With another five people sick with Campylobacter from another in an endless line of outbreaks, the popularity of raw milk seems to be increasing.

Or so say raw milk proponents, like those quoted in the Lehigh Valley.

Farmer Layne Klein swears by the health benefits of raw milk, and says his Klein Farms Dairy & Creamery takes all the necessary steps to ensure its milk is safe to drink, and customers can take a look at the cows when they visit. “We have nothing to hide. We drink it ourselves, so we make sure it’s perfectly clean. … We just keep getting busier and busier.”

Maybe customers are outfitted with those ultra-sensitive bacteria-detecting goggles I keep hearing about, especially when there is an outbreak.

Or, like organic, local, natural, sustainable and dolphin-free, the latest food movement is pushed along by PR, celebrity endorsements, a compliant media, self-interest better profit margins and a human willingness to believe.

For all the positive press organic has received over the years, it should dominate retail sales. It doesn’t.

Raw milk sales are a sliver of conventional milk sales, yet consume a wildly disproportionate amount of electronic gibbering, a wildly disproportionate number of sick people, and a wildly disproportionate chomp of scarce public health resources.

Consumers can choose whatever they want. But there is nothing available for consumers to choose microbiologically safe food – the bugs that make people sick.