There is a provocative debate-discussion going on following my Dec. 29 post about Regulator (who seems to have thrown his/her grenade, and departed to watch the explosions).
The discussion, I think, is about the nature of warning labels and signs that raw milk might incorporate, allowing for as many of the unknowns and vagaries as possible. (I’m sure I haven’t fully captured it, but that’s a quick-and-dirty encapsulation.)
It’s a great discussion of the sort that could be a model for how regulators and consumers might work through the best approaches to making raw milk legally and safely available…and perhaps even serve as the basis for handling warnings associated with truly dangerous conventional foods (Coke, cold cuts, ground beef, etc.).
But that’s not the tack that’s being taken in the latest hotbed of debate over raw milk regulations, now occurring in Connecticut. There, 14 people became ill last summer, allegedly from E.coli 0157:H7 in raw milk (seven cases were confirmed, and seven implied). I discussed it in a post last summer.
Now regulators are considering a number of tacks to supposedly improve safety, but which in actuality would have the effect of reducing milk availability and slamming small farms financially.
Connecticut has become an important outlet for raw milk, since it is one of only three states in the East (along with Maine and Pennsylvania) that allow at least some retail raw milk sales. Because of its central location—bordered by Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island—it attracts consumers from huge population centers where raw milk is otherwise available only from farms. Estimates have it that there are at least 15 and possibly as many as 25 Connecticut dairies feeding the raw milk demand.
Because of the June-July outbreak, Connecticut’s Milk Regulation Board has been tossing around a number of proposals to significantly reduce availability of raw milk. In new legislation growing out of its deliverations and going to the legislature next week, two important restrictions would be established:
- A ban on retail sales, limiting sales to those directly from farms; this could devastate the state’s raw milk dairies, by wiping out more than half of all sales in the state.
- More pathogen testing, which sounds fine, except that not only would the frequency increase, but the cost would be shifted from the state to dairy farmers; a dairy with 10 cows could be paying more than $4,000 a year for such tests.
(For details on the debate, including links to the regulatory discussions and proposed legislation, take a look at this posting on a site that has been established to counter the state’s move.)
Pete Kennedy, the director of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, says that regulators are “taking this one incident (of illnesses) involving an unusual dairy, and using it to make it as difficult to sell raw milk as they can…It’s a transparent attempt to create a de facto ban.”
It’s interesting that when jalepeno peppers or salami or hamburger…or pasteurized milk… are found to have sickened or even killed people (as occurred in neighboring Massachusetts a year ago), there’s never any talk about restricting their sale.
But let a few people become ill from raw milk and the noose tightens very quickly, and very snugly.
I don’t understand why people in California put up with Mark’s misleading statements. Altough I believe he probably sells some of the best and safest raw milk in the country, I honestly believe Californians should boycott his product until he can get on the honesty bandwagon. He will if you make him.
Mark, If you can’t speak (or write) the truth about raw milk safety, including an honest assesment of the minimal risk, then you shouldn’t speak or write anything about the risk at all.
If we in the raw milk movement are looking for integrity and honesty from regulators and others, we need to start with ourselves.
Just an observation, but the blog has become silent since youve posted your comment.
Why?
If people disagreed, they would be writing up a storm. I tend to think silence = agreement.
cp
I am startled by your dramatic statements.
Please point to the misstatements that I have supposedly made and I will gladly support and explain them.
Here are some true statements that I will defend 100%:
Neither the FDA, the State of CA or OPDC has ever found a pathogen in any raw milk at OPDC at any time…. ever.
Neither the FDA, the State of CA or OPDC has ever found a pathogen in the creamery environmental tests ( surface swabs or drains etc ) performed at OPDC.
Yes..campylobacter ( same bug as travelers diarrhea ) was detected in one CDFA sample of OPDC raw cream found after 8 days of specialized lab testing in late 2007 but the raw milk that the cream was taken from was pathogen free. No illnesses were associated with this positive raw cream sample.
Listeria was found in some raw cream that was purchased from Clover Stornetta in 2006 to make raw butter…no illnesses were associated with this and this practice was discontinued. Raw butter will not support pathogens and is not tested for bacteria or pathogens by CDFA. This was approved by CDFA.
Not one pathogen test in any OPDC cows manure has ever matched any pathogens in any sick people.
After nine years and 120 million servings not a bad track record in my humble opinion.
I never claim that raw milk is perfect. I have very openly said that there are risks to drinking raw milk…but those risks are extremely low, when raw milk is tested and labeled and regulated. In fact…lower than pasteurized milk if you look at the data. Many many deaths and 197,000 people were sickened from pasteurized milk and salmonella in 1993 in a massive outbreak.
