Food Poison Lawyer Suggests He Might Sue WAPF, As Fireworks Start Early in Raw Milk Symposium
Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 10:47PM 
I thought this symposium on raw milk Sunday sponsored by the American Veterinary Medical Association (described in my previous post) would be a tame affair. But food poison lawyer Bill Marler has signaled he’s coming with machine guns blazing. He posted his PowerPoint presentation planned for Sunday on his blog (click on the blue page below the introductory text to launch the PowerPoint presentation), and three slides in particular suggest he has trained his legal guns on the Weston A. Price Foundation.
After running through a tutorial on the legalities of liability for raw milk illnesses (comparative fault, liability waivers, etc.) slide 13 is headed, “Trade Association Liability” and says, “The crux of trade association liability is whether consumers rely on the association’s information and expertise.”
The next slide, #14, is headed, “The ‘Price’ of Weston A. Price’s Prominence” and a copy of the foundation’s Real Milk page is shown.
Just for good measure, slide #15 argues that cow share agreements (promoted by the foundation) “seek to avoid bans on unlicensed sale of raw milk” and are “not a valid interpretation of many states’ licensing requirements.” Pouring more oil on the fire, slide #16 recaps the “case just finished” in which two Marler clients sued Organic Pastures Dairy Co.
Marler has apparently taken offense previously about suggestions on the Weston A. Price Foundation’s site that raw milk is healthy for children. Now he seems to be suggesting the foundation can be potentially held liable for illnesses to children under “trade association liability.”
Guess I have two immediate questions: Is this a new front in the FDA/CDC/state ag agency political war on raw milk? In other words, "trade association liability" becomes a new front in the war to put a lid on the raw dairy supply that includes harassing dairy farmers with phantom findings of listeria, intimidating them with bogus search warrants, and breaking up buying clubs.
Or is this a potential new cash flow opportunity for Marler? The raw dairy farmers he goes after often don’t have very deep pockets, and there may or may not be lucrative product liability insurance policies from retailers. So go after a fast-growing foundation, and the Constitutional guarantee of free speech.
There should generate some interesting discussion at the Sunday symposium.
Reader Comments (28)
I couldn't find anything on the linked AVMA webpage that you referenced and that would lead me to the outline of Bill Marler's presentation or to his slides .
Any further help?
David
Let me present my brief.
I’ve consumed raw milk for over fifty years, no illness.
I’ve raised nine children on raw milk, no illness.
I sold raw milk to over a dozen families over a period of thirty five years who raised their children on it, no illness.
I have had busloads of school children come and visit the farm to which I fed raw milk, no illness.
Over the year’s exchange students have come from Thailand, Africa, India, Ireland and England to live and work with us on the farm and drank raw milk, no illness.
Every long weekend in August for over thirty years we had a family reunion where children and adults drank raw milk, no illness.
Friends and relatives often come to the farm and visit and drink raw milk, no illness.
Just this past week my wife’s bother’s children came from the city of Toronto for a week’s visit as they have done for the last several years and drink plenty of raw milk, no illness.
Being on the milk committee I hosted committee meetings several times a year. All who attended these meetings drank raw milk, no illness.
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As I’ve told many Holstein Friesen milk producers during “the milk is milk” campaign and the attempt to assimilate all milk as one, “if I wanted to drink water I would simply go to the faucet and turn on the tap”. This article from Mercola’s website (below) more than vilifies my position and suggests that drinking milk from these prodigious beasts could be detrimental to ones health.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/09/The-Devil-in-the-Milk.aspx
Ken Conrad
Too bad he and others don't take offense about all the other assaults on the children and the population. WooHoo fast/processed phoods are acceptable for our children, also the pushing of "medications", etc.
Out of all the anti-anxiety drugs RX'd how many are also sent to therapy? Giving a pill isn't going to teach anyone how to cope with whatever is the cause of thier problem, it is a poor bandaid that doesn't work, only causes other side effects. I don't hear any screaming about that, and it is much more prevailant that raw dairy.
It looks more and more like tptb have a need to control the population. Why is that?
Bill Marler posted information about this book at will be released on July 14th. It is called "Microcosm: Ecoli and the New Science of Life" by Carl Zimmer. I thought you would be interested in reading it.
http://www.ecoliblog.com/2009/07/articles/e-coli-outbreaks/science-writer-carl-zimmer-speculates-about-cow-to-cookie-mystery/
cp
The very title of that book, “Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life”, neatly explains one of the reasons why all these regulations and lawsuits are inherently evil.
“Science” changes.
I don't see where he has experience as a university professor or a PhD, so it appears his essays aren't very worthy of consideration. His job is as an editer, so should his "opinion" be disqualified as non-valid?
