It’s gotten so we aren’t surprised any more when the regulators go after producers of raw milk with a vengeance not seen with other foods. We’ve seen case after case after case, in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and California, among other places.
Oftentimes the suspicions are highly questionable (like with findings of listeria in raw milk in New York), since no one becomes ill. Even when the evidence is more convincing, like in the current case in Wisconsin involving the Zinniker Family Farm, the authorities are very aggressive, most recently ordering the dairy shut down.
So how do the authorities handle outbreaks of illness from pasteurized milk? Their answer, at least in Massachusetts, is, “What outbreaks?”
I recounted a case last month in which Massachusetts agriculture authorities issued a cease-and-desist order against a raw dairy, prohibiting it from handing out samples of raw milk at a farmers market (which they had been doing for three years, without incident).
It turns out the Massachusetts authorities didn’t stop there. State public health officials sent notices to local departments of public health whose towns have raw dairies, advising them to not allow the dairies to hand out samples of raw milk, presumably in connection with raw dairy days at many farms in recent days. The reasoning?
The state contends, in a letter written by the director of the Food Protection Program of the Massachusetts Office of Health and Human Services, that raw milk is unsafe, and pasteurized milk is super safe. “As you are probably aware, each year, there are numerous reports of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States associated with the consumption of raw milk. In contrast, only three outbreaks have been associated with pasteurized milk in the past 30 years.”
This is false information, however. I researched illnesses from pasteurized milk for my upcoming book (due out next month), The Raw Milk Revolution, and it turns out there have been a number of well-documented cases of serious and widespread illness from pasteurized milk.
For instance, in 1983, 14 of 49 Massachusetts residents who had contracted listeriosis from pasteurized milk died. The New England Journal of Medicine, in a 1985 writeup of the case, expressed open concern about the fallibilities of pasteurization: “The milk associated with disease came from a group of farms on which listeriosis in dairy cows was known to have occurred at the time of the outbreak,” said the article. “Multiple serotypes of L. monocytogenes were isolated from raw milk obtained from these farms after the outbreak. At the plant where the milk was processed, inspections revealed no evidence of improper pasteurization…These results support the hypothesis that human listeriosis can be a foodborne disease and raise questions about the ability of pasteurization to eradicate a large inoculum of L. monocytogenes from contaminated raw milk.”
And then there was a case two years later in Illinois, which, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, led to 16,000 confirmed illnesses of salmonella infection—of 2% milk from a single dairy. In point of fact, the toll was likely ten times or more than the 16,000 confirmed cases, reported the JAMA authors. “Two surveys to determine the number of persons who were actually affected yielded estimates of 168,791 and 197,581 persons, making this the largest outbreak of salmonellosis ever identified in the United States,” the article summarized. Further investigation showed that the same strain of salmonella had contaminated the plant for at least ten months “and repeatedly contaminated milk after pasteurization.”
There was an even worse case in 1994 described in the New England Journal of Medicine—one in which 224,000 people around the country became ill from salmonella contained in Schwan’s ice cream. After much testing of the ice cream samples, the ice cream plant, and the tanker trailer trucks that transported the ice cream pre-mix, the investigators couldn’t be sure which part of the dairy concoction was at fault, though they leaned toward the egg component. “This nationwide outbreak of salmonellosis was most likely the result of contamination of pasteurized ice cream premix during transport in tanker trailers that had previously carried nonpasteurized liquid eggs containing S. enteritidis.”
There have been other equally shocking cases of illness in which pasteurized milk was a major factor in triggering illness. In May 2006, more than 1,600 prisoners in 11 California facilities around the state became ill with campylobacter (sometimes referred to as a C. jejuni infection). A study by California scientists, presented as an abstract at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in 2007, said the infection was traced to “post-pasteurization contamination of the milk” produced by the prison system’s own dairy, possibly from inappropriate manure management practices. As in so many other such cases, the actual source hasn’t been traced. An Associated Press story speculated that the milk was spoiled.
While all the sickened inmates in California recovered, that wasn’t the case in a 2007 Massachusetts outbreak of illness from pasteurized milk. Over the course of about six months, three elderly individuals died and a young mother-to-be lost her child in a miscarriage from the listeriosis they contracted from drinking pasteurized milk. Investigators eventually traced the listeria pathogen to flavorings added to the milk after pasteurization.
So now we’re up to five cases over the last 30 years, and we haven’t even begun exploring the 155 for pasteurized dairy products compiled the Center for Science and the Public Interest in the 16 years between 190 and 2006, compiled in the organization’s 2008 report (page 13).
