David Gumpert: When Propaganda Masquerades as Science: Is the Next Step for CDC to Seek Raw Milk “Undesirables”?

Source: The Complete Patient.

In the old Soviet Union, political dissidents were, with the backing of the medical establishment, routinely committed to psychiatric hospitals and injected with powerful mind-altering drugs that took much of the fight out of them.

I raise this example of the brute involvement of a country’s scientific establishment into the political process because I just finished a close reading of the Centers for Disease Control’s report about the illnesses affecting six California children in September 2006, which were supposedly caused by raw milk. While I wondered a few days ago about the timing of its publication—on the eve of hearings June 24 about SB 201 replacing AB 1735—now I have now doubt that this involves much more than timing. This is a political document, not a public health document. Indeed, it is really propaganda, because it is designed solely to mislead and to push a particular political agenda. Here’s how:

1. It rewrites history. Government propagandists love to distort history. The CDC paper starts by saying that six California kids became ill in Sept. 2006. “As a result of this and other outbreaks, California enacted legislation (AB 1735), which took effect January 1, 2008, setting a limit of 10 coliforms/mL for raw milk sold to consumers.” As I read this, I could almost imagine politicians in the California legislature debating and discussing the illnesses, and assessing whether a coliform limit might be the answer. Of course, as we all know, there was no debate, nothing even close to a debate. AB 1735 was enacted with barely a whisper—that coming from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The state’s key legislators have openly acknowledged that they were duped by AB 1735.
2. It relies on a double standard. The paper argues that 25 states that allow the sale of raw milk “report more outbreaks of foodborne disease attributed to raw milk than those states that have stricter regulations.” It notes: “During 1973–1992, raw milk was implicated in 46 reported outbreaks. Nearly 90% of these outbreaks (40 out of 46) occurred in states that allow the sale of raw milk, suggesting that even the regulated sale of raw milk might not be adequate to prevent associated illnesses.” Now, even allowing for the likelihood that not all those outbreaks were really from raw milk, supposing we substituted the terms ground beef or salami or shellfish for raw milk. Wouldn’t there be more cases of foodborne illness in states that allowed the sale of ground beef, salami, or shellfish than those that didn’t?
3. It uses “science” to pursue a purely political agenda. In addition to rewriting history, the paper in two places blames the absence of a coliform standard for causing the illnesses. “At the time of this outbreak, California did not have a coliform standard for milk sold raw to consumers,” it states early in the paper. As part of its “Editorial note” at the end, it concludes: “These findings suggest that if raw milk had been subject to the same coliform standard as pasteurized milk in California, milk from dairy A might have been excluded from sale and this outbreak might have been averted.”

All this comes on top of dubious evidence—one child didn’t show E.coli 0157:H7, one “she” is a “he”, and one child says he/she didn’t consume raw milk. I wonder if maybe we need to send the child who refuses to admit drinking raw milk for “re-education” in a psychiatric ward. You think that’s a wild idea? Here’s how the paper concludes: “Because illnesses associated with raw milk continue to occur, additional efforts are needed to educate consumers and dairy farmers about illnesses associated with raw milk and raw colostrum.” Sure, brand all raw milk drinkers as troublemakers and send them off to a psychiatric ward.

***

Health officials crack down on raw milk

When they have a crack down on salmonella tomatoes and mad cow beef, I’ll believe that they care about the nation’s food safety.

By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press Writer.

SAN FRANCISCO – Dairy owner Mark McAfee started selling raw milk in 2000, marketing it to customers who believe it contains beneficial microbes that treat everything from asthma to autism.

The unpasteurized milk swiftly caught on as part of the growing natural food movement. But the Food and Drug Administration considers McAfee a snake oil salesman and recently launched an investigation into whether his dairy illegally shipped raw milk across state lines. The agency even tried to recruit one of his employees to secretly record conversations with him.

Comment: Snake oil salesman?! That’s professional. Guess they’ve still got their panties in a wringer since the FDA goons couldn’t get McAfee’s employees to wear a wiretap or nark on him!

The case against McAfee is part of a crackdown on raw milk by government health officials who are concerned about the spread of food-borne illnesses. Lawmakers and law enforcement agencies are stepping up efforts to keep unpasteurized milk out of reach, even as demand for the niche product grows.

Comment: Why are they stepping up the efforts just when people want them in larger numbers? At whose behest are they stepping up these efforts, Big Dairy?

McAfee, who was among the first in to sell raw milk on a large scale, brushed off the investigation: “When you’re a pioneer, you have to expect to take a few arrows.”

Twenty-two states prohibit sales of raw milk for human consumption, and the rest allow it within their borders. The FDA bans cross-border sales.

In Pennsylvania, local officials recently busted two dairies unlawfully selling milk straight from the cow.

And in Maryland, health officials issued an emergency ban late last year on “cow-sharing” agreements, claiming they were aimed at skirting a ban on raw milk sales.

“Raw milk should not be consumed by anyone for any reason,” said John Sheehan, head of the FDA’s dairy office. “It is an inherently dangerous product.”

