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Show Advice on Your Health By Morris Rshbein, Editor, Journal American Medical Association Health authorities are convinced con-vinced that the pasteurization process is without doubt the most important single factor from the point of view of public health In the control of milk and milk products. Doctors, public health workers and sanitarians alike are agreed on the necessity for pasteurization pasteuriza-tion for the control of disease capable of being transmitted by milk. The most recently available figures show that In all cities with a population over 10,000 about 88 per cent of the milk supply used Is now pasteurised. However, How-ever, some people still oppose the pasteurization of milk, believing that raw milk possesses advantages advan-tages which pasteurised milk does not have. A committee of the American Publio Health association has recently re-cently made a special report on this subject Experiments made on animals Invariably show that there la no significant difference in the food value between raw milk and pasteurized milk. Experiments with children confirm con-firm observations made on the lower animals. Out of soms 2500 school children studied, both in this country and hi Scotland, those who were fed with pasteurised pasteur-ised milk did just aa well as those who were fed with raw milk. The main contentions have concerned con-cerned the vitamins. Apparently Appar-ently the pasteurization process does not lower the content of vitamin A and vitamin D. It may affect somewhat the various portions por-tions of vitamin B and vitamin G, yet these vitamins are plentiful from other sources. In any event the vitamin C content of milk is low and it is customary to add orange juice to the diet in order to provide the extra vitamin C that is needed. Some have argued that pasteurization pas-teurization Interferes with the digestibility di-gestibility of calcium In milk, yet the total amount of call cum supplied sup-plied by milk la so large that a slight reduction would not have much significance. With the improvement In apparatus ap-paratus for pasteurization, It ia now possible for boards of health to make certain that products said to be pasteurised bsve actually ac-tually gone through an efficient process and are safe. |