I guess I understand when these public health officials trade such “urban legends” among themselves. That’s their background and education. What I can’t abide is when these supposed guardians of our safety use bogus information to stir up fear among consumers and to infringe on the rights of law-abiding dairy owners trying to educate the public about the attractiveness of raw milk.
Just one other caveat on this story: the Massachusetts regulator says in her letter that she obtained her information about the plan to offer milk samples from the web site of the Northeast Organic Farming Association. Using web sites of food organizations and blogs to conduct their investigations is an increasingly favorite tactic of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, along with state agriculture agencies. The idea is to spread fear–make law-abiding citizens think twice before disseminating seemingly ordinary information about events.
For those people who believe that two samples of bacteria can be definitely identified by a comparison of their "fingerprint",please read the following .
http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/content/full/42/12/5502?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=pfge&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=2200&resourcetype=HWFIG
"The key point of RFPs in general and PFGE specifically is that while the data infer genetic relationships between isolates, they do not necessarily represent true genetic relationships "
You should apply for a job with Big Ag. I forwarded your commentary to a couple of contacts. It fits perfectly with a position called "Creative Denial Specialist."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html
You can just engineer a crime scene, said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. Any biology undergraduate could perform this.
The government is not above planting evidence to suit a particular political agenda.
David, when are you going to kick the disinfo agents off of this discussion? Lykke, really, if you can’t comment intelligently on the info Miguel presented, why are you here? Why do you waste your time fighting with a bunch of raw milk people? Do you really have nothing better to do, or are you paid to do it?
"WHEN AN EXCESS OF POWER PREVAILS, PROPERTY OF NO SORT IS DULY RESPECTED. NO MAN IS SAFE IN HIS OPINIONS, HIS PERSON, OR HIS POSSESSIONS."
JAMES MADISON 3/27 1792.
The sky is falling and what "they" dont understand is it is falling on "them" just like us all. But alas free speech is still yet free speech to all so I guess we must just have to endure "their" lies but REFUTE the lies with the truth.
Einstein used a fudge factor in order to cancel out the cumulative effects of gravitation which he latter referred to as, "the biggest blunder of my life."
From the article which Migel referenced it states, The relationship between similarities in PFGE patterns and true genetic relatedness is POORLY understood.
In the same article the last sentence of the concluding paragraph also states that, Because of the high degree of subjectivity involved with the interpretation of RFPs, the user must carefully and thoughtfully select the conditions and techniques for performing, analyzing, and using PFGE fingerprints.
Forgive me for being so cynical however knowing human nature for what it is I have little faith in scientific results that are obtained via subjective analysis.
IMO results that rely on the degree of subjectivity of the individual are vulnerable to human error and bias and are therefore ambiguous and untrustworthy.
Ken Conrad
Big Ag is just as much a victim of this misuse of science as small dairies are.I would suggest to the health department to test the food that is suspected of causing illness for antibiotics,disinfectants, and antibacterial chemicals of all sorts.This is the real cause of these disease outbreaks.The resulting bacterial infections are only the result of these chemical and pharmaceutical contaminants in the food.These contaminants select for the resistant bacteria.Unfortunately for us these bacteria do cause trouble when they are not held in check by beneficial bacteria.Of course BIG AG would not like this approach to food safety.
I have enjoyed your contributions to the blog and I have refined my understandings of what-is-so partly through getting your perspectives. We are all comfortable working out of our individual paradigms and it is by constantly checking out the validity of others assertions that we have the opportunity to adjust our own paradigms to conform with what truly is true. miguels article affirms my own paradigm, but I always want to know if Im on the right track.
As you are someone who is apparently well acquainted with good scientific procedure and protocol as well as immersed in real milk issues, I was disappointed in your dismissal of miguel – AND his assertions as to the identification of genetic relationships between pathogens and sources of contamination. Your other posts usually avoid baiting and put-down even in response to others who have done that to you. This time, I feel you have slipped and not taken the high road that would help increase other blog readers’ understandings.
When you forwarded miguels commentary to a couple of contacts, I wonder if you included his referenced source. With those contacts, did you follow up with Lola Granolas referenced article? Was your energy about increasing understanding? – – or to have a good mutual snicker.
I would appreciate more information about this subject. I think you are in a position to share good knowledge and I am interested in what you believe about connecting genetic dots – – but more interested in why you believe the dots connect in any particular way. The more in-depth the better.
A FOIA request has been submitted to the state of CA to determine the extent of pastuerized milk and or pastuerized dairy recalls in the last several years.
It appears states under the PMO treat the recalls of pastuerized CAFO Got Dead Milk dairy products quite differently than it does for living raw milk. The facts should be very revealing.
