American media is abuzz with news of President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Seemingly every story mentions his controversial views on topics from vaccines to fluoride in the water to raw milk—a longtime libertarian cause célèbre. Though it’s hard to envision a more unlikely catalyst, RFK Jr.’s nomination may be the final push that gets raw milk across the legalization finish line.
Until the late 1800s, raw milk was simply known as “milk” and was the only game in town for Americans desiring a delicious dairy beverage. But when it was discovered that heating up products like milk could reduce the presence of potentially harmful bacteria, the pasteurization craze was underway. Given reports of thousands of babies dying from bacteria-riddled milk around this time period, pasteurization was seen as a remarkable public health breakthrough.
This set off a wave of 20th century state and local government mandates that required milk to be pasteurized. Finally, in 1987, a federal court cemented a federal ban on all interstate raw milk sales. But not long afterward, the modern organic food movement was born, and raw milk became a cult favorite among the crunchy political left. Now, raw milk has increasingly been adopted as a sort of culture war status symbol on the political right.
“Long a fringe health food for new-age hippies and fad-chasing liberal foodies, raw milk has won over the hearts and minds of GOP legislators and regulators in the last few years,” writes Marc Novicoff in Politico. In addition to its inherent deregulatory appeal, Novicoff recounts that “conservatives discovered that raw milk fit neatly inside a worldview that was increasingly skeptical of credentialed expertise.”
Over the last decade, numerous states have passed laws to legalize raw milk, leading food policy expert Baylen Linnekin to declare that the “raw milk restoration is underway.” Could it now be about to kick into overdrive, potentially even spreading to an overturn of the federal interstate sales ban?
Whatever one’s views of RFK’s potential adeptness—or lack thereof—at navigating the federal bureaucracy to pursue his agenda, he may not be the only member of Trump’s cabinet to be a raw milk enthusiast. Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), who has run a bill in Congress for the last decade to overturn the federal ban, is heavily rumored to be the next Secretary of Agriculture.
Hellbound and Down 
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