The Complete Patient

Richard Hebron of Family Farms Co-opOne of the frequent accusations public health authorities make against raw dairy producers is that they deny illnesses from raw milk. Indeed, Lykke repeats that notion when she suggests in a comment following my previous post that producers refuse to apologize when their consumers become ill.

Richard Hebron, who runs the Family Farms Co-operative herdshare in Michigan, has been trying for more than a week now to put that notion to rest. Hebron is the farmer who became a cause celebre in October 2006 when he was the object of a Michigan Department of Agriculture “sting operation” and had more than $8,000 worth of raw dairy products confiscated. A local prosecutor investigated Hebron and the Family Farms Co-op for five months, and eventually decided not to press charges. The case led to the establishment of the Michigan Fresh Unprocessed Whole Milk Workgroup to explore ways to break down barriers between dairies and public health and agriculture authorities.

Family Farms Co-op was also targeted early last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and state agriculture officials for possible legal action in a planned crackdown on raw milk buying groups, according to emails obtained by Max Kane, head of a Wisconsin buying group who has been targeted himself.

The Family Farms Co-op has continued operating and serving hundreds of herdshare members without incident, until last week, when a handful of members complained of flu-like symptoms. Five were diagnosed as having campylobacter.

As soon as Hebron learned the news late last week, he went public with members, first alerting them via email of the possibility that herdshare raw milk might be the culprit, then halting milk deliveries, and next doing extensive testing of both the dairy’s milk and its water sources. In addition, the herdshare has been in contact with local public health authorities, providing them with the lab testing data.

In an email last Thursday, Hebron stated: “Several families today have reported members being sick with diarrhea since last Friday's milk delivery.  Some of those sickened believe the illness may have come from last Friday's milk delivery, March 5 to Ann Arbor and Wyandotte. Some stool samples from these individuals show campylobacter, a relatively mild form of food poisoning, although in rare cases, campylobacter can result in serious complications. There is no specific information to suggest that the illness is related to milk, but we want you to know so that you can decide if you or any members of your family want to stop drinking the milk.”

The herdshare decided to halt milk deliveries scheduled for last Friday and Monday, and sent two samples of fresh milk along with samples from the dairy’s two water sources for testing at two private labs. The tests all came back negative.

An email sent to members this week noted, “Additional testing, commonly used for general milk quality, was impressively low for somatic cell count (if the somatic cell count had been high, this would have been an indicator of possible mastitis in the cows). This quality indicator, together with the negative pathogen tests, renews our confidence in the high quality and cleanliness of the milk we provide to our membership.”

Hebron told me he’s not sure exactly how many members of the herdshare have become ill beyond the five confirmed with campylobacter. He noted that the herdshare has taken the approach of “being completely open about this.”

He added that members have divided into three groups: those who became ill and have decided to not consume raw milk any more; those who became ill and plan to continue consuming raw milk; and the vast majority of herdshare members who didn’t become ill and are continuing to consume the milk. “I’m sure we’ll lose some members,” he said. “A few have said they'll never trust raw milk again.”

Two members I spoke with who didn’t become ill said there have been reports of flu-like symptoms in the Ann Arbor area by people who didn’t consume raw milk. One of those members, Linda Diane Feldt, a holistic health practitioner, says that one of her clients and several friends who aren’t milk drinkers told her of their illnesses. She says the client tried raw milk kefir and miso soup at Feldt’s suggestion and reported significant improvement in symptoms. None of these individuals was tested for campylobacter, according to Feldt.

Where does this go from here? As a private organization, which doesn’t sell to the public, the herdshare seems to have done all it could in the interests of transparency, communicating with its members and taking precautions to halt deliveries and test the milk and water sources. It’s also understood to be preparing a questionnaire to gather data from its members. 

How will public health authorities react? That remains to be seen, but hopefully cooperation will continue to be the norm.

And hopefully, the Family Farms Co-Op experience will begin to change the perception that raw dairies react to possible illnesses with only denial.  



Wisconsin dairy farmer Scott Trautman addresses protesters outside a courthouse in Viroqua in December--an image that apparently doesn't sit well with DATCP. I think it’s a good thing that there’s so much back-and-forth about the specifics of the Wisconsin raw milk legislation currently under consideration in the state senate. The prospect of legalizing raw milk in the nation's second-largest dairy state would probably not have gotten anywhere near this much consideration a couple years ago, so much has changed in a brief amount of time.