Let no one be fooled. This is a war. I know first hand ….I am a veteran of these domestic food wars. This is a war for our food source and for the self determination of our very own immune health. It is a war in the halls of our states legislatures….information is miss used and abused by those in power to keep power.
Lykke….oh I wish you could for one moment walk in my shoes and get a hug from a mom who’s child no longer has constipation or excema, IBS or ear infections. Our get a hug from a complete stranger because their asthma is gone…..all because their gut now works…all because of RAW MILK.
In war….perhaps the greatest strategy is deception. That is the premise of the art of war. It has been forever. When the FDA speaks….think of deception and missuse of information. When the FDA says "listeria in raw milk" but yet uses data based on thermalized fake raw milk cheeses this is the absolute foundation of deception. Raw milk has exactly zero ( or close to zero…I can not find the first case yet ) cases of listeria illnesses listed at the CDC from retail, tested and state inspected raw milk. Not one case of illness. Not one. Yet the FDA commingles Raw Milk and Raw Milk Cheeses together and fail to provide the details to explain that fake thermalized raw milk cheeses that have been taken to 135 degrees ( yet called raw ) do not contain organic acid producing bacteria that fight listeria pretty darn well.
This is a war and we had better start appreciating this battle as just that.
The way to win this war is not to fight Lykke….or the FDA….it is to grow the Grass Roots to the tipping point and stop voting for fake food with your dollars. deny the FDA their foundation by teaching people the truth about their immune systems and how food is the foundation of health….poor health is not caused by a shortage of doctors or the insurance to feed doctors or drug companies. I am all for a good insurance program in the USA with a good single payer foundation….but please where is the whole nutritional food discussion????
Teach… Teach… Teach… and tip the point….the grass roots will simply not spend its dollars on garbage food any more. Michele Obama…said, eat closer to the soil and locally. She said ( or words to this effect ) this on national TV last weekend when she was shopping at a farmers market.
Who did you teach today? I spoke with about 4500 people over two days at the Ghiridelli chocolate festival where OPDC gave out 11,000 free six ounce raw milk samples in SF two weeks ago.
The biggest questions were….
….what is raw milk????
and ….Why do I not suffer lactose intolerance when drinking raw milk…cause pastuerized milk gives me the gassy poops…big time?? Then it was OMG… yum!!! raw milk is really really good.
We even had SF Police Officers drinking raw milk and returning to get more because they did not suffer the expected Lactose Intolerance. We have now officially renamed Lactose Intolerance Pastuerization Intolerance. This is a game changer.
Standford University is about to study this very subject….
Ignore Lykke….she or he ( not sure ) is just back ground noise as we battle to win our immune systems back.
I am the key note speaker at this years Acres Conference on December 3rd in Minniappolis. I would love for all of you to come join the me in a big huge teaching and tipping party.
All the best,
Mark McAfee
On the hug for a patient with cured asthma, earache…well, that’s great, I’m happy for them. But, you don’t get paralyzed, lose kidneys, or die from an earache, and there are alternative treatments for asthma that don’t carry the pathogen exposure risk. How about hugging survivors like this one who was healthy prior to drinking raw milk contaminated with Campylobacter…
http://www.marlerblog.com/2009/05/articles/legal-cases/the-alexandre-eco-farms-dairy-raw-milk-campylobacter-outbreak/
In the middle of E.coli season, you hand out free samples of raw milk to people who could possibly have compromised immune systems from eating SAD or taking antibiotics, being exposed to pesticides, herbicides, or numerous other LAB killers miguel has outlined. This action is the epitome of irresponsibility. How many children tried samples?
There have been endless discussions on this blog about people who are new to drinking raw milk and information they may need to boost their immune systems before trying raw milk. A few days ago you posted a research study demonstrating first time raw milk drinkers vulnerability to becoming ill if a pathogen is in the milk. Why doesnt any of the register in your brain?
Raw milk is not the only avenue for building gut health. Chris is a perfect example of this. His intestinal track went through hell and hes never been healthier. He went to a naturopathic doctor right after he got out of the hospital and took a potent pharmaceutical grade probiotic. Worked wonders. Hes still taking a lower maintenance dose.
You site these healing stories from raw milk. Most would probably have the same results from a high grade probiotic. You put raw milk on a God pedestal. It is insane.
Maybe you need to watch Chris video again as a reminder of what a pathogen can do to the human body.
Mary McGonigle-Martin
Ear aches are usually caused from infections and they can kill you. If there is an infection, there is always a possibility of it becoming systemic affecting the rest of the body. Meningitis, cardiac, hepatic, GI, neuro, etc can be affected. So yes, an ear ache can kill you.
