The Complete Patient - The Business of Your Health - Journal - The Michigan Raw Milk Investigation Just Gets Bigger and Bigger

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03Nov

The Michigan Raw Milk Investigation Just Gets Bigger and Bigger

Friday, November 3, 2006 at 09:30AM

Regulators usually like to lie low in the midst of a major investigation, foregoing extensive comment to the media. Not Katherine Fedder, the Michigan Department of Agriculture official who is overseeing the investigation of the Family Farms Cooperative and its farmer-manager, Richard Hebron.

She's all over the place, and each time she describes the investigation, it becomes larger than the time before, and more significant in its implications.

In an interview yesterday with a Michigan public radio station, she said that the MDA is "cooperating with several other states as well as a couple of federal agencies." Last I heard, this investigation had extended to one other state--Indiana--because the farmer who produces the co-op's milk is based there. And also last I heard, the investigation involved one federal agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which sent agents to inspect the Indiana dairy.

In another interview, published by the Michigan Land Use Institute, Fedder was quoted at some length about the implications of the investigation. It seems now as if the cow share plan the co-op members used to lease cows and thereby obtain regular raw milk distribution is not at issue. Rather, Fedder is concerned about bigger issues, like Mom and apple pie, er, raw milk. "My biggest concern has always been a mother who goes into the store and grabs something she didn't intend to grab versus a person with a high degree of knowledge of what they're consuming and the choice theyre making," she said. So she seems to be saying it's okay for people to drink raw milk, if they know what they're doing, and she's out to protect the ignorant. But it's the retail connection that appears to bother her most--the distribution of raw milk from the storage area of an Ann Arbor food and wine establishment.

It's hard to say where this is all headed. She's supposed to submit a report about the investigation to prosecutors today. In the meantime, I can only wonder about the other federal agencies she's involved in addition to the FDA. Maybe the FBI? CIA? Army? Navy? Marines?

The Complete Patient |

3 Comments |

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Reader Comments (3)

Although there must be officials in the MDA and even FDA who are decent and honorable people, I feel that these agencies at large have been responsible for the most stupendous betrayals of public safety interests and public health. This most recent story of rocket fuel contamination of commercial milk (http://www.organicconsumers.org/perchlorate.htm) as a result of unregulated pollution by the US military is just one of many egregious acts of outright contempt for environmental or public health safety where our protective, regulatory agencies have looked the other way. It is the "ignorant" mother whose family will be harmed by eating commercially-produced food from the grocery store shelf. How ironic that it is the wise mother who fiercely defends her family's health and well being by carefully choosing her food sources that our government agencies disingenuously claim they must "protect."

November 3, 2006 |

Katherine Czapp

The link to the article from the Michigan Land Use Institute is revealing. The Michigan Dept.of Agriculture still hasn't given a good reason for the heavy handed tactics used against the Hebrons and Morgan and York. The article wisely contrasts their experience with the warnings and extensive extensions given to large farms to comply with regulations.
Not only do these public servants need to come up with a public explanation of the charges and reasons for the sting operation, but we must insist on a full accounting of why they chose to do it as a surprise seizure, and use their authority to make demands (the cease and desist order) and to be as intimidating as possible. They chose not to use the educational, supportive, cooperative, communicative route and I want to know why.

November 5, 2006 |

LDF

Fedder said that she's out to protect the ignorant, I guess that would include herself. The milk was not being sold to the public. It was being distributed to members of a private co-op that are educated on the health benefits of raw milk and know of the dangers of the poison they call milk in the stores. I am one of the co-op members that chooses healthy life giving milk. It should be my choice, not the governments. We were also denied our grass fed meats, yogurt, buttermilk, kefir, cheese, eggs and other organic produce. All these foods were left to rot by MDA. They our not protecting us,they are protecting the big industries. If raw milk is so dangerous, why are so many people thriving on it, without getting sick?

November 15, 2006 |

Cathie