Yesterday saw the politicians engaged in all kinds of horse trading—pulling out the liability exemption, making the legislation temporary, requiring farmers to keep the names of their customers. Steve Bemis of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund went back-and-forth with Bill Marler, the food poisoning lawyer who has a big following among regulators, to possibly eliminate some troubling language limiting milk consumption to those who purchase the milk.

But something else was going on yesterday in connection with the raw milk legislation: retribution.

Two inspectors from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, Consumer Protection visited the dairy owned by Scott Trautman. You may remember him.  He became an activist in the movement to legalize raw dairy sales after he came under attack by DATCP for selling raw milk, helping organize the protest on behalf of Max Kane in Viroqua in December, and then briefly chaining himself to the fence around the governor's mansion on Christmas Eve.

DATCP inspectors had given Trautman's dairy passing grades four times before last fall, as a Grade A dairy. (He lost his license last fall after he was dropped by a dairy processor. Under Wisconsin dairy rules, you lose your Grade A license if you fail to sell milk for 60 days.) Now Trautman wants to be part of the proposed new law (as well as sell cheese) that was the focus of all the horse trading yesterday, which could well be enacted and would allow Grade A dairies to sell raw milk. But yesterday, there were suddenly a number of things the inspectors didn’t like about his dairy.

The big problem was that they didn't approve of his wooden milking parlor, and want him to build a new one. "Anybody sitting on ten thousand dollars to waste on closing in our beautiful parlor and making it 'safe' and 'unpleasant'?" he asks.

"Isn't it interesting," he observed to me. "I have perfect inspections in a facility signed off on by DATCP. Then I am sounding off about raw milk and suddenly I don't pass. Amazing."

DATCP is highly conflicted about the proposed legislation. I spoke with DATCP’s spokesperson, Donna Gilson, Thursday morning to inquire about the agency’s position on the pending raw milk legislation. “We still don’t believe there’s a way to produce raw milk safely,” she began. Hmmm, not real positive. What about the pending legislation? “This makes it slightly less risky,” she said. DATCP likes the elimination of the liability exemption, and the  requirements for testing and signage. It also approves of the collection of names of purchasers. “When there is an outbreak—you notice I don’t say if there is an outbreak—this is the most efficient means for notification of people.” I guess you could say DATCP will be a reluctant supporter at best of the new legislation.

But one thing DATCP has no hesitation about is payback. Once the legislation passes, it’s going to be payback time for those farmers who pushed things to this point where the agency has to regulate raw milk rather than just stamp it out. DATCP just seems to have gotten going a little early with Scott Trautman.

As long as there’s all this horse trading going on, here’s my suggestion for an addition to the legislation: an amnesty clause. This is what typically happens when wars between countries end—everyone releases their prisoners and starts over again.

But sometimes, following a war, when the original rulers remain in place over an alienated population, there is a blood letting. The rulers tell the ruled via force: yes, you may have won the latest round in the war, but we’re still in charge. And we want you to remember who is in charge.

DATCP has shown itself to be nearly obsessive when it comes to making life difficult for certain raw milk activists. Witness Max Kane. According to one media report, he appeared briefly at a Viroqua courthouse today for what was supposed to be another effort by DATCP attorneys to question him about the names of his buying group participants. He left a copy of a motion to cancel the session because he has appealed a previous order that he testify, and quickly left the courthouse. 

I'd suggest that the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund make sure that, as part of any legislation to legalize raw milk, that those farmers brave enough to challenge DATCP aren't setupon by the agency in retaliation. Even prisoners of war get protection under the Geneva Convention.

***

In New York, raw milk protesters Barb and Steve Smith of Meadowbrook Dairy are awaiting the wrath of the state's Department of Agriculture and Markets, in the wake of the agency's court victory invalidating Meadowsweet's limited liability company to distribute raw milk. In the meantime, the couple has some words of warning for Wisconsin dairy farmers:

"As we have gone through the last 3 years of trouble with Ag and Markets we have seen very clearly that their compulsive desire to control all the milk in the state means they will never allow the raw milk farmers to survive if they can help it. Their real agenda is to eliminate the existence of raw milk farming completely. We were told this years ago by our inspector at the time but didn't really believe him. Now we know he was right. As long as you have a permit you are voluntarily placing the noose around your own neck. You are agreeing that the department has the authority to come on your farm anytime, to control your farm and farm operations, to find violations, to fine you, and even to shut you down if they want. Raw milk farmers around New York who do have permits are in an almost constant struggle with the state as they are threatened with being shut down for test result violations that later prove to be in compliance afterall. And most importantly, if you do have a problem with the way they treat you, there is absolutely NO recourse! Their word is law, period. If you do not have a permit you are technically NOT under their jurisdiction, though they will try to say otherwise. And finally, if you have a permit you can ONLY sell milk on your farm and ONLY milk, no butter, yogurt or kefir."