Comment: You keep saying that but no one believes you anymore; in fact every time you spout these dire comments, you just drive more people to the store and/or farm to see what they’re missing. Mark must love you guys!

But shutting down sales is tricky because the federal government has largely let states regulate the raw milk industry. The result is a hodgepodge of laws that confuse consumers, dairy farmers and regulators alike.

McAfee said he expects the FDA’s criminal probe to be dropped without charges in a deal that will require him to guarantee his interstate shipments are for use only as pet food. The FDA declined to comment.

Raw milk proponents insist they are under siege by state and federal regulators intent on snuffing out the industry.

The popularity of raw milk is fueled by consumers’ concerns about the chemicals and hormones used in traditional dairy farming, and a growing interest in unprocessed, organic foods.

Devotees of raw milk ascribe to it almost mythical healing powers. They feed it to babies, believing it strengthens the immune system and staves off digestive troubles. The heat used in pasteurization, they say, kills healthy natural proteins and enzymes.

“It’s a magic food,” said Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates consumption of natural foods.

The FDA insists pasteurization destroys harmful bacteria without significantly changing milk’s nutritional value. The process also extends its shelf life.

Comment: That’s why Big Dairy pasteurizes milk—not because it cares about your health!

Nevertheless, some consumers have formed cooperatives to support dairy farmers who offer raw milk. They also join “cow-sharing” programs in which farmers take care of cows that are “leased” by consumers.

Food safety officials say raw milk has sickened hundreds of people with salmonella, E. coli and other bacteria. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,000 people fell ill from raw milk between 1998 and 2005. Two died.

Comment: And how does that stack up against other salmonella and E. coli-infected foods? Hundreds of people were sickened and four children died during the Jack in the Box Hamburger Contamination alone. Did the FDA thugs harrass executives and shut down the business? Of course not. This hypocrisy speaks volumes about their objectivity.

The FDA ban on cross-border sales of raw milk led to its criminal investigation of Organic Pastures, a Fresno dairy owned by McAfee that is California’s largest raw milk supplier.

The agency ordered two of McAfee’s employees to testify before a grand jury and offered to pay one of them to surreptitiously record her conversations with McAfee, according to the worker.

“The main issue was selling our products outside the state of California,” said dairy worker Amanda Hall, who refused to wear the wire. The two workers’ grand jury appearances were canceled last month.

Even if McAfee avoids criminal charges, he still faces lawsuits filed by the families of five children who claim his raw milk made them seriously ill.

He denies the allegations and said testing at his dairy did not detect the strain of E. coli that sickened some of the children.

McAfee also is challenging a new California law requiring lower bacteria levels in raw milk. He fears the change will put him out of business. A judge in San Benito County last month ruled for the state, but McAfee appealed the decision on Thursday. Also, a state senator plans to introduce a bill to repeal the law.

Whole Foods Co. lobbied for a law that ensure raw milk dairies can stay in business.

“It is a growing piece of our business,” said Walter Robb, the company’s co-president. “We want to protect consumer choice.”

He and other raw milk proponents argue that the FDA should spend its time working on other agricultural practices that jeopardize food safety, such as the way large farms confine animals.

But parents like Melissa Herzog strongly disagree.

Herzog, whose 10-year-old daughter spent two months in the hospital after her kidneys failed because of E. coli poisoning, is one of the families suing Organic Pastures over the 2006 outbreak that health officials determined was probably caused by raw milk from the dairy.

“I don’t have anything good to say about raw milk,” she said. “It was a horrible experience.”

Dogmatic Conclusions to Make Your Head Spin

Weston Price studied the Masai tribe in the 30s, and found them to be in excellent health as long as they consumed the traditional diet of raw blood, milk, and meat.

Source: Regina Wilshire, Weight of the Evidence.

One of the oft repeated concerns about a carbohydrate restricted, high-fat diet is long-term effects. With globalization and a wide-variety of foods available in even remote locations today, it’s increasingly difficult to find traditional populations whom may be ideally suited to assess the long-term effect of such a diet.

One such population does exist – the Masai of Africa – for whom meat, milk and blood are their daily dietary staples, a naturally low-carbohydrate diet that has been traditionally consumed for generations. They offer us a unique opportunity to assess how such a diet impacts the ‘health risk markers’ held dear in modern science and medicine.

Does their diet, high in fat, make them fat?

Does their diet, high in fat, make them hypertensive?

Does their diet, high in fat, lead to high cholesterol levels?

For decades many have assumed that a diet rich with dietary fat leads to obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, which then is assumed to lead to heart disease and other chronic health problems.

In the June 3, 2008 issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine a study investigating the Masai and their dietary habits and comparing them with rural and urban Bantu consuming different dietary practices is quite enlightening and tells us a story about how consuming dietary fat per se is not the underlying cause of obesity, high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

In the study published, Daily Energy Expenditure and Cardiovascular Risk in Masai, Rural and Urban Bantu Tanzanians, we learn that researchers investigated the dietary habits of three distinct populations within the same country – Tanzania – thus limiting confounding variables due to vastly different cultural conditions.

