When It Comes to Discussing Raw Milk Safety, It Helps to Appreciate the Behind-the-Scenes Agendas at Hand
Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 05:16PM 
I have to chuckle at the notion that there is some kind of financial or other conspiracy at work to promote raw milk. That notion is strongly suggested in comments by Concerned Person following my previous post, with the evidence being the goals expressed by Sally Fallon, head of the Weston A. Price Foundation, in her prefaces to the two editions of The Untold Story of Milk.
The goals CP cites as evidence are to create millions of new raw milk consumers, help lift dairy farmer incomes $120,000 annually (now we have greedy farmer executives, right?), and to provide raw milk to those whose immune systems could most benefit (children, pregnant women, the elderly). While Concerned Person seems to see problems in all these, she is most concerned about the last item, the idea of encouraging the immune-suppresed to consume raw milk.
Concerned Person argues that the immune suppressed should be educated about potential dangers of consuming raw milk. With due respect to those like Miguel who argue that we haven’t fully investigated the role of pathogens in illness, I actually think CP has an excellent suggestion for how raw dairies might handle the challenge: “(Consumers) need to know that there is a chance of pathogens being in the milk that could make them ill if their immune system is not healthy. You could explain to everyone that the germ theory is false and people become ill because of a damaged immune system; they don’t have enough good bacteria in their digestive track; therefore if a pathogen was present, they could become ill. Raw milk can help build up your immune system because healthy bacteria called probiotics are naturally present....Before introducing raw milk into your diet, it would be wise to start eating whole, unprocessed organic foods. Also add organic yogurt and kefir to begin building up the good bacteria in your digestive track. Adding high quality probiotic capsules to your diet will also help immensely. Eat like this for about 3 months before transitioning to raw milk.”
But what does CP do next? Links to this posting on the blog of food-poisoning lawyer Bill Marler who, coincidentally, combines news of the Colorado campylobacter outbreak (discussed in a number of comments following my previous post) being blamed on raw milk with more “news” about Organic Pastures Dairy Co. That news is a year-old statement from a California Department of Food and Agriculture inspector about alleged sanitation problems at Organic Pastures in early 2007. The statement was filed in support of the state of California, which was sued by OPDC and Claravale Farm (the other raw dairy producer) last year to prevent implementation of AB 1735 and its ten-coliform-per-milliliter standard. So while the allegations and photos don’t look pretty, it’s impossible to gain any perspective (that these may be isolated occurrences of the type that happen on many farms) because the state is, not surprisingly, throwing everything it has against the two dairies to defend itself in the suit.
More important, why is this particular report being raised now? Or course, we know. MarlerClark is representing two families suing OPDC, allegedly because their children became seriously ill from E.coli 0157:H7 in September 2006. This is the third or fourth time (I’m losing count) MarlerClark has gone public with “evidence” that seems to further its case.
See what’s going on here? CP makes a seemingly legitimate suggestion for improving raw milk safety, and then we wind up with a political/legal agenda: smearing OPDC.
It’s the same thing F. Philip Prelli, Connecticut'sag chief, was pulling (described in my previous post). He’s supposedly promoting public health safety, but in actuality, he had his article published in hopes of resurrecting the failed Connecticut legislation to prohibit retail sales of raw milk in Connecticut. (Prelli and others have been trying to piggyback the legislation onto other dairy legislation after the proposal to ban retail sales failed in a committee.)
On the Marler tactic, here is what a legal site says about this approach to trying to win legal cases:
“Lawyers engaging in pretrial publicity on the Internet is a growing concern within the legal profession, as many fear that online rantings, blogs and press releases by attorneys are potentially tainting the jury pool.”
I and others in favor of consumer food rights accept the reality that people occasionally become ill from drinking raw milk. We want to see safety regulations and information flow improved, as CP suggests. It would be nice if we could narrow the issue down to things like warning labels or even, as Regulator suggests, to a comparison between raw meat and raw milk.