Something to think about.

Like others here, I’ve been fascinated by the back-and-forth between Steve Bemis and Bill Marler following my previous post.

In business situations, executives generally hand things over to the lawyers to hammer out details after the parties have come to a general agreement. In this situation, things seems reversed, as it’s the lawyers who are seeking a general agreement of principles.

I hope they’ll continue, maybe save everyone else a lot of work, maybe even prove wrong my prediction in the previous post about the possibilities for an accommodation. That's one prediction I would love to be wrong about. I certainly admire their persistence. And I admire Bill Marler’s willingness to take a lot of barbs in several recent exchanges he’s had with bloggers here, and stay reasonably cool and provide succinct responses.

Having said all those nice things, though, I’m going to express my own personal concerns about where this is heading. I’m going to express them more with the hope of inspiring some new Great Thoughts or Great Insights than to sabotage anything.

One concern I have is that we don’t wind up ratcheting down from what already exists in the world of raw milk. By pushing to limit raw milk sales from farms, implementation of Bill Marler’s proposal would lead to worse availability of raw milk in a number of states like Maine, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Washington, and California.  And it would restrict distribution in places like Vermont and New Hampshire, which have broadened availability, such as through some retail sales (NH) and direct delivery to customers (VT). (Though it seems Marler has softened his approach some, saying, “I think I would concede that retail sales and oversight is working in states like WA and CA. My preference, however, is for direct farmer to consumer sales with regulation and inspection.”)

A second concern, I have, and this one is more difficult to articulate, but maybe the best way to say it is that I don’t get a good feeling that Marler’s heart is in the right place. I say that not to question his motives, but rather as an observation of his actions and tone. Generally, when someone from the majority, or ruling class, reaches out to a minority to try to reach an accommodation, it’s because the majority representative has had some inspiration of feelings of empathy—an understanding of the injustice being perpetrated on the minority, for example. In this case, it might be that regulators are beating up on farmers in a number of locales. The reason this is important is that the majority representative needs to be able to “sell” whatever is negotiated to other members of the majority—in this case, the public health and agriculture regulator community.

While Marler sounds reasonable in his back-and-forth with Bemis, I can’t find much evidence of empathy or understanding—in fact, quite the opposite. To my knowledge, he has opposed every single legislative push for a loosening of regulations on raw milk and other foods. He opposed SB 201 in California, the Food Freedom Act in Wyoming, and, now, the proposed raw milk legislation in Wisconsin.

And he is an ardent supporter of the food safety legislation pending in Congress, which will likely put many small food producers out of business by requiring expensive compliance and heavy-duty FDA oversight.

There’s a famous saying, “Don’t judge me by what I say, judge me by what I do.” So while I like what Bill Marler is saying to Steve Bemis, and his language in opposing the Wisconsin raw milk legislation is softer than usual, I have difficulty imagining him “selling” any agreement to his allies in the regulator community, who are going to be completely skeptical, at best, of any kind of “concessions” to the raw milkies. When they say, “Bill, have you lost your mind?” what’s he going to say? I hope he wouldn’t say, “Listen, I’ve come up with a way to keep them boxed in. We haven’t given them more than they already have in most states, and we can always find something either in the labeling or the inspection protocols or whatever to oppose liberalization and tie things up.”

I’m not asking for Marler to change his stripes, but rather to think more about the psychological and emotional overlay of this whole raw milk situation. There’s been a lot of alienation and even a sense of betrayal in much of what’s happened in the last few years. That doesn’t just disappear with a few nice words.

***

Speaking of betrayal, the Whole Foods betrayal of raw milk doesn’t show signs of turning around any time soon. Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures Dairy Co., reports that he didn’t get good vibes from a conference call he had with officials of the chain Tuesday. While national raw milk standards for the chain are promised in a few weeks, there’s no indication of how the standards will be developed. He also says his request for Whole Foods to set up a California complaint line about raw milk was refused, ostensibly so all efforts can be devoted to coming up with new standards.

“We are preparing for a life without Whole Foods,” and the 52 stores that stocked it, says McAfee. “This is a bed they made for themselves. Yet we are constructively hoping that Whole Foods will have raw milk back. In either event...we will have grown in the market as a result. Independent markets love our products." He says six independent stores have taken on Organic Pastures raw milk, and existing stores are selling more than before.

