This Boxing Match May Have a Few Too Many Personal Punches
Now that Mark McAfee entered the debate with Mary McGonigle-Martin and Melissa Herzog, I have this feeling of being ringside at a prizefight. I have been at two boxing matches in my life—both in my role as a newspaper reporter—and while I was transfixed for a while, I soon had had enough of watching blood spray about and fighters’ eyes roll backwards in their heads.
Tonight happens to be the first night of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the start of a ten-day period, ending with Yom Kippur, during which Jews seek to atone for their sins. A big part of the atoning process is for both perpetrators and victims to come to grips with their situations, and move on, starting the new year fresh.
Now the situation involving Mark and Mary/Melissa isn’t a clear case of perpetrator and victim. As Dave Milano points out, “Mark’s abrasiveness does not qualify him for hanging” and Melissa is a victim, but “a victim of what, exactly?”
In the spirit of the holiday (and I mean this entirely in an ecumenical spirit), I think a kind of atonement might be in order. Here is how one of the meditations in our prayer book this evening put it: The perpetrator “must appease the injured person and ask forgiveness. By the same token, an injured person must not be cruel and unforgiving. We should be slow to anger and easily appeased. And when our forgiveness is requested, we should grant it with a whole heart and a willing spirit; we should not be vengeful or bear grudges even for a grave injury…”
The Mark versus Mary/Melissa discussion has been truly enlightening in many ways—indeed, a gift in terms of the issues concerning health and disease and nutrition it has raised over the last ten months. It has sparked some of the most provocative discussions on this blog, thanks to the willingness of Mary and Melissa to share painful memories, and now the willingness of Mark to directly participate.
And it continues to enlighten by exposing to the light of day potential rumors and half-truths. The explanation by Brit of her family's recent illness, and how it probably didn't relate to raw cream, is a case in point. Such stories are essential in countering the government's campaign of harassment.
But as I did at the boxing matches, I find myself sometimes flinching when the punches become personally accusatory. It's important not to forget that this latest round was triggered by a highly questionable state action at a vulnerable time for Mary and Melissa. They all deserve better than that. I wonder if it is time for them to do what I suspect comes more naturally than they want to let on--to forgive, and heal.
The Complete Patient
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After reading your article, I had to sit and cry a little before I could return to working on patients. Your blog is the first thing I read every morning; it is the role model for what a a blog can be. Thank you.
Well said and I agree.
Let me be the first to say that I forgive others and I ask them to forgive me. I am a passionate human perfectly capable of mistakes and errors.
Let me also say that raw milk is not perfect and that is what makes it perfect. It is a product of nature and filled with a diversity of hopefully wonderful and great living healing things. There is absolutely no guarantee of perfect safety in any natural thing. Remember that mother nature, in her wisdom, feeds the weak to the strong. She only wants the strong to survive. This is brutal truth but essential to understand that we must be strong.
Perfect safety is something created by the media and the GOT DEAD MILK commercials and the proponents of pasteurization. It is fear that sells insurance policies and fear that makes Americans easy to herd into nicely fenced markets. Fear keeps Americans manageable by those that seek to control us for what ever purposes.
Perfect safety does not exist. Our best bet for optimal safety and health is a combination of working with mother nature, using best practices, using advanced testing technologies and most importantly “building strong immune systems” so that if a pathogen does get into the food chain it literally has no effect.
The last part is missing in America.
David, thank you for your words of healing mediation and blessed peace making.
I am moved that you are so moved. Thank you for sharing.
David
David G,
While I am touched by your post, as everyone is, the fact remains that Mark McAfee is NOT telling the story the way it happened. Its not about throwing punches, its about being honest. What is wrong with Mary and I wanting the truth to be told. ??? Afterall, it is our children that got sick.
We both understand that NO ONE will know the feeling and truly understand where we are coming from. Yes, you can all imagine but it cant be the same as living it. I take all of that into consideration but when someone is flat out lying...its disheartening.
September 13, 2007 | MELISSA
Mark may be a passionate individual and I do agree with some of the things that he says. However he sure knows how to stir a hornet’s nest. Who in the hell is this Mother Nature that feeds the week to the strong and only wants the strong to survive? She appears to me to be somewhat insensitive and twisted. Is this the process that God used to establish mankind? Did Christ not say that “the meek shall inherit the earth”?
Ken Conrad
As Wendell Berry so eloquently titled one of his books, "Life is A Miracle." That means, in my mind, that each human being is a miracle.