In total, the researchers investigated the health and health risk markers of 985 Tanzanian men and women – 130 Masai, 371 rural Bantu and 484 urban Bantu – with each group reporting very different dietary habits.

The Masai reported a high-fat, low-carbohydrate dietary pattern.

The rural Bantu reported a low-fat, high-carbohydrate dietary pattern.

The urban Bantu reported a high-fat, high-carbohydate dietary pattern, similar to a Western diet.

Which group to do think fared best?

BMI (average)

Masai = 20.7
Rural Bantu = 23.2
Urban Bantu = 27.4 (as a whole, the group was, on average, overweight)

Incidence of Obesity (BMI at or higher than 30)

Masai = 3%
Rural Bantu = 12%
Urban Bantu = 34%

Waist-Hip Ratio (lower is better)

Masai = 0.87
Rural Bantu = 0.89
Urban Bantu = 0.93

Blood Pressure

Masai = 118/71
Rural Bantu = 134/80
Urban Bantu = 134/82

Prevalence of Hypertention

Masai = 4%
Rural Bantu = 16%
Urban Bantu = 21%

Total Cholesterol

Masai = 3.89mmol/L (152mg/dl)
Rural Bantu = 3.60mmol/L (140mg/dl)
Urban Bantu = 4.50mmol/L (176mg/dl)

HDL (higher is better)

Masai = 1.08mmol/L (42mg/dl)
Rural Bantu = 0.91mmol/L (36mg/dl)
Urban Bantu = 1.08mmol/L (42mg/dl)

LDL

Masai = 2.09mmol/L (82mg/dl)
Rural Bantu = 2.13mmol/L (83mg/dl)
Urban Bantu = 2.69mmol/L (105mg/dl)

Triglycerides

Masai = 1.36mmol/L (121mg/dl)
Rural Bantu = 1.45mmol/L (129mg/dl)
Urban Bantu = 1.61mmol/L (143mg/dl)

Total Cholesterol/HDL Ratio (less than 4 is ‘ideal’)

Masai = 3.72
Rural Bantu = 4.38
Urban Bantu = 4.53

LDL/HDL Ratio (the lower the better)

Masai = 2.21
Rural Bantu = 2.46
Urban Bantu = 2.69

ApoB/ApoA-1 Ratio (measure of LDL particle ratios, lower is better)

Masai = 0.74
Rural Bantu = 0.83
Urban Bantu = 0.81

So, there you have the major findings. What did the researchers conclude?

No! It couldn’t possibly be their dietary habits, it must be that the “potentially atherogenic diet among the Masai was not reflected in serum lipids and was offset probably by very high energy expenditure levels and low body weight.”

Now their level of physical activity certainly may be contributing to their overall health, but it’s certainly not independent of their dietary habits. In fact, I would contend that while it’s ideal to be active, that is not the driving force in ‘health’ or lack thereof - it’s dietary habits that dominate our health outcomes, our level of activity may be important too, but activity in and of itself is no solution to a piss-poor diet.

We need, before activity, a proper diet to enable us to perform phyisical activity, not the other way around! So while the researchers here could not bring themselves to even consider that the habitual diet of the Masai – high-fat and low-carbohydrate – was the driving force in their good health and enabled high levels of activity, I’ll say it!

Here we have evidence that a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet, consumed habitually does not lead to obesity, high blood pressure and dyslipidemia, and it may, in fact, lead to beneficial long-term health and increased levels of activity in those habitually eating such a diet.

Got Milk? Get Investigated

I get raw milk from a couple living in the boondocks, and although they run their operation as a legal herd share, I worry that they’ll get prosecuted for something or other, and have agents pull up gestapo-style to their little ranch.

By David E. Gumpert, The Nation.

As consumers increasingly seek out farmers who raise organic and unpasteurized food, suddenly energized regulators claim they want to “protect” us from pathogens and other dangers. What gives?

The undercover agent takes two guises in our national consciousness. At one extreme is the highly trained professional who risks his or her life to go after the worst drug dealers and mobsters. At the other extreme is the apolitical and poorly trained apparatchik, designated by a bureaucratic superior to infiltrate a group deemed subversive or otherwise troublesome to authorities. The infiltrator may even become a provocateur as a way to give the authorities an excuse to crack down. Government agents did a lot of this during the 1960s, while monitoring civil rights and far-left organizations. At this end of the spectrum, the work is not only unglamorous but ethically questionable. Who wants to rat on their fellow citizens asserting rights guaranteed by the Constitution, like free speech, assembly and those not even mentioned because they seem so obvious, like consuming the foods of their choice?

This latter extreme was on display in early May in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where Mennonite dairy farmer Glenn Wise was charged with three counts of selling unpasteurized milk without a license.

In a tiny magisterial district courtroom filled with about forty of Wise’s friends and supporters, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s case relied primarily on the testimony of an undercover agent, in real life a low-level PDA employee with the title “food sanitarian.” The agent-employee, Joe Goetz, painted a picture of an employee forced into distasteful undercover actions against a small farmer, the father of nine children.

