A RESPONDENT to Slow Food in Australia’s campaign that supports the right of cheesemakers to produce cheese from raw milk, and for people to drink it, was wonderfully succinct: ‘Smoking is okay, but raw milk cheese very dangerous????’. Our blogger has gone to the heart of the challenge facing Australia’s health and food authorities. Smoking kills more than 15,000 Australians a year and, according to the Australian Council on Smoking and Health, smoking-related disease costs the nation $31 billion. Smoking remains lawful. Yet where is comparable data about the life-threatening effects of the consumption in Australia of cow and sheep raw milk, which remains illegal? The recent second-stage report of a two-year review of raw milk products by Food Standards Australia New Zealand has recommended that the existing raw milk consumption ban be maintained on all but hard, aged cheeses. This report is open for public comment until 14 Oct 2011. Write to FSANZ and your federal parliamentarian about this absurd dichotomy between two products that we do, for tobacco, and could, for raw milk, consume. Read about Slow Food’s Australian raw milk campaign.