No food can be guaranteed 100% to be pathogen free for… all consumers… all the time. Not pasteurized milk ( killed three last year in MA ), not spinach ( killed three in 2006 ), not meat ( kills many each year and has done so for many years ), not mushrooms, not eggs, not sushi…not anything. There is a risk of living on earth and certainly a risk when you eat food with or without a depressed immune system. A pathogen to you may not be a pathogen to me or someone else especially when so many people take antibiotics like candy. We all have different inner ecosystems and terrain conditions etc.
I do share data openingly about our test record.
What I do claim and state all the time is that consumption of raw milk will increase immunity to illness and pathogens. This a true statement and defended by many university tests and research papers. It is the same biologic foundation that allows vaccinations to work. If you eat and are exposed to a pathogen you will become immune to it….that is a fact. Then…is it still a pathogen???
What is it that has made you so upset with me and or OPDC….please share it and lets get the facts straight? Where is your frustration coming from?
Why are you not angry at the FDA for: the lies they tell, the illnesses they cause, the drugs they push and the anguish and resulting hundreds of thousands of excused deaths each year???
The raw milk movement is going forward and making great strides. Integrity means much to me. Remember…I do not hide behind a pasteurizer and I take full responsibility for all products that leave on board our trucks every day. Not a light load but a very rewarding one. A pasteurizer allows and protects filth and lies.
Raw milk demands naked integrity… all the way.
All the best,
Mark McAfee
For the note above, I agree passionatly with almost every sentence. I disagree with this concept though:
"A pathogen to you may not be a pathogen to me or someone else…."
No, to the person with the stellar gut, it becomes a non-pathogenic pathogen.
"If you eat and are exposed to a pathogen you will become immune to it….that is a fact. Then…is it still a pathogen???"
YES!!!
This reminds me of Bill Clinton’s "I did not have sex with that woman". You don’t get to redefine meanings in a way that is convienent for you. I mean, really. If you feel this way, then you are not doing any pathogen testing at OP at all, in fact it has never been done, even by the state, because for some people, according to you, there are no pathogens.
Please.
In post #51 following Dave’s Dec 29th column, CP copied the following sentences from your web site.
"To date, not one of these pathogens have ever been detected by any test at OPDC or conducted by any state or federal agency. "
The definition of pathogen aside, I believe a test at OPDC found ecoli 0157H7 in the manure of at least one cow.
"Not one person has complained to the state of CA that they have become sickened by an OPDC product. "
Really? Please explain.
"To date, there has never been a human pathogen ever detected in any OPDC product, in the plant, or from any test. "
So you don’t consider the test that found ecoli 0157H7 in the manure of an OPDC cow, a test? Or, have you also re-interpreted the word "test"?
Finally,
The end of pragraph #16 is misleading because it does not address what happens to the unlucky immune compromised person who encounters a milk-borne pathogen early in their raw milk transition period.
I would say the whole thing really does give the wrong impression. If you are a consumer who is looking for a product that is 100% guaranteed to be safe, and you read the material on your web site, you will be mislead into thinking you have found your guarantee. I would rather your web site disuaded people from looking for this guarantee in the first place.
I don’t agree with people who are looking for 100% guaranteed safe food, but I also disagree with your statement that guaranteed pathogen-free food does not exist. I would bet that white bread has never transmitted a human pathogen.
Of course I am very angry with the FDA. But I have higher expectations for you, and you are letting me down. I am trying to engage in meaningful conversation about raw milk warning signs, and I find myself hampered by your misleading web site. And this isn’t the first time. You have irritated me in the past with your misstatements regarding the 2006 incident, and your elusive responses on this BLOG when confronted with these misstatements.
You hold a very prominent position within the raw milk community, perhaps the most prominent position. How does the saying go? "With great power comes great responsibility." Something like that. You might be one of the leaders of this movement, but it is my movement too, and I’m afraid that in your zeal to promote OP, you will end up srewing it up for the rest of us.
I often wonder if when the infrastructure of the United States breaks down, if…these regulations and laws would hold any water against people needing to eat. I don’t think they would. I think the regulators are so engulfed in their paperwork and legal activity, that when something really bad happens to our system – to factory farms, or to the highways, or to the electricity keeping all the refrigerators cold – they’ll suddenly open their eyes as if waking up on a new sunny morning, and wonder where they’ve been all this time?
They believe they’re making life "safer," but really, they are violating our civil rights to feed ourselves and our communities. We still have milk can troughs in our springhouse, and the cement tracks that used to go up to the main road, that a couple of Percherons used to carry the cooled milk up to in order to catch the delivery truck into town. I look in wonder at those run-off troughs when I go into the springhouse, at how humanity must have survived. I wonder even more, how they are going to survive.