“I was directed by my supervisor to make a purchase of raw milk and kefir” from Wise, Goetz stated under questioning by the PDA’s attorney. So Goetz infiltrated the Communities’ Alliance for Responsible EcoFarming (CARE), a private Pennsylvania buying club that serves as an umbrella organization for many of the state’s farmers who sell raw dairy products to consumers. He described how he went to the Wises’ Shady Acres Dairy Farm on three occasions in 2007 and 2008, each time purchasing half a gallon of raw milk and a quart of kefir.

When it was the defense’s turn, the slender, soft-spoken Wise, who handled his own defense, quickly showed himself to be a sharp inquisitor.

“So you did sign a CARE contract?”

“Yes.”

“Did you read that contract?”

“Yes.”

The CARE contract, it turns out, bounds members “under penalty of perjury” that they are “not acting under color of law to entrap, hurt, prosecute, or otherwise trespass/and/or gather information for any agency, corporation, person or other entity to in any way negatively affect the CARE Alliance/Association, its board of directors, members or its purpose.”

Magisterial District Judge Jayne Duncan dismissed two of the citations, and reduced the fine on the third from $300 to $50, saying the PDA had been “unfair” by using secretive methods, including an undercover agent, to go after Wise. The farmer was relieved, but vowed to appeal the $50 fine to a higher court, to get a further ruling on not only the PDA’s tactics but on his right to sell unpasteurized dairy products privately to consumers. The agency currently allows raw milk sales by licensed dairies, but prohibits all sales of unpasteurized yogurt, kefir, butter and other similar products.

The case against Glenn Wise is only the latest in a troubling series of legal cases in which both state and federal authorities are relying on undercover agents to entrap dairy farmers. “They’re relying on undercover agents more than in the past,” says veteran agriculture attorney Gary Cox, who has represented a number of dairy farmers around the country on behalf of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. “My take is that since there is more and more raw milk consumption, the regulators are going undercover more and more.”

One of the first of these cases occurred in Ohio in 2005, when an Ohio Department of Agriculture undercover agent visited the dairy farm in Millersburg owned by Amish farmer Arlie Stutzman. Stutzman ran a herdshare operation, whereby area residents bought shares in his cows in exchange for unpasteurized milk. The agent pretended to be a building contractor, and asked to purchase a gallon of raw milk. After much back-and-forth, Stutzman agreed to accept a $2 “donation.” According to testimony at an ODA hearing on revoking Stutzman’s dairy license, Stutzman “testified that he had been taught that if any person asks for food, one should give it if he has such.”

The hearing examiner allowed that Stutzman’s explanation was “a noble exercise,” but revoked his license nonetheless. A few months later, he was allowed to apply for another, and received it. In late 2006, a state judge ruled in a related case that the state’s campaign against herdshare programs was illegal.

In 2006, the Michigan Department of Agriculture dispatched an undercover employee to join an Ann Arbor food cooperative for six months, and used the agent’s information about the distribution of unpasteurized milk to launch a sting operation against farmer Richard Hebron. State officials searched Hebron’s home and confiscated thousands of dollars of dairy products and business records. Though he could potentially have been tried on felony charges, Hebron was let off with a $1,000 fine as part of a settlement some months later when a local prosecutor declined to seek a criminal indictment.

Late last year, the owners of upstate New York raw milk dairy Meadowsweet Farm inadvertently discovered an undercover agent among the more than 200 members of their limited liability company (LLC), organized to arrange raw milk sales to members in the Ithaca area. When the dairy was hit with a citation and ordered to appear at a hearing in January by New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets, the owners, Barb and Steve Smith, subpoenaed the undercover agent as a witness, hoping to score points with the hearing officer. No decision from the hearing has yet been reported by the agency.

In California earlier this year, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agents allegedly sought to recruit a dairy employee to go undercover. Amanda Hall, an employee of California’s largest producer of raw milk, Organic Pastures Dairy Co., says that two FDA criminal agents visited her at her home in Fresno one evening in March after work. A few weeks earlier, she had received a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury, and the agents said their visit was in connection with an investigation into out-of-state sales of raw milk.

After questioning her about her role in taking phone orders for raw dairy products, “One of them asked me, ‘Would you ever consider wearing a wire? If you would wear it, you would be getting information from Mark [McAfee, the dairy's owner]. You could benefit. You wouldn’t be paid millions, but it would sure help you out.’ ” Amanda declined, and the agent left a card, saying that if she changed her mind, she should call.

She told McAfee the next day about the confrontation, and he broadcast it to the local media, cutting Hall’s undercover career short before it even started. The FDA agent who left his card, Stephen Jackson, refused to comment on the investigation.

When undercover agents come under cross examination, things can get a embarrassing. One of the first questions defense lawyer Gary Cox asked Dennis Brandow Jr., the undercover agent for New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets, in the Meadowsweet Farm hearing, was this: “When you became a member of the LLC, did you tell them that you were going to be a snitch?” The objection from the Agriculture and Markets lawyer was upheld, but Cox’s point had been made.

