I tried Mr V's raw liver/egg/banana/olive oil shakes for a while two
summers ago (grass-fed organic beef, buffalo and elk) and found myself
with a case of a CMV-like illness, presenting with small gum sores
(quickly disappeared) and swollen glands under the jaw which lasted for
several months (painful!) even after discontinuing this wrong-headed
experiment .  Not knowing what was going on and quite alarmed, I went
for a blood work-up at the infectious disease clinic at the Mt Sinai in
Toronto where I was seen, and closely questioned, by an impressive team
of three specialists.  Finally, the senior doctor asked if I had been
eating raw meat lately.  "Well,  sir, in fact, yes I have," I remarked,
quite surprised that I had not made the connection myself.  He explained
to his also-surprised colleagues that the literature identifies raw
game, especially organ meat, as a source of viral infection.  He added
that I didn't have to stop doing this -- it wouldn't kill me -- but his
attitude suggested I'd be a fool not to.

After getting over the initial psychological hurdles, I found it
interesting that I developed a real liking for raw liver and heart.  It
started tasting like tuna sushi and I'd get real cravings for it. The
dogs loved it too!   But I wouldn't do it again:  I got sick, lost a lot
of weight (too quickly for comfort - felt like a wasting disease), lost
a lot of sleep, and thus concluded that whatever benefits you get from
this can be had by lightly cooking the liver on both sides first!

As an addendum, I saw a macabre episode of CSI that has a
"nutritionist/healer"  under suspicion of killing a jogger/client -- so
she could eat his liver RAW -- in a blender -- with vegetables!!!  Gil
Grissom (the main CSI guy) mentions something about heme as being the
compound she sought.  And yeah, she did it -- they sprayed the blender
with luminol and her Mr V days were toast!

Eliot