And you gotta love this. John Mackey, Whole Foods’ CEO, has a new article out on the “high trust organization.” No mention of all the trust created by staying with raw milk.

The assaults on food rights disclosed Friday were especially discouraging because they came from two seemingly opposite directions.

First, there was the corporate assault, from Whole Foods. Corporations, of course, can never be trusted to keep their commitments. Whole Foods, despite all its high-sounding rhetoric about sustainability and organic food, is a large New York Stock Exchange corporation. And it took the typical corporate approach of waiting until late on a Friday afternoon to make an unpopular move, and then didn’t officially announce its action. Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. put out the word. Whole Foods clearly hoped it could get away with placing little signs by the dairy case, and that consumers would shrug their shoulders and quickly forget that Whole Foods ever carried raw milk. Now there's talk of Whole Foods wanting some sort of national standards on raw milk. Sounds nice. Anyone want to wager how long those might take to develop?

Then there was the judicial assault in the decision against Meadowsweet Dairy, and that is, in my estimation, a more serious matter. I can remember in one of the first hearings in the Meadowsweet case in early 2008, when Gary Cox argued before a New York state judge. that the search warrant being used by agents from the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets to harass Barb and Steve Smith contained errors and was being misused. It was being used in essentially an open-ended manner, when search warrants are designed under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, affirmed in many legal decisions, to be used only under strict judicial supervision.

Got ‘em, I remember thinking. This is the Bill of Rights we’re talking about. This is the red line that no agency crosses without risking the entire case. This is one of the beauties of our system, teachers of constitutional law like to say (I’m sure Barack Obama taught this in his constitutional law classes at the University of Chicago)—that our system so respects individual rights that guilty individuals will be freed rather than abridge their rights. Indeed, judges have in the past thrown out serious criminal cases, in which the suspect is very likely guilty, because of misuse of search warrants.

So what happened when Gary Cox pointed out all the problems? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The case was allowed to continue to its inevitable conclusion last week, with a panel of appeals court judges very nearly laughing at the notion that citizens have the right to privately contract for access to food. No, they said. The regulators make all the rules covering the transfer of food between people. Make some honey from your backyard hive to give to work colleagues? Hand out eggs from your backyard chicken coop? Make some kefir from the raw milk you bought at a licensed dairy and give it to friends? Better watch out—that’s Ag & Markets’ turf, and the regulators decide whether you can or can’t engage in such activities. We’ll see how much authority Ag & Markets grabs—it’s all there for the taking.

What’s disturbing is that our Constitution is being rendered irrelevant. Rep. Ron Paul made this argument most pointedly at last Wednesday’s lobbying day when he noted that the Congress doesn’t declare war any more, as required by the Constitution. The President just decides to fight a war, and Congress goes along. Know when we last declared war? December 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even though we’ve fought at least five wars since then, and launched numerous invasions of Caribbean/Latin American nations.

Actually, Ron Paul has been making this argument for many years. But sometimes you just have to see it up close and personal before it truly becomes real.

I’ve long thought there had to be some sort of middle ground to settle the raw milk problem, as well as other similar problems. But I’m beginning to realize that there probably isn’t a middle ground. Tyranny allows no middle ground. So long as the anti-raw-milk side has the judges, regulators, legislators, insurance companies, university professors, and medical communities on their side, why should it negotiate? Why settle when you can have everything you want? Lykke can rail about some examples of unsanitary conditions at raw dairies, but there was never any hint of illness at Meadowsweet Dairy.  New York Ag & Markets and the judges didn't care about illness. It seems as if things can never be cleaned up enough for the people in control, because sanitation isn't part of their agenda.

And because the tyrants aren’t ever satisfied with their level of control, there isn’t really a place to hide. The emotional plague articulated so well by Richard Schwartzman is running rampant. Yes, Dave Milano, you are right to worry when they might come after you and your cow.

Certainly California and New York consumers have gotten a dose of that reality medicine. No matter where you live, the move toward tyranny will either hit you directly, as it has Barb and Steve Smith and Mark McAfee, or it will test your resolve—if you’re a Californian, are you willing now to drive an hour for your raw milk, now that the Whole Foods a couple blocks away has banned your raw milk?

There’s no easy way to fight tyranny. Yes, we can join the Tea Party movement and just throw the bums out next election. But the bureaucrats and judges will still be in place, working against freedom, and as we know, they make the key decisions.