The day before Glenn Wise went on trial in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, earlier this month, another Mennonite dairy farmer, Mark Nolt, was put on trial on similar charges about fifty miles west, in Mount Holly Springs. In this case, two PDA employees testified they had purchased milk undercover from Nolt at farmers markets.

Nolt also served as his own lawyer, and it didn’t take him long to crack one of the undercover agents, Anthony Russo, who is a microbiologist when he’s not working undercover. Nolt, in his cross examination, inquired about who drove the car and where Russo parked on each of two occasions he secretly purchased dairy products.

Russo was obviously uncomfortable about having to confront the victim of his subterfuge, because he volunteered: “I was nervous about going. I don’t like doing that kind of stuff. I was hoping you weren’t there because I didn’t want to get any [dairy] samples.”

What are these cases really about? It might be argued that, individually, these are mostly harmless cases of low-level bureaucrats gathering evidence by posing as consumers. But taken together, something more is definitely going on.

For one thing, the use of undercover agents tends to be accompanied by other questionable investigative techniques. Meadowsweet Farm has filed suit against the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets, alleging in part that a search warrant used by the agency before filing its undercover-agent-inspired complaint was deficient because of its open-ended time frame and vague language about the amount of force that could be used in confiscating evidence.

The week before Mark Nolt’s trial, a caravan of law enforcement vehicles arrived unannounced at his farm, carrying eleven PDA employees and four state police officers. The officers secured a perimeter around the farm to prevent any neighbors, including Nolt’s elderly father who lives down the road, from gaining entrance. They handcuffed Nolt and took him away in a police car to be arraigned without allowing him to alert his family. And while a search warrant limited the officials to confiscating milk processing equipment, the authorities also took Nolt’s expensive cheese-making equipment and cream separator.

A PDA spokesperson declined to explain those seizures, except to say, “Because this is an ongoing criminal prosecution, we cannot go into detail about how certain items seized during the execution of the search warrant will be used as evidence.”

While the undercover agents are often uncomfortable, citizen targets are rattled even more. The buying groups and cooperatives being formed by many small dairies have already become less trusting of outsiders, sharply quizzing prospective new members, which discourages the very sense of community that draws consumers to these farms.

Cox of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund thinks the current campaign against raw dairy products is being orchestrated among state agriculture departments by the FDA as part of a concerted effort to intimidate the growing number of dairies producing unpasteurized milk, which are nearly always small farms (see “Milk Wars”).

He suspects it’s also related to the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), the highly controversial US Department of Agriculture program to require computer tags on all farm animals (see “USDA Bets the Farm on Animal ID Program”.) “NAIS helps big business and will put small farmers out of business,” he says.

That may be the ultimate goal of a growing undercover-agent tactic–get rid of ever more troublesome small farms and let agribusiness entirely have its way.

About David E. Gumpert

David E. Gumpert is a columnist with BusinessWeek.com, specializing in health and business. He covers nutrition and food issues at his blog. more…

The Secret Police Campaign Against Raw Dairies May Signal More Government Fear Than We Realize

They are afraid, because more people are waking up and rejecting the Industrial Food Complex. Good!

By David Gumpert, The Complete Patient.

Yesterday I was trying to explain the raw milk situation to Julie, the woman who has been cutting my hair the last 15 years or so. Julie and I usually chat during the time she is cutting and trimming about movies or new restaurants in the area, but the last couple of times I’ve been in to see her, we’ve gotten to talking about health and food, and in particular, raw milk.

Julie isn’t a foodie by any means, and she doesn’t read a lot about food and politics, but her ten-year-old son has attention deficit disorder (ADD) and she is convinced his diet, especially his sugar consumption, impacts his behavior. So when she asked me yesterday what I’ve been up to in the six weeks since I last had my hair cut, I told her, “Well, I’ve been in a few courtrooms and at a legislative hearing and on several dairy farms.”

I tried to explain the raw milk situation to her, how it seems to help some children with ADD and other chronic conditions, and how the government seems intent on preventing us from obtaining raw milk, even resorting to employing undercover agents.

“That’s crazy,” she said. “Why shouldn’t people who want it be able to buy it, and those who are afraid of it just stay away from it?”

Good question, I told her—unfortunately, one I can’t answer.

I find that when I step back from the situation a bit, I realize we’ve moved beyond the skirmish stage of this struggle, to real battle. It’s a battle that’s far from over, even allowing for the courtroom defeat last week over California’s AB 1735.

That became even more starkly apparent to me as I went back and reviewed all the cases involving undercover agents in raw milk cases, for an article I just wrote for The Nation, “Got Milk? Get Investigated”. It started three years ago as a seemingly isolated situation involving an Amish farmer in Ohio, and has in recent months exploded into use in New York, California, and Pennsylvania.

I’ve always associated a government’s use of undercover agents (really, secret police) against ordinary citizens as the mark of a totally repressive regime—the old Soviet Union, present-day Cuba and Burma are the obvious examples. These are regimes that are afraid of their citizens. The U.S. obviously differs significantly from these places in many respects, yet it employs their tactics. All I can conclude is that the people in power must be very afraid.