I addressed the idea of reading the book to MIGUEL because of his interest in E.coli. By the responses, I guess it is assumed that it is about pathogens (I’m sure part of the book is), but I wasn’t referring to pathogenic E.coli.
Go to amazon.com and read the pages of the book they have available. You will see what I’m talking about and why I though miguel would enjoy reading it. I know I’m viewed as the enemy (and so is Bill Marler), but it shouldn’t taint your opinion about a book that might have great information.
cp
the milk processors need to create fear, and more so in these days. now that individuals are waking up to the flaws of science based sterile phoods and their ill effects on health the move toward real food threatens their business model.
the marlers of the world simply ride the fear wave to make money for themselves. the lykes of the world are simply captured gov't workers indoctrinated into the religion of doing big businesses bidding.
i do believe that given time and good planning real milk could out sell processed milk on a gallon by gallon basis. it may take years or decades to shift over and it would require a truly local infastructure to be a reachable goal, but big business will fight tooth and nail all the way. big business must prevent this and derail the local food movement at all cost.
it's up to millions of individuals to derail big agra business from snuffing out this real food, local movement by refusing to purchase their factory farmed foods. but like "organic" standards being userped by big business local foods are being whittled away at by companies insisting their national brands are really local because they contract from "local" factory farms somewhere.
milk processors need to be afraid, local farms all over are diversifing. it may take more work for the farmer but s/he can again become a real farmer instead of a part-time farmer who needs to hold down a "real" job to pay the bills while they pharm monoculture corn and soy for tyson, smithfield et el mega corporations who, once they dominate a region can lower the price they pay the pharmer simce they now own the regional market.
small poly farms must be exempted from mega corporate regulations. local milk is the keystone to breaking the corporate stranglehold on local food. local milk allows a farmer to pay expenses and grow diversified products. milk is the lifeblood of the local food movement. if milk can be controlled local farms can be stunted and snuffed out.
as long as those in control can keep the focus on safety by denying the existence of small, safe, local, grass based dairy and insisting all raw milk is as dangerous as thet produced by factory pharms they can twart the movement. it has got to be a rights issue first and foremost, as a rights issue small farms have a chance to get a foot hold into being a sustainable livelyhood. once there small farms will be unstoppable as the answer to america's health and well being.
fear and intimidation are powerful weapons, marler wields them with abandon but only becasue big business manufactured them to begin with. but now more and more folks are facing bigger fears of failing health and their small children facing a lifetime of big pharma solutions of symptom suppressing drugs. that's real fear. i don't think tptb have grasped that yet... in time i think they will....
If Bill Marler reads this kind of information will he eventually see that there is a common source to our "problem" with food poisoning?
The point is made that ecoli is well equipt to adapt to all kinds of new situations.
Some of these adaptations can be dangerous for some people.
What is the common connection that food poisoning cases all have and what is changing that has resulted in ever increasing numbers of illnesses?
Carl Zimmer focuses on ecoli,but he could just as well been talking about salmonella,campylobacter,or any other of the families of bacteria that have members that increasingly are blamed for illness.
We often suspect that centralized processing facilities are the source of those dangerous bacteria,but there are also cases of food poisoning that don't involve centralized processing directly.
Farming practices have been changing gradually ,for a century,from practices that worked with the life in the soil to practices that result in the destruction of soil life.When the existence of life in the soil is threatened ,naturally,we are selecting for the forms of life that are most hardy and most adaptable.When we use farming practices that disrupt and attack the normal soil microorganisms,we are changing the communities of soil microbes from those beneficial to ourselves to those that are dangerous to our health.
When we fertilize our fields with wastes that contain antimicrobial agents,spread by massive tractors hauling tanks that weigh 45 tons ,often when the soil is wet,the result is to effectively sterilize the soil except for the most hardy and adaptable microorganisms. Add to that a few applications of herbicides or plowing the soil to expose the microorganisms to sunlight and the community of organisms in the soil is for all practical purposes destroyed.Not unlike what happens when milk is pasteurized.
These hardy microbes are now the dominant members of a new soil microbial community that inhabits the soil where our food is grown.There are no checks and balances,no beneficial bacteria that hold these opportunistic bacteria in check.
When these tomatoes,peppers or whatever go to the centralized processing facility to be sterilized for safety,they are already contaminated,not just on the surface but inside. Washing them or soaking them in some new antibacterial only assures that those hardy ,resistant bacteria have less competition for the nutrients in the food and so increase even more in numbers.
Carl Zimmer makes the point that ecoli is clever at adapting to a new situation.Does he recognize that farmers have the ability to control all of these potentially dangerous microbes simply by using farming practices that encourage abundant and diverse soil life?Stop these "new" microbes from being dominant in our soil,you won't find them in our food.