As to how we got to be human (rather than a bacterium or other simple life form), I believe that happened by evolution, and evolution works by survival of the fittest. We may well differ in opinion on this point.
The way I bring this down to my level, is that what Jesus (and many other great religions) taught is that when it gets to the way humans behave, as self-aware, moral and religious creatures, then the strong must protect the weak among us, love thy neighbor, and the many other great teachings and commandments, including forgiveness, as we are forgiven. These are teachings for humans, however, and they aren't necessarily the rules of "Mother Nature," biology, physics, chemistry or the other sciences, including bacteria.
Forgiveness is an especially interesting one, since it's within the control of each one of us to forgive others, even if the one who is forgiven, doesn't want to be forgiven! Forgiveness is a unilateral act, and is therefore especially powerful both for the one who gives, as well as, for the one who can let go, and accept the forgiveness.
Forgive me, if I've offended any of the good folks who read and participate in this blog. It's just how I make sense of the world on this particular topic.
Thanks for moving my post. This is where I wanted to post it. I was answering Brit and forgot to switch threads.
Although, I appreciate Mark’s gesture of forgiveness, it felt flippant; merely a sentence used as a transition into his raw milk mantra. Our children and families were deeply traumatized by our horrific experience with E-coli 0157:H7 and HUS. I have experienced hell. Watching my child suffer was emotional torture. I don’t think Mark McAfee has any concept as to the wound he opened with his insensitive, false statements regarding our children.
I don’t feel I need to forgive Mark for anything. He is who he is. I can accept that. Last night I explained myself and my position to Mark and anyone else who would like to read it. I hope in the future he respects my wishes as to facts he uses about my son and his illness.
Shortly after reading this paper,I recieved my August issue of the Michigan State Extension Dairy Newsletter. In it they published the results of a survey of farm bulk tank milk tested for the presence of m. paratuberculosis. The results were divided into two groups by size of herd. Of the herds with 200 cows or less,29% of the bulk tank samples tested positive for m. paratuberculosis.Of the herds of more than 200 cows, 100% of the samples were positive.When the smaller herds milk is comingled for shipping it is safe to assume that a test of the milk would be positive
.Pasteurization does not kill this bacteria.Any one who drinks pasteurized milk believing it is safe , is definitely drinking live m. paratuberculosis.
The Michigan State study also states clearly that 70% of smaller herds in the state are not infected. Wouldn't it be safer to drink raw milk from a herd that was known to be johnes free than to drink commercial milk that is definitely infected?
http://www.blackherbals.com/got_milk.htm
"Drinking milk from cows infected with Johne's disease is how people are exposed to paratuberculosis. Based on DNA fingerprinting techniques, there are two strains of MAP: one that affects cattle, and one that affects goats and sheep. All human isolates so far have been of bovine origin,[180] implicating milk.[181] Milk is the "logical" focus of exposure[182] because cows with Johne's disease secrete paraTB abundantly in their milk.[183] Even sub-clinical cows--those that are infected but appear perfectly normal--shed paraTB bacteria into their milk.[184] Although these bacteria are found free-floating in milk, their transmission may be facilitated by their presence inside pus cells.[185] This is a particular problem in the United States, as we have the highest permitted upper limit of milk pus cell concentration in the world--almost twice the international standard of allowable pus cells.[186] By US federal law, Grade A milk is allowed to have over a drop of pus per glass of milk.[187] These pus cells may facilitate the transmission of paraTB.[188]
Pasteurization
In England, researchers took milk off grocery shelves and tested it for the presence of paratuberculosis bacteria using DNA probes. Depending on the time of the year, up to 25% of milk cartons contained paratuberculosis DNA.[189] Interestingly, the seasonal variation coincided with the periods when Crohn's patients tend to suffer relapses.[190] The researchers tried to culture live paraTB bugs from the milk, but were largely unsuccessful, because cow's milk is such a stew of microbes that fungal overgrowth and faster multiplying bacteria took over the samples.[191] The question then remained, did the positive DNA samples in up to a quarter of the milk supply indicate live or dead paratuberculosis bacteria? Can paraTB survive pasteurization?