But the regulators and lawyers keep mucking it up, pursuing their real agendas, which have nothing to do with improving safety.
I know some regulators wonder privately why their shrill warnings about the dangers of raw milk aren’t heeded. It’s simple. Each day, hundreds of thousands of people are safely consuming their raw dairy products and improving their health, in the spirit of Sally Fallon’s book introduction. It’s time for the regulators to face reality, and the reality is that few are listening to their propaganda and ploys designed to divert well meaning consumers from the important issues.
The Complete Patient
Bill Marler clearly isn't the philosophical type. He has answered this post with a list of recent raw milk outbreaks and recalls (note, recall does not equal outbreak).
Reader Comments (23)
My invitation to work with CP is unanswered.
I like good ideas. I like open minds. I want to engage and move forward in cooperation. In diversity good things happen.
I will work a trade...CP can help write my raw milk safety advice for the weak immune system consumer that is wanting a stronger immune system if....CP comes out of the closet and exposes her or his identity.
CP.....the Sunlight feels really good and works wonders for the spirit.
I am waiting.
Mark McAfee
I can’t help but see the parallels to the ongoing raw milk debate. Clearly, there are so many other foods that carry a much higher risk or hazard of food borne illness but there is low public outrage. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) uses dairy to compare all other food categories against because it is the safest food. In fact, pound for pound, seafood is 29 times more likely to cause food borne illness than dairy, which includes raw milk. Seafood represents high hazard but there is low outrage. Given these figures, raw milk is a low hazard but thanks to years of propaganda and fear mongering, has amassed high outrage. No problem giving our children sushi or fish sticks, but how abusive we are if we pour them a glass of raw milk!
The raw milk debate seems so disproportioned to the real issues at hand. While we continue to be assaulted with outbreaks from spinach, peanut butter, tomatoes, peppers, pistachios, etc, etc, all dairy causes less than one per cent of all outbreaks. Food safety is a joke. Most of the regulation is left up to the industry and the FDA continues to demonstrate its incompetence. How naïve can one be to think that regulations or the regulators will guarantee food safety? Nothing could be further from the truth. Couldn’t imagine how much could be accomplished if the feds approached all their problems with the same zeal they give to fighting raw milk.
In the end there is an inherent risk in everything we eat - or do. Like many others, I want the freedom to determine those risks and make the choices I feel are best for my family and me. The most control one can have is to know where their food comes from. Even better, produce it yourself while we have the chance.
Ruth Ann Foster
A farmer on the Yahoo raw dairy site mentioned that the symtoms from a lactose interlorant reaction to pasturized milk and symptoms from a campylobactor reaction are somewhat alike.
If true could the Co. cow share dairy have been shutdown because they placed the blame wrongly and isnt tracing and detecting campylobactor rather difficult to properly pinpoint? Can campylobactor come from other sources than raw milk?
Any comments?
http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/dfbmd/disease_listing/campylobacter_gi.html
No contingencies. If you are truly interested in informing people with weakened immune systems about the possible dangers of drinking raw milk (because you can’t guarantee 100% pathogen free raw milk) then you will post the information on your website. If you would like me to help you write something, I’d be more than happy to do so.
Yes Ruth Ann. You are right.
“Most of the regulation is left up to the industry and the FDA continues to demonstrate its incompetence. How naïve can one be to think that regulations or the regulators will guarantee food safety? Nothing could be further from the truth.”
