to the editor: The recent article about raw milk reminded me of a 1937 letter my grandmother wrote to her sister about a trip she made from Los Angeles to eastern Oregon, where her family had lived from 1898 to 1908 (“More than three dozen bills supporting raw milk are in state legislatures.” May 3). Here is an excerpt:
“After miles of desolate sage desert, with a strange beauty of its own, we stopped at Tom's Camp for lunch. [run by] a grumpy old man who didn't know the Civil War was over and who was still selling milk by handing out every [serving] from a large container with a jug. If it had been me who had gone in, I wouldn't have bought any for fear of typhoid fever. However, [my husband] “Ray didn’t know how prevalent it used to be in that part of the country and didn’t tell me how the milk was handled until we used it (fortunately no one had any negative effects).”
I find it extremely sad that people reject science today. In my years of genealogical study, I have seen that before the 1930s, almost every family lost at least one child or young adult to illness or infection.
Alex Magdaleno, Camarillo