Historically, pasteurization had been established in order to kill paraTB's cousin, bovine tuberculosis.[192] TB was thought to be one of the most heat resistant human pathogens, so the temperature was set at approximately 62o Celsius (144o Fahrenheit) for a half an hour.[193] Later, the disease Q fever was discovered, so the temperature was increased to 63o Celsius.[194] Now the HTST method, which stands for High Temperature, Short Time, is predominantly used--72o Celsius (162o F), but only for 15 seconds.[195] While 72o C kills most bacteria, paratuberculosis has been shown to survive 15 seconds at 90o Celsius (194o F).[196] By hiding in milk in fat droplets, pus cells, and fecal clumps,[197] paraTB might be able to survive at even higher temperatures.[198] Second only to prions[199] (which cause mad cow disease), paratuberculosis is considered the most heat resistant pathogen in the human food supply.[200]
Johne's on the Rise
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Johne's disease is one of the most serious diseases affecting the cattle industry.[201] Although it is found in cattle populations throughout the world, the United States appears to have the worst paratuberculosis problem on the planet.[202] In 1997, the USDA released a long-awaited report of the national prevalence of Johne's disease. Surveying over 2500 dairy producers,[203] they showed that between 20-40% of US dairy herds were infected, a figure that they concede is probably an underestimate.[204] Since milk from an entire herd is likely to be pooled together in tankers for transport to processing plants, the 20 to 40% figure is likely to indicate the level of contamination in American milk.[205]
Just as Crohn's disease is increasing in the human population--it may be no coincidence that the US also has the world's highest incidence of Crohn's ever recorded[206]--Johne's disease is spreading among dairy cattle.[207] Johne's disease is spread primarily by the fecal-oral route. One can imagine how a cow with intractable diarrhea can thoroughly contaminate her surroundings[208] and just a few bits of swallowed manure can potentially infect a calf.[209] Overtly infected animals, losing up to 300 lb. of body weight in one week[210] can shed as many as ten hundred trillion bugs a day.[211] One can also imagine what intensive modern farming practices have done for the disease.[212] Grazing bigger and bigger numbers of cattle on smaller and smaller plots of land is one of the reasons this dreaded disease is such a growing threat.[213] And every time animals are transported between farms, new herds may be infected. If no changes are made, the dairy herd infection rate is expected to reach 100%.[214]
USDA Farce?
With the growing Johne's epidemic, US governmental regulatory agencies have been in a bind. The only thing allegedly standing between people and the paratuberculosis bacterium are 15 seconds at 72o Celsius.[215] The government has had to somehow convince the families of Crohn's patients who started to ask questions that pasteurization was foolproof. The problem was that the preponderance of the scientific evidence was against them--almost every study ever done simulating pasteurization conditions showed that paraTB survived the 15 seconds at 72o C.[216] So USDA scientists designed their own experiment.
Critics accuse the USDA of trying to ensure that no paraTB would survive in their pasteurization experiment by first crippling the bacteria. Very irregularly, with no precedent in the scientific literature for using this type of approach,[217] the USDA began their experiment by first "starving" the MAP bacteria,[218] exposing them to high-frequency sound waves, and freezing them--a technique that has been shown conclusively to weaken MAP.[219] They were also criticized for making a number of methodological mistakes and omissions.[220],[221] Then, allegedly to make absolutely sure not a single bug would grow, they used an inadequate culture media[222] and report culturing them for only 2 to 3 months.[223] It is widely accepted that the minimum time it takes to ensure the growth of paraTB is 4 months.[224]
It is perhaps not surprising that no MAP grew from the pasteurized milk in their experiment. The researchers concluded: "Results indicate that the transmission of live paraTB bacteria via pasteurized milk is unlikely." Despite fifteen[225] years of better research to the contrary,[226] based on that single questionable study, in a letter dated Feb. 9, 1998, Joseph Smucker, the leader of the FDA's Milk Safety Team wrote "After a review of the available literature on this subject, it is the position of FDA that the latest research shows conclusively that commercial pasteurization does indeed eliminate this hazard."[227]
The FDA has argued that earlier pasteurization studies used unrealistically high levels of MAP that wouldn't be expected to exist naturally in the raw milk supply.[228] This is not a tenable criticism, primarily because the studies in question followed the published guidelines on the proper challenge concentration in the design of thermal inactivation studies.[229] Also, the concentration of MAP in raw milk is unknown. Cattle infected with Johne's disease have uncontrollable diarrhea, which "sprays" out from them in liquid form. Due to the close proximity of the cow's anus to her udders, it is unavoidable that an infected cow's udders will be smeared with feces, potentially leading to the contamination of her milk with high numbers of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis.[230] The feces contaminating her milk can have as many as a trillion paraTB bugs per gram.[231] "
I hope that those of us who support raw milk will learn from this and show more sensitivity to victims whenever raw milk is implicated in future outbreaks.