Gwen
I was looking back at a comment from late November by Mark: Yes…campylobacter was found in some cows manure last year. The context related to a state investigation where approximately one in every three cattle fecal samples were found positive for Campylobacter at a raw dairy in Fresno. According to the state report, the DNA fingerprinting showed an exact match between Campylobacter from 4 of the cattle samples at the raw dairy and Campylobacter from a patient’s stool.
Hmm. Like your E. coli O157:H7 example from cattle feces at the raw dairy, this also doesn’t fit with the statement above: "Not one pathogen test in any OPDC cows manure has ever matched any pathogens in any sick people."
Bottom line: these pathogens are common in cattle feces (even if fed only "grass"). The most important thing is how to keep them out of food products (raw dairy included) in order to prevent susceptible people from getting sick. Sometimes the inevitable occurs, but denying the presence and potentially deadly nature of these pathogens is a dangerous road to travel as a farmer/processor/distributor/retailer/consumer.
I agree….I need to update the information deep in our extensive website and assure it is up to date. Any errors are simply that…errors in catching minor details.
The information was related to raw milk tests and are still true. I can and will provide better information to those visiting our website and address the campylobacter and listeria findings ( not in our raw milk ).
As far as the campylobacter being found in our cows manure….please read that report again. Only three cows were found to have campylobacter not one in three as you stated.
As far as the campylobacter in cows manure mtaching a patient….that was never reported to me and I am not aware of any connection at any time. That is news to me! A match does not absolutely mean a DNA match anyway. We have seen this before. There needs to be double checking of data it can be false and not accurate. This was not done.
The report also states that there were no acute illnesses ( long hospitalizations ) from the campylobacter illnesses and that there were more than 80 cases of campylobacter reported of which only 2% were even remotely associated with raw milk drinkers and that this was not statistically out of line and would be expected in this study group. In other words there was nothing unusual about the statistics and data found. OPDC was never issued a letter stating anything about this investiagtion. I was never notified. I found out in a letter that was sent into the internet stating " a raw milk dairy in Fresno" and never used the OPDC name.
The state stopped investigating this issue and dropped it because it was inconclusive and irrelevant. They spent a small fortune and found nothing.
As far as Ecoli 0157 is concerned….this is not a pathogen ( it is a huge family of bacteria that are not necessarily pathogenic ). Ecoli 0157H7 is the pathogen form.
The manure tested in fall 2006 at OPDC was not confirmed to be a pathogenic strain. They showed Ecoli 0157. This test was repeated and found that those cows were not in the milk herd and were in fact heifers that were either pregnant or dry. There were zero milking cows found to have ecoli 0157 or ecoli 0157H7 when tested. These are confirmed facts. The DNA fingerprints of these bacteria did not match any sick kids.
The report that CDFA and DHS wrote was amended by email later to show that the cows tested were not part of the milk herd. This was the same DHS vet group that claimed that OPDC was using extremely high levels of antibiotics in all of our cows because normal pathogens and bacteria found in most milk cows and herds was missing at OPDC. These UC Vets had never seen pasture fed organic cows and did not have any experience with what they were observing.
I will take a good deep look at the OPDC website and make adjustments.
As blogging observers and writers please take a deep breath and consider that OPDC is under a micro scope ( literally like no other dairy ) and we try our damned best. If you embrace choice and raw milk try supporting OPDC as your champion. Critical bashing is just that. It also shows you care little about personal choice. Does that mean I should make choices for you. If you do not like raw milk as a personal choice that is your private right and not something I will decide for you. This is a free country and I am fighting to keep it that way.
Let raw milk drinkers drink raw milk. You can drink soy or water or the dead stuff. That is your choice.
Thanks for the feedback.
Mark McAfee
Perhaps the health of the nations elderly and children would be far better served if your detractors would spend an equal amount of time and effort exposing the practices of the approved filthy confinement dairies with their 30 to 40% sick cows. No microscope needed there. No raids, no badges, no guns, no hauling those farmers off to court.
The corporate monopolies must love all the free help they are getting.
Those who step out of the mainstream are brave indeed and will reap a far different reward.
David
I wonder why this is so? Is it a money issue?
http://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Literacy-Knowledge-Where-Comes/dp/1597261440/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231253397&sr=8-1 (amazon link)
It’s very interesting to see the history of the American food system and how it evolved. It’s got me thinking about ways to reverse engineer and what could be done to support farmers. I have no answers, but I think that book is worth a read nonetheless.
http://www.cspinet.org/new/200901055.html
In light of this the risk of raw dairy does seem very very small indeed.
Was this intended for me?
"Let raw milk drinkers drink raw milk. You can drink soy or water or the dead stuff. That is your choice."