This is why the raw milk movement needs to demonstrate that they can regulate themselves. The first place to start is with accurate information about the negative side of raw milk.
cp
you can hammer your agenda all you want. me? i'll hammer mine... alls fair? right?
working for marler will scar you in the long run, you may think you're going to profit from your bias dogma and propaganda compaign but somewhere in the back of your brain you'll be nagged and harassed by your own lies. someday you'll run across a scene that will horrify you and you'll know (though probably never admit aloud) that you played a role in a very similar situation (here) to mislead others for personal gain.
your a sad excuse of a hman being cp. and i'm sure you know that at some level. just keep pushing it deeper into that dark spot we all have in our mind. while most rational people learn early in life that that dark box opens all by itsself from time to time and haunts it's owner perhaps somehow you have avoided or denied that experience so far and not yet learned what it means to have skeltons in your closet.
perhaps you're just an ugly soul and have a disconnected line between that soul and your reasoning centers, i don't know.
what i do know is there will eventually be a cost to you for the path in life you are walking, i may pitty you but i offer no sympathy or forgiveness... that's someone elses job.
read this article cp. http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w90.html
it's a story that may awaken you about what you are or will become if you're not careful.
you need to do a lot of soul searching cp. and you need to do it soon. once you've gone too far there is almost no hope of coming back to the light of day and a clear concience
You are actually a bit scary. The intensity of your anger and paranoia is alarming.
What do you believe is my agenda? What do you believe is my personal gain?
cp
Hugh is just letting his passion for raw milk come through. He is just saying what others may feel but do not have the guts to tell you to your face. I intensionally control myself when my temperature starts to rise in the defense of freedom and nutritional choice.
CP.... if you drank raw milk you would probably feel a little like Hugh about people that present from the shaddows under cover of camaflage.
I am relieved to hear that things are not as they seem in CO. I just had a long talk with Cindy and Scott Freeman ( the cow share owners ). They are wonderful people and they are doing great. The cow share raw milk drinkers are also doing well. There are more than 200 of them.
A blessing came from this event. One of the hosipitalized persons had a undetected tumor discovered. This may have saved a life.
I invite everyone to see this link ..
JAMA -- Abstract: the influence of immunity on raw milk-- associated Campylobacter.
http:jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/257/1/43?maxtoshow=?&HITS=10&hits=10
The bottom line is this....campylobacter is everywhere and you better get some immunity to it. Raw milk is a great way to do it. The study above shows how raw milk drinkers acquire that immunity.
Pathogen paranoia is an FDA and Health department germ theory paradigm connundrum. If they do not act they have failed to do their jobs. If they do act...they do not know what to do with the information and the consumers that beg for more raw milk when the departsments suggest otherwise. The health departments advice is not consistent with the theory of nutrition immunity building.
What an interesting, 130 year delayed collision, between Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard.
What a great time to be live.....and make a difference to those that understant human immunity and food.
CP...you will either show yourself or not be acknowlegded as relevant. I know who I am and what I believe. You need to stand and be counted.
If you do, I will work with you with an open mind and heart.
All the best,
Mark McAfee
As I said before my DW and I have 10 years of being on Medicare and cost them not one red cent nor any other medical care carrier. Not bragging but that is just the facts.
Thanks for the link but I just can not trust anything they say. And they lost that trust for many reasons over many years!
Thanks Ruth Ann for your comments. Wow, dead on!
And, Mark, and Don keep on keeping on, I love you guys!
Hugh Betcha, remember you get more with honey than with vinegar!
Kimberly
I am really quite disgusted by the degeneration of this conversation. Name-calling, closed mindedness, extreme rudeness..... I'm an advocate but I'm truly ashamed to be associated with people who don't know how to have a constructive, informative discussion without falling back on very personal attacks. I would hope that David would try to keep this discussion on a intellectual level, but that is clearly not happening. I hope that at some point in the future it will be worth my time to return, and everyone will have the opportunity to speak their thoughts without being nasty and crude. This site has the potential to be very educational and informative, but no one wins in this recent conversation.