One of the best ways for ordinary citizens to fight back is to identify the turncoats, embarrass them, and strip the veil of secrecy from their employers. That’s part of what I mean by education. Leave them no place to hide.

Why Do They Want to Scare and Deceive Us? The FTCLDF Argument Holds Important Clues

The FTCLDF = The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. It’s one of the few organizations fighting the implementation of NAIS (the National Animal Identification System):

“Once fully implemented, the NAIS program would require every person who owns even one livestock or poultry animal (a single chicken or a pet pony) to register their property with the state and federal government, to tag each animal, and to report “events” to a database within 24 hours. Reportable events would include such things as a private sale, a state fair, or a horse show.”

Source: David Gumpert’s blog, The Complete Patient.

I’m struck in some of the discussions on my recent postings about just how much rope some people are willing to give the government apologists. When I wrote about the stuttering stammering performance of a supposed public health expert about raw milk, Amanda Rose and cp2 thought I had gone too far in criticizing the poor guy because he couldn’t formulate a coherent sentence to back up his claim that raw milk is “deadly.” The data’s all in his packet of data, advised one. If you look there, you’ll see that he is, indeed, coherent. No, I’m afraid not. That packet of data is just a compilation of supposed illnesses from raw milk—some questionable and some for real.

I think it’s this desire to believe that’s behind the sometimes lengthy discussions that go on here about whether raw milk is, indeed, as dangerous as the officials would have us believe. Some people just want so badly to trust that the authorities have our best interests at heart. After all, they dedicate their lives to public service and science. They must know something.

Unfortunately, the real intent of many of these authorities is to scare and deceive us, not to protect us. Because the raw milk “problem” in the context of the whole of food-borne illness and public health as a whole is the equivalent of a pinprick.

So why do they want to scare and deceive us?

Here is where the latest action on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) becomes so important. It’s all about business—the business of business, and the business of control.

The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund’s Notice of Intent—even allowing for the fact that it is an argument on one side of an issue—is refreshing for its success in capturing the underlying issues. Steve Bemis summarizes it clearly following my previous post. They want to scare us into believing we need a totally unwieldy and intrusive system for tagging animals for the same reason they want to scare us about raw milk: so that big business can consolidate its factory-food path and government can move further down the road of ever-stricter control.

The primary obstacle in their path is the growing numbers of small sustainable farms, and the message they communicate about food and health. In the business scheme of things, small farms might be viewed as custom producers in a sea of factories.

Now, in most industries, the factories care little about the custom producers. The factories tolerate the custom producers as serving niche markets.

But in farming, it’s different. The problem with food is that it is such a staple, such a necessity. As much as agribusiness and government say all food is alike, growing numbers of people are coming to understand that is not the case. That truth is terribly threatening to the existing structure. The existing structure doesn’t like to be threatened. Expect this case to be fought tooth and nail every step of the way.

Let Me Know If You Figure Out What This Raw Milk “Expert” Is Saying; A PA Politician Speaks Out

Source: The Complete Patient Blog.

If you want to get a sense of the double-talk that passes for science around the raw-milk issue, take a look at the transcript from the California Senate hearing on raw milk held April 15 in Sacramento. Organic Pastures Dairy Co. has just published the complete 159-page transcript on its site.

Begin on p. 27, with the testimony of Michael Payne, who describes himself as a researcher in food safety at the University of California at Davis, as well as an expert in veterinary medicine and comparative pathology, and you’ll see what I mean. It was widely understood at the hearing that he was a stand-in for the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which refused repeated requests from Sen. Dean Flores, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Food-Borne Illness, to send a representative.

Payne began his testimony by stating: “It’s not just a turn-of-the-century problem, but serious and even deadly disease outbreaks caused by raw milk products continue to this day.” He then gave a garbled assessment of how E.coli0157:H7, listeria, and camphylobacter had been found in cows providing organic milk (not clear if he meant just organic pasteurized milk, organic pasteurized milk from pastured cows or raw milk).

At the end of his testimony, Sen. Flores asked, “Has anyone died in California from raw milk?”

“Unequivocally yes,” stated Payne.

When Sen. Flores asked him to explain, he counted from his printed submission and finally said, “Eleven documented cases of certified raw milk.” After Sen. Flores established that those were illnesses and supposedly came from the long-shuttered Altadena dairy, the senator asked again, “Has there been any certified deaths due to the two dairies that are now producing this in California?”

To which Payne answered, “Not any deaths…”

There followed more hemming and hawing, in which Payne tossed around statistics about illnesses and deaths in which it wasn’t clear whether he was talking about milk or cheese, or California or non-California illnesses. Finally, after more questioning, Payne stated that in all the statistics he has about California, going back who knows how far, “Well, as I look through it, let’s see—one death associated with raw milk consumption. It happened in 1980, or 1991, four illnesses and one death associated with raw milk consumption that were all treated by the same VA hospital in San Diego.”

