Deb - you are absolutely right, anyone can make data say what they want it to. The problem is that the website that I referenced in the beginning is being referenced by the anti raw milk lobby. And legislators will err on the side of caution (and money).
Farmstead milk is not the only potential problem. Even if it's a little contaminated, you can drink it and have no ill effects, just like people have done for hundreds of years. That's called a sub-clinical contamination because there are just not enough bacteria to cause illness. However, if the contamination in that milk is allowed to multiply then there can be all sorts of health risks.
In peak conditions, bacteria will double their population every 20 minutes. So, let's start with a sub-clinical contamination of just 10 bacteria in 5 gallons of milk. After just 12 hours, that population can grow to 687,194,767,360. At 24 hours, the number is 188, 894,659,314,786,000,000,000. I think that's 188 gazillion.
I point this out, because problems can happen many different ways after the milk leaves the farm.
This multiplication can happen during transportation if the milk is not kept cold enough. Milk haulers have to keep records and maintain a "chain of temperature" log. I don't know if there is a national standard, but here in Kentucky, milk can never get above 40F. The "chain" includes dairy farm to raw milk hauler to processor to distributor to grocery store to consumer and then home. Lots of opportunity for improper handling.
Contamination has the potential to go wild during cheese making, but soft, fresh cheeses are the highest risk. The temperatures are the perfect environment for bacteria to multiply. So it's extremely important that the milk used is free of pathogens. However, raw milk also has native bacteria that can out compete any pathogens. And of course pathogens can be introduced by unsanitary working conditions during the cheese making.
The site data does not even attempt to trace the contaminations to post milking processing or unsanitary manufacturing. So the numbers cited in that website are misleading and they tend to blame "raw milk" as the sole source of the problem and legislators will believe what they read.