The Denver Post reports this morning, at first, Mary Pierce (right, photo by Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post) thought her 2-year-old couldn’t stop throwing up because she had a typical stomach bug. A few days later, she watched in terror as the lethargic little girl was rushed by helicopter to The Children’s Hospital, her little kidneys shutting down.

Then Nicole’s 5-year-old brother, Aaron, fell ill, following her into the hospital and onto a dialysis machine. The cause of their potentially deadly illness: drinking raw goat’s milk from a local dairy.

"I’m not a typical Boulder person," Pierce said. "We were just trying it because my son is allergic to dairy. We’re not going near it anymore. … It’s not worth it. You can’t understand until it’s your kid lying in the bed."

The outbreak in June that sent the Pierce children to the hospital for three weeks and sickened about 30 others has state health officials ramping up efforts to warn people against drinking unpasteurized milk.

There are lots of foods that make people sick, and people are free to pick their poisons. But if raw milk is about choice, then pasteurized milk is safer and more affordable. And it’s always the kids that suffer from their parents’ choices.