After more questioning, he concluded, “Ultimately, checking the sanitation is what’s going to protect raw milk consumers. And a small part of that, but a part of that, will be total coliform counts…”

So after all that, what we learn is there was one death in California from raw milk contamination, maybe, in 1980 or 1991. And that coliform measurements are “a small part” of the sanitation picture. Whew. And it took ten pages of testimony to extract that garbled info. I see now why I didn’t try to report it in detail at the time—I just couldn’t be sure I understood what the guy was saying, since even in print it is nonsensical.

On the serious side, there was lots of very interesting testimony preceding Payne’s testimony from raw milk drinkers, especially in response to Sen. Flores’ perceptive question: What would happen if raw milk were banned?

***

Speaking of politicians, there’s an interesting statement just out from a Pennsylvania senator, Mike Folmer. He says this about last week’s trials of Pennsylvania raw milk producers Mark Nolt and Glenn Wise:

“Why the crackdown on the Commonwealth’s longstanding raw milk tradition? Answer: the administration has succumbed to an irrational fear of the health aspects of raw milk.

“The truth is this: properly collected from cows fed with organic grass, raw milk has no appreciable negative consequences for the consumer. In fact, raw milk from grass-fed cows contains natural antibiotic properties that help protect it from pathogenic bacteria. Raw milk is also more nutritious than pasteurized milk because pasteurization destroys heat-sensitive vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin B and thiamin, as well as positive enzymes. Pasteurization also destroys friendly, pathogen-eating bacteria. Pasteurized milk sickens people in far greater numbers than does the more heavily regulated raw product, although admittedly far more people drink pasteurized milk.

“Let me offer an important disclaimer: any food can be contaminated, including raw and pasteurized milk. What matters is how the milk is produced, handled and packaged.”

Well stated, Senator. Now let’s see if there’s any followup efforts against the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

PA Senator Mike Folmer: Raw Deal for Raw Milk

http://www.senatorfolmer.com/columns/2008/051308.htm

Prior to Gov. Ed Rendell’s administration, state government was supportive of the Commonwealth’s proud heritage of raw milk production. In recent weeks and months, however, state authorities have become hostile toward our raw milk farmers.

On April 25th, Mennonite raw milk farmer Mark Nolt of Newville had his farm raided for the second time. This time Nolt was arrested, while officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) seized $30,000 worth of cheese and other products intended to feed families, including his own. PDA agents also seized parts from equipment necessary for Nolt to run his raw milk operation, thus crippling his livelihood and means for providing for himself and his family.

The significant volume of raw milk foods seized by the authorities was thrown away, even as nearly 1.2 million Pennsylvanians are at risk for hunger, according the PDA’s web site.

Elizabethtown dairy farmer Glenn Wise is a farmer-member of a private organization that sells milk only to community members. He was issued three citations for allegedly selling raw milk without the proper state permit.

While Wise, Nolt and several others have been targeted for allegedly being in violation of the state’s requirement to have a permit to sell raw milk, other raw milk farmers who have permits have also been subject to the Rendell administration’s harassment. Additionally, those wishing to obtain a raw milk permit have suddenly found it more difficult to do so.

Why the crackdown on the Commonwealths’ longstanding raw milk tradition? Answer: the administration has succumbed to an irrational fear of the health aspects of raw milk.

The truth is this: properly collected from cows fed with organic grass, raw milk has no appreciable negative consequences for the consumer. In fact, raw milk from grass-fed cows contains natural antibiotic properties that help protect it from pathogenic bacteria. Raw milk is also more nutritious than pasteurized milk because pasteurization destroys heat-sensitive vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin B and thiamin, as well as positive enzymes. Pasteurization also destroys friendly, pathogen-eating bacteria. Pasteurized milk sickens people in far greater numbers than does the more heavily regulated raw product, although admittedly far more people drink pasteurized milk.

Let me offer an important disclaimer: any food can be contaminated, including raw and pasteurized milk. What matters is how the milk is produced, handled and packaged.

Consumers should always employ the concept of caveat emptor (“buyer beware”), and use their good sense when purchasing raw milk and its byproducts.

The bottom line is this: state government needs to get off the backs of our raw milk farmers. The overwhelming majority are hardworking, conscientious people who take great pride in producing a safe, healthful product to the numerous consumers in Pennsylvania who appreciate the taste, quality, and benefits of raw milk.

What the Battle Over What the Raw Milk Tells Us About the Emerging World-wide Food Battles

Source: David Gumpert’s blog, The Complete Patient.

One of the reasons I’ve been so fascinated with the issue of raw milk—I didn’t, after all, launch this blog as a “raw milk blog”—is that it is a proxy issue affecting a variety of food and health issues.

The debate taking place on my two previous posts provides additional confirmation. Before explaining, I must say that I find some of these discussions so amazingly articulate and well thought through that I feel like I’m on intellectual overload after reading through them.

To me, much of the recent discussion can be related to the emerging issue of world food shortages and price rises. There was a fascinating Wall Street Journal article last week arguing that the problem of food shortages and rising prices can be partially blamed on small dairies in New Zealand. If only they listened to economists, and allowed the necessary billions in investment, there could be less land devoted to pasture and more huge confinement dairies that would be more “productive,” helping solve the problem of high food costs.

