The Secret Liaison to Sen. Dean Florez’s Captivation with Raw Milk—It Could Lead to Changes in AB1735
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 03:59AM 
It’s been a long, but stimulating—no, make that exciting—day at the California Senate’s raw milk hearing. The session was two hours late in getting going at 5 p.m. California time (thanks to some seemingly interminable transportation hearings), and it lasted six hours, until 11 p.m. (which is about 2 a.m. for me).
But the 200 or more raw milk proponents who hung on were treated to an impressive show, thanks in significant measure to Sen. Dean Florez (pictured on right). He had studied the issue carefully (or his staff had) and he asked excellent questions and heard every last witness, including about ten consumers who came up to the hearing table at 10:30 p.m. to express their support for nutrition rights and explain how they’ve benefited from raw milk.
I’ll have more about the hearings tomorrow, after I’ve digested my notes some (and gotten some sleep). Unfortunately, the California legislature didn’t have wireless access, so I had to wait until after the hearing to post anything.
Earlier in the afternoon, Organic Pastures Dairy Co. owner Mark McAfee led a rally outside the white-domed state capital building, introducing experts who came long distances to testify, including Mike Schmidt, the Ontario dairy farmer shut down by Canadian authorities last year; Ted Beals, the Michigan pathologist who most recently oversaw a groundbreaking study on raw milk’s relief of lactose intolerance; and Sally Fallon, head of the Weston A. Price Foundation. He also introduced someone I hadn’t heard of before: Christine Chessen. According to Mark, Christine was going to testify about how raw milk had helped her children reduce their illness levels, and “will show the bag of drugs she’s not giving her children.”
But there's more to Christine's story than the fact her family's health improved from raw milk. I spoke with Christine after Mark finished his introductions, and had a group photo taken of all the rally participants. It turns out she is a big part of the reason that Sen. Dean Florez has taken such an interest in raw milk and become so outspoken in criticizing the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
It all began last fall, shortly after Christine had begun learning about the benefits of raw milk, and feeding it to her family (which includes three young children). She realized when she saw video of Sen. Florez speaking about food-borne illness, that the two of them had been college classmates at the University of California in Los Angeles fifteen years earlier.
“On a whim, I decided last fall to write Dean Florez,” she told me. “To my surprise, he answered my letter.”
His original attitude was concern about “how dangerous” raw milk is, she remembered. “Like a lot of legislators, it was a matter of educating him…They tend to react to stories of kids getting sick and dying from food-borne illness.”
She stayed in touch with Sen. Florez, and arranged recently for him to tour Mark McAfee’s dairy. He seemed to learn his lessons well, and has become more accepting of raw milk, and critical of the CDFA’s campaign against raw milk. As I suggested, Sen. Florez showed amazing knowledge about the subtleties of the raw milk issue—more than anything I’ve seen from any legislator. Perhaps most significant, he seems committed (though you never know, as Don so well points out on my previous posting) to getting AB 1735 and its 10-coliform-per-milliliter standard off the books.
Reader Comments (7)
But, I remain ever hopeful.
It certainly seemed that Senator Florez had prepared well, and as he often said when moving a witness along, "got it." I couldn't see it, of course, but I imagine the two pictures he had displayed, one apparently of an award-winning factory dairy with cows standing hoof-deep in manure, and the other of a pastoral scene from Organic Pastures, must have had a continuing not-subtle impact on the proceedings. On balance, it seems that raw milk advocates were finally given the chance to testify at length, which had been denied when AB1735 was hustled through the Consent process last fall.
I'm biased, of course, but I thought the testimony by Sally Fallon and the scientists arrayed on behalf of raw milk was considerably more current, cogent and powerful than the testimony (characterized frequently as dogma) by others. Significantly, early on Mr. Payne expressed an interest in ensuring a safe raw milk supply, which of course worries what he means by safe in terms of regulatory harassment. As the hearing progressed, however, it seemed like the outlines of a workable program might emerge, if (wonder of wonders) the agency would actually come to the table with something more than a truculent hostility. If that were to happen, one would hope the FDA would also see the light.
Then I tried to listen, but couldn't find an applicaiton that would work. I use an Mac, and the state of CA apparently does not use universal formatting for their audio. I gave up after a while.
CDPH - Yes.
I have a Mac too, but the audio was screwed up for the first 30-45 minutes so if you tuned in at that time, you would have heard nothing. There was a free download of Real Player available on the Senate website for future reference, and that worked fine.
I was impressed with the hearing and Senator Florez' interest in the topic. I just hope that the people in California don't give in and allow Senator Florez to write legislation which will make it MORE difficult to produce and purchase raw milk. I hope this hearing leads to less regulation, more free market, more raw milk production, lower prices, and more consumption; whereas I fear that increased regulation will lead to less raw milk production, higher prices, and less consumption.
The CA gov't doesn't own the cows, the farms, the farmers, or the consumers; therefore, it doesn't make any sense that they should have ANY say in what happens between them. A free market facilitates individual responsibility, accountability, and a generally more educated populus. Regulation encourages blind trust in government, ignorance, dependency, carelessness, and recklessness.
Senator Florez is right, CA could be a leader in the relationship between dairy farmers, consumers, and the state. I just hope the message they send is one of freedom (and free market) rather than tyranny and oppression. The people of CA have a chance (at least with this one issue) to demostrate that the free market works...businesses regulate themselves in response to educated, responsible consumers. Don't let this opportunity slip away.
In Texas, we can't buy any form of raw milk anywhere except on a farm, directly from the dairy farmer. It makes me sick that this government by and for the people has gotten away from us, and it has become a detriment to our well-being.