Katie
it's sad that our society feels that the mostly silent majority must always be politically correct and never offend those who insist on beating that majority into submission.
some may say they just ignore her, but that's impossible in reality, by stearing the conversation back again and again endlessly to her agenda she forwards her aganda simply by being ignored and tolerated here.
i'd like to have better solutions then confronting her publicly but also in reality there is no other solution.
the issues discussed here are not "pathagens" they are everywhere on earth. the issus here is freedom and liberty to choose. to choose for your children, your elderly parents, and yourself. cp refuses to acknowledge that simple reality. and she relentlessly trys to steer the conversation back to her agenda citing the very tired and wornout "it's the children" and the "compromised" dribble.
fighting for liberty and freedom is not pretty, many have given their lives to protect it and keep it safe. individuals like cp hope to corrupt and deny us freedom for their own "gain" what is her's? probably she works for marler if not directly then she is a related party to the op pending lawsuit and hopes to influence the outcome the same way marler himself is doing by exploiting a poor kid by posting hospital video footage and pointing a sure finger at op dairy.
i'm proud to say that that is not allright with me and i'll stand up and work to put such lowlife individuals in their place.
if that offends on lookers and other participants so be it. it has to be done. all i can wish is to become a better wordsmith so i can say my peace without resorting to crude language all the time.
honey is great but it will not work with someone like cp. just read back over the last 6-8 months she's been here and prove it to yourself. she isn't here to share or learn or discuss anything openly and honestly and with honor. she's proven that she's here to do exactly what she's doing... pushing her agenda.
I love what Ruth Ann has said.so well ...very nice!!
Please tune in Saturday at 1830 hours EST to see Liz Reitzig become our national raw milk super mom hero on Al Rokers Food Network airing of "Milk and Honey".
Liz you rock... along with raw milk!! Your super mom guts and loving integrity will save and improve lives...one immune system at a time. If any one gives you any guff about Saturday....I got your back. You call me 1-877 RAW MILK.
Bless you!!
Mark McAfee
You and Mark McAfee make a nice little team. Parents of children who have become ill from raw milk deeply appreciate your tag team tactics. Beautiful work!
cp
I am the conscious of the raw milk movement. They have been over zealous in their attempts to convince people that raw milk is the only answer to improved health. I’m sorry if you don’t like what your conscience is telling you. Maybe you should be quiet and listen instead of fighting it.
hb, calm down. You are going to give yourself a heart attack or stroke. There is way too much anger bottled up inside of you. I am not you enemy. I am just seeking balance of information….freedom of choice with appropriate safeguards.
cp
Good things happened today with RMAC. We met and we shared, and we grew. We are stronger, more cohesive, more convinced that we are on the right track. Short way to go, but we know what we have to do. Thanks to our community of WAPF, FTCLDF, and the fierce conviction of our producers and shareholders. The regulators will follow the money, yes they will. Or they'll soon be on beggar's row....
Scott said he'd post his story here. That's why I came looking. Thanks Ruth Ann, Katie, and Pelicano - great stuff!!!
-Blair
Most warnings are simply CYA moves by a business entity. Every prescription drug is dispensed with pages and pages of warnings, yet very few people can be bothered to read them even though adverse drug events are rampant in this country.
In the OPDC case the woman was very well informed about the safety issues concerning raw milk. She had picked up the carton and then replaced it on the shelf on several occasions prior to her eventual purchase. She ultimately thought the benefits outweighed the risks and opted to feed it to her son. At that point a warning in letters ten feet high wouldn't have dissuaded her. For whatever reason the child then became seriously ill, and she feels extremely guilty. It is a shame this woman chooses to look for someone or something to blame, to displace her guilt, instead of getting on with her life.
Written warnings do very little to influence human behavior. Our society is supersaturated with fairly meaningless warnings. Meanwhile, people stay in their houses during natural disasters, they fail to use seat belts, they drink and drive, they engage in risky sexual activity and "extreme" sports. If they suffer the consequences from their poor choices, some will cast about and look for a scapegoat. Others will own up to their mistake, hopefully learn from it, and move on.
Marler is a lawyer who makes his living suing over food-borne illnesses. His web site is emphatically not fair and balanced. His job is to incite negative public reaction - all the easier if there are children involved - to make the case too expensive to bring to trial. That's his job. If it includes making a pretty young mother look like she was purposely misled, that's just more gravy, but in this case the mom had indeed done her homework.