You are missing the point. I am not disparaging the book. I am merely pointing out that its very title should warn off those of you determined to regulate the world for its own good (as well as warn off those who feel justified attacking with lawsuits those who don’t agree with their line). Regulations and lawsuits are often pushed along by "science," but if science is so reliable, how then can we entertain the thought of a “New Science”?
Science is anything but static, anything but uniform. We are led to believe that science is a god, always right, always fair. But anyone who reads knows that science can be, and often is, warped by ideology, and by the desire for power and money. (Even when there is no nefarious motive behind the development of a theory or a conclusion, there is always the possibility of the science being simply wrong.) Certainly it’s not difficult to find scientists with competing opinions, and history is riddled with lone scientists who were scorned in their time but are now considered geniuses.
Rule-makers and scientists—often wrong, never in doubt.
Lykke,
The easy way to get out of an argument is to quote a study.
You might be interested in a book called "Teaming With Microbes"
http://books.google.com/books?id=sslymTtMR-kC&dq=teaming+with+microbes&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=OMBXSteWBefBtwe51eHdCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4
It is about probiotics and prebiotics for the soil,working towards the goal of abundant diverse life in the soil to maximize the health and nutritional quality of the plants grown in that soil.It is about plants,but the ideas and principals can also be applied to our digestive system microbes as the food we eat and the microbes in our gut correspond to the soil that the plant gets its nutrients from.
Nope, I wasn't comparing the book to anyone. I was commenting that the writer did not have a PhD nor was he a prof at any university. So his "opinion" may be questionable and/or invalid in the scientific community as per the allusion on previous posts.
"I addressed the idea of reading the book to MIGUEL"
If you don't wish anyone but whom you "ddress" the post to, to respond, then perhaps taking it to email would be better.
"When we fertilize our fields with wastes that contain...."
What a horrid visual you've painted.
Anyone who has lived in the countryside for at least the past two decades has to be appalled at the changes that have taken place.The fragrance of wildflowers and new mown hay used to be overpowering at times ,now it is the stench of farm chemicals and factory farm manure that we most often smell.Liquid manure drips on the roads as the manure tanks are sometimes hauled 5 miles from the factory manure lagoon to be spread.Residences and this type of agrabizness are so obviously incompatible that local politicians have suggested that we should zone parts of the county as strictly agricultural(no residences allowed).
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. It is very sad, and deplorable what is done to the environment and our food system. I don't think about the farms usually. Out of sight, out of mind I guess. I did have a family member of a patient who lives on the edge of a nearby town, in a new housing development, complain of the smell of the cows and the noise.(less than 20 cows) I informed her that that farm had been there for well over 100yrs, she responded that it was time the farm moved as the houses were there now. I don't understand that kind of thinking.
Years ago, when I had first went to Tampa,FL, I was working in Brandon (east side of Tampa) and the 1st yr there, you were overwhelmed by the orange blossom smell, it was sickening sweet just opening my door. I didn't notice it the following yrs I was there, Brandon was being built up, 100s of homes going up...supposedly progress. The orchards were shrinking.
Producers welcome changes to raw milk regulations. by Steve Zind
http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/85336/
The Book should have been called " The Devil in the Dead Milk". It is very unfortunate that the author did not research the A-2 Corporation more carefully before dumping this concept on the World Stage.
Dr. Tom Cowan and I had a long talk about A-2 milk earlier this year. He was concerned that his discussion of A-2 milk would become an issue at OPDC.
Well it has.
At OPDC we have tried for three years to get the A-2 Corporation to test our milk. They were not interested three years ago or last year. Now they are out of business and will not permit access to their patented A-2 Test.
So we are screwed!! You can not test for A-2 genetics with the patented test locked up and now everyone is reading a book about how critical it is....
I have been working with a Lab in EU that says that they can do a test to verify A-2 genetics but this is very expensive and the lab is very new to this test. We will see how this goes...but for now A-2 testing is a wishful thought that literally can not be done.
One more thing...A-2 company was all about pastuerized A-2 milk. Not sure how vital and alive that product was or is. A-2 or A-1... I will take my grass fed organic milk raw....thank you very much.
Dead milk whether it is A-2 or A-1 is still dead milk. As for A-2 raw milk that is a pioneering proposition and OPDC is working hard to get this done.
CP...I am still waiting for your thoughts on your ( now my ) proposed Kefir, Raw Milk and Pastuerized milk pathogen recovery test. Are you interested in participating?
Please let me know your ideas....I am still waiting. I really want this test to a cooperative effort. You made the suggestiong and I followed up.Yet you do not respond.
Mark McAfee
=Blair
We could probably save over 20,000 lives or more every year in the USA by reducing speed limits to 30 mph. But is this reasonable? About 40,000 people die on USA highways every year compared to CDC estimates of about 5,000 per year from food borne illness. And most of that food borne illness is from factory farm and industrial food production. Marler needs to get his priorities straight.