigorous standards that the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, Food and Drug Administration and NCIMS have set forth.

By Brett Roeller
Director of National Accounts, QualiTru Sampling Systems
brett@qualitru.com   Follow Brett on LinkedIn