I have to think that the most effective immediate step we as citizens and “consumers” can take is to use our economic power. I wrote a few weeks ago how a grocery chain customer can easily be worth $100,000 or $150,000 over twenty years. I guarantee you the executives at Whole Foods aren’t going to be pleased if ever greater numbers of $100,000 customers divvy up their Whole Foods business to co-ops, farmers markets, online health food and supplement suppliers, and so forth. Remember, Whole Foods stocked raw milk in California, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Connecticut not because they're good guys, but to lure health-conscious shoppers in the expectation they would buy much more than just milk. Yes, Whole Foods took a risk, but it was a business risk designed to differentiate the chain from other chains. Now, Whole Foods has decided for whatever reasons it doesn’t want to take the business risk any longer. Well, if you get rid of a big market differentiator, you essentially become just another grocery chain, and you’ve got to put up with the consequences.

Blair McMorran puts it well: “I think this is just the beginning of a little tidal wave of change that is happening, and Whole Foods just lost their foothold on a terrific opportunity.” I hope she’s right.

On the legal side, I’m not so sure what to do. Judges are there in part to protect our rights.  One of the great strengths of this country has been its willingness to respect the rights of minorities—to allow people of different beliefs to do their thing, so long as they weren’t harming outsiders. The country’s most serious problems—most notably racial relations—have come when we allowed the tyranny of the majority. It took a civil war, endless legal cases, civil disobedience, sending in soldiers, and huge protests to move toward legal respect for racial minorities.

Americans who want to consume raw milk, even via strict private financial arrangements, apart from any contact with outsiders, are being treated as if they were scam artists. It’s not unlike what went on in the South after the civil war, when the police and judges allowed the indiscriminate persecution of blacks. The only choice is to keep fighting, with more court suits, more food freedom legislation, and more lobbying. Or else move to Canada, where they seem to have at least one judge who respects the food rights of the minority.

***

Speaking of corporate creepiness, Wal-Mart is positioning itself as a supporter of locally-produced food. It got the Atlantic to write a favorable article, but you know where this story is going. Wal-Mart will do wonderful promotion, and then, when local producers are signed up and committed to filling those fast-growing orders, they’ll learn the Wal-Mart way of doing business—continually lower your prices till you become something like a conventional dairy producer, selling at or below your cost of production. A modern-day slave. My advice to small farms: read the fine print in any contracts you sign with Wal-Mart.

The flow of negative news for raw milk drinkers today continues with word that Whole Foods is pulling raw milk from all its retail stores nationwide, effective tomorrow (Saturday) morning.

When shoppers show up at any Whole Foods that has been carrying raw milk, they will be greeted with signage telling them the chain is no longer stocking the product. This includes stores in at least four states: California, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Whole Foods had just in the last couple months introduced raw milk in Pennsylvania, over the objections for anti-raw-milk advocates.

Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures Dairy Co., reports he was given four hours notice that all deliveries of raw milk to Whole Foods have been suspended. He says he was told the order came from Whole Foods' corporate based on difficulties the company had gaining insurance coverage. "The insurance will not cover any liability if they include raw milk," according to McAfee.

He says he was told he will be paid for all milk already delivered. He also says that losing Whole Foods as an outlet will cost him at least 6% of his sales; he expects to counter the loss with additional sales to existing health food retail outlets.

Expect lots of consumer resentment over the action. Indeed, you can see that the logo accompanying this posting looks like a shell of the real logo, and in that respect, it's symbolic of what Whole Foods has become. I, for one, have been a long time Whole Foods advocate. I defended the company on this blog when the Weston A. Price Foundation recently encouraged consumers to consider taking their business elsewhere because of the chain's strong vegan leanings. I saw Whole Foods as a defender of food rights overall. But this move to drop raw milk changes my view, and I think it will change the view of many other customers.

I'll look for every way I can to avoid making purchases at Whole Foods. I'll try to avoid buying its vitamins, which I tend to do for convenience, and instead buy online from small independent sellers. I'll seek out places like Wilderness Family Naturals for even more items than I currently purchase, like nuts, coconut oil, mayonaise, and other such staples. My personal goal will be to reduce my purchases there until, eventually, I'm not doing any business with the company.

Yes, I've already changed the way I acquire food to avoid the dairy case and meat counter at Whole Foods. Now, I want to broaden my efforts, and actively avoid dealing with any and all supporters of the ever-more-sinister campaign against food rights...and make as many purchases as possible a political statement in support of those who are serious about providing nutrient-dense foods, even in the face of the government-business-sponsored onslaught.