If so, I have to clarify that I am a raw milk drinker and advocate, so much so that I object to any warning labels on raw milk at all.
Perhaps my view is distorted, but I have not witnessed any critical bashing on this blog recently, nor do I believe that I have engaged in any. What I have observed is passionate discussion about difficult and important issues.
I think you are mixing me up with someone else. I have never ever posted about campylobacter in OPDC manure. I can’t really comment on your 4 paragraphs addressing this pathogen because I know nothing about that incident. Regardless, it sounds like this is a pathogen that has been found at OPDC. So if you are going to discuss pathogens on your web site, you need to do so accurately and state that they haven’t been found in the milk or in the buildings, only, very rarely, in the manue of a very small number of cows. To say simply that a pathogen has never been found at OPDC (your own words) is untrue.
Regarding the ecoli 0157H7. Thanks for the clarification. I did not notice the missing H7.I am well aware of the benign nature of most ecoli. I am unfamiliar with ecoli 0157 when it is missing the H7 ending. Has this variety ever sickened anyone, and if so, has it ever lead to HUS?
Thanks for offering to update your web site. I would not call a statement like: "Not oneperson has complained to the state of CA that they have become sickened by an OPDC product. " a minor detail. I consider this a very big deal indeed and I really appreciate your offer to make the updates. Please let us know when the work is completed.
Elizabeth
elizabeth, maybe you should have a friend read your posts and offer you feedback…. i’ll forgo stating what i read into them…
cp, no comment on crohn’s with 500,000 amercans having it, half of them children?
observer, silence = agreement? you’re fairly out of touch with realities other then your own i guess….
all three of you seem to be able to cite rumor, and hearsay as fact when it suits your agenda but unable to connect the dots of logic and reason when it doesn’t fit your paradiem…
david, would it be possible to have posters handles appear at the top of their posts so they can be identified before they are read (or partly read) so those who choose to skip certain individuals writings can do so easier? this sure includes my less then ideal input
hugh
"i’ll forgo stating what i read into them…"
Please share. I welcome the feedback and constructive criticism.
Elizabeth
As per Alizabeth’s comment and request….I have completely updated and amended our FAQ area at OPDC. Please see #9 FAQ and others for the information on Pathogens at OPDC. I have tried to be fair and open as to exactly what has happened, why and when and how.
Again…raw milk can not a promise being pathogen free 100% of the time. That is not possible for any food….but it is approachable with care and natural systems. At OPDC I think any statistical researcher would say that 120 million servings of raw milk and not one pathogen found in that "raw milk" is pretty remarkable.
Raw milk is a promise of dramaticaly improved immune function from a whole food. Raw milk can also impart immunity to pathogens ( over time ) for those that make the choice to drink it. I
If you want perfect sterile food….go live on the Moon or perhaps Mars. This is phony foggy thinking and faulty logic. We are "bacteria sapiens" and we will die with out 750,000,000,000,000 ( thats 13 zeros….Trillions like our national deficite ) bacteria in us and on us.
I appreciate your feedback and will continue to improve our data and our website as we go forward.
Thanks,
Mark McAfee
Don Neeper
When the many someones who drink pathogen-infected agribusiness industrialized conventional milk get sick, the problem is monumental. Milk everywhere gets recalled, and this is because there’s no way to know without working through piles of paperwork exactly where the conventional milk came from. This is bad for public health.
I think if we put warning labels on raw milk, we need even harsher ones on conventional milk. The end.
Elizabeth–Thank you for having the courage to push this issue.
**
Tests privately performed at OPDC (BSK labs) showed that even when these pathogens were added to OPDC raw milk at extremely high levels (7 logs) they would not grow and die off (test results available upon request).
**
My comment:
The BSK report does not show that all died off. This is a misleading statement. In most cases, the pathogens did not grow. leave off the end of the sentence. Of course, consumers might be interested that there was still plenty of 0157:H7 to get sick, but I suppose they could request the report for that info.
**
Listeria was detected from a test performed on raw cream that was purchased from Clover Stornetta Organic Creamery. This organic raw cream was purchased to make OPDC raw butter. Raw butter is a manufacturing product under state law and this is legally permitted. Since this incident in 2007, OPDC has not purchased raw cream from outside sources to make raw butter.
**
My comment:
The product that was recalled was cream, not butter. Perhaps it was an accident to bottle it as cream? In any case the statement is misleading. Furthermore, after the 2007 incident, I saw multiple bulk tank trucks delivering product and Mark told me then it was for butter. He continued to source for at least butter until the spring of 08, at least that’s according to his emails to me.
Thanks for updating the web site. I will check it out. I agree with everything you state in your post above.
Jean, Thanks. I am feeling rather embattled, so I appreciate the voice of support.
Elizabeth