The WSJ’s implied argument—if only you’d give up your silly little farms—is similar to the argument made by concerned2 in a comment on my previous post: “I think there would be a swell of support from many in public health looking for solutions to chronic disease, obesity, and poor nutrition problems that plague the poor and disenfranchised populations in the inner city in the US (due in part to limited access to affordable, nutritious food). Maybe CDC and others would even pony up funds. But, if such proposals include ‘raw dairy products,’ the unfortunate reality is that the controversy over food safety (and hot button situation with raw dairy) could eclipse and end an otherwise wonderful effort.”

In other words, give up this craziness about raw dairy, and everything becomes possible with regard to “affordable, nutritious foods,” including “an otherwise wonderful effort,” whatever that is.

But, of course, we have enough experience now to know what they have in mind when they throw around euphemisms like “improved productivity” and “solutions to chronic disease.” They want more of the same. More confinement dairies with their sick animals and pollution. Fewer small farms and less pasture feeding. More processing to eliminate all bacteria and enzymes. More commoditization. Ever less emphasis on locally grown food and the community it encourages. More regulations to control what foods farmers can produce and sell. In the end, cheap and ever-less-nutritious food.

They shake their heads, yes, in favor of more locally produced food, but when push comes to shove, the economists, agriculture officials, and public health people see food as just another commodity, like oil and copper. Simply produce more of it at lower cost, with more regulation for “safety.”

But we here in the U.S. have been to the other side of the mountain. And now we are left to literally battle against all the power the state can throw at us—police stings, surprise raids, undercover agents—for the simple right to drink milk and eat butter and yogurt that hasn’t been treated according to a faceless bureaucracy’s dictates. I sure hope other countries follow the lead of New Zealand’s dairy farmers, while they still have the leverage. Tell the money men and economists what they can do with their grand food plans.

********************

Amen to that!

We’ll Sleep a Little Better Knowing PA’s Raw Milk Safety Expert Trained on Hershey Bars

Why did Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s Bill Chirdon think it was okay to steal Mark Nolt’s copy of Joel Salatin’s book? Can he not read a search warrant? Or does he consider himself above the law?

Folks, these are the kind of thugs who formerly work in industry (in this case, Dean Foods and Hershey) and then work for government, and sometimes back again through a lucrative revolving door. Do you really think they have your best interests at heart?

This article makes some pointed comments on the arrest of the Mennonite farmer in PA who sells his farms’ products directly to consumers.

If you’re lucky enough to be able to buy high-quality food from farmers like Mark Nolt, you should seriously consider joining the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

Source: from David Gumpert’s blog, The Complete Patient:

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture must feel on solid ground. The press person there was cordial and forthcoming to my requests for information. The only question he had some trouble dealing with was about why Bill Chirdon, the PDA food safety guy, confiscated a copy of the Joel Salatin book, “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal” from raw milk farmer Mark Nolt during the PDA’s raid on his farm Friday.

“We did seize one book,” the official told me, the Salatin book. “I don’t have any other information on that.”

When I pressed him that the seizure seemed weird, he said that Chirdon “will be glad to give it back to him on Monday” at the court hearing. But why was it taken in the first place? At that point, he resorted to euphemisms and legalisms: “It was taken as evidence. We can’t go into the details as to how it might be used.” Yeah, maybe they’re going to use it at PDA to supplement the new-employee orientation program.

Chirdon likely didn’t expect anyone to even notice his act of arrogance and condescension in swiping the book. It’s definitely not allowed for in the search warrant, which PDA sent me as well. That provides for search and seizure of product, equipment, containers, and records, but not for books.

A few other items of interest in the search warrant:

–Chirdon claims dairy expertise because “I was a plant manager at Hershey Foods for twenty years and also the plant manager at Dean Foods for five years. In those jobs, I gained extensive experience in milk and dairy manufacturing, processing, and sales.” Yes, those sound like just the qualifications to help guide consumers in their dairy journeys. Those Hershey bars and Kisses are made from only the purest and freshest of dairy products, with a keen eye on nutrition.

–PDA on several occasions used its agents to go undercover and make purchases from Mark “of the raw milk on display, which was lab tested by PDA’s Food Safety Laboratory and confirmed to be raw milk.” I wonder if they had to call in the FBI for definitive confirmation.

–PDA seems to have chosen to look the other way for about eight months while Mark resumed selling raw dairy products after the agency’s last raid in August. “From 8/10/07 through 3/8/08, the Department did not possess evidence that Nolt was continuing to sell milk and manufactured dairy products made from raw milk…” Presumably PDA had bigger fish to fry, other raw dairies to shut down.

I know a number of readers think Mark Nolt is going at this correctly by not seeking legal representation, and claiming the state doesn’t have jurisdiction. I find it kind of frustrating, since an experienced lawyer could almost certainly find a number of flaws in not only the search warrant procedure, but the state’s approach to the entire matter. Which helps explain why the state is as confident as it is.