Pathogen exposure risk? Would you suggest living in a bubble? Pathogens are everywhere, to attempt to sterilize food and the environment is foolish and unobtainable.
Did Miguel deny outbreaks?
Mary McGonigle-Martin
‘Antimicrobial activity of lysostaphin and a Listeria monocytogenes bacteriophage endolysin produced and secreted by lactic acid bacteria’
you do need to go live in a bubble, something is guaranteed to get you eventually and with your attitude i bet it will be sooner. factory food is no solution, its the problem!
lucky for you we live in a society that allows people to shift otf their personal responsibilities to someone else via law suits without evidence.
i’d put odds on it that we’ll see your name suing someone else someday. too bad it will never be opdc.
in life though you’re the loser, not mark.
If I am insane so is Dr. Don Fields Chief of Medicine at Valley Childrens Hospital and professor of medicine at UCSF. If I am insane so are 50,000 consumers of raw milk in CA.
If I am insane…then I must think that 5000 people dying of asthma is a good thing. If I am insane then so are researchers at the NIH CAM website that refer to unprocessed milk and fermented raw milk kefirs and their strong probiotic and health building properties.
Sorry Mary….you are mistaken….I never ever said that I called your son on his cell phone when he was sick at Loma Linda. How could I have ever known his cell number. You are terribly misstaken I never ever said this or did this. If you remember I visited you at Loma Linda and wanted to hear your story and you told me that you thought that Chris had become ill from spinach….this is exactly what your medical records stated. You just got very lucky and the great white night in shining armour took your case and scared the hell out of ignorant risk adverse insurance companies. You had zero causation and you know it. Not one matching bad bug was ever found at OPDC or in any products. Chris did not even have Ecoli detected in his stools. Lets just leave this bad piece of history in our past and go on.
Mary….are you also angry at the doctors that gave your son antibiotics when they are contraindicated in cases of suspected ecoli? They are the people that screwed up!! Why not get angry with them. At Valley Childrens in Fresno….antibiotics are not given for suspected cases of ecoli….as a result they do not see HUS like prior to this policy and protocol for care.
Your case with OPDC is settled and you got what you wanted. Lets go forward…..hopefully with some peace and thoughts of health for all. I am very happy that Chris is thriving and that high grade probiotics are working for him. That is awesome!!
I have always believed that mother lions are my greatest asset. My compliment to you on being the one of the very few mother lions that do not fight like heck for me in CA.
May I suggest that you and I take this conversation off line….our settlement demands peace and we need to respect that. There is a substantial fine for breaking that part of the settlement. As far as seasonality of ecoli…..not sure about that. There is some data suggesting that…but it is far from clear. People get sick from Ecoli all year long.
Mary…lets keep it civil. Your son is well and that is a blessing. Raw milk keeps thousands of kids from dying from asthma treatment drugs and other drugs that hurt more than help. Please give credit for this when you throw your spears.
Mark
Mark, Im talking about your atrocious behavior, not our case. Youre talking about the case. The cell phone statement is all documented on this blog. David wrote about it in one of his posts. The two of you will have to work it out as to who is lying.
I dont have time this morning, but I will find what David wrote about your comment regarding the cell phone. You have a complete lack of integrity.
Mary McGonigle-Martin
Let me clear the air….I never called Chris on his cell phone when he was at Loma Linda. That is a miss quote or some error in communications.
David tries his very best to be very accurate. I try to be accurate as well. When a million things are chronicled for years on end…there will be very small errors.
Please let your anger go…it will hurt you. Forgiveness is healing. All the money in the world will not buy you peace, happiness or the grace of good health. Health comes from inner peace, excerise, good food and love. Just be glad your son is doing well. So many parents lose their sons and daughters every year from all sorts of crazy things.
I am filled with peace and I am truly happy. Dr. Fields at Valley Childrens told me three weeks ago that OPDC raw milk has saved kids lives. He happens to be an expert on child abuse and shaken baby syndrome. He said that when parents ill equipted to be parents and can no longer tolerate the screaming and crying of ear infections constipation and other gut issues they simple shake their kids and or just throw them against a wall and some die.
He told me that "at risk kids for skaken baby abuse" when given raw milk sleep soundly and stop being constipated and their ear infections stop reoccuring. This directly and very positively effects the incidence of shaken baby syndrome and other physical abuse from parents with few tools.
Mary…please try and look at the world throw a more broadened lens. Raw milk has very broad and very positive implications for a huge number of people. The story shared by Dr. Fields is just one of hundreds of different positive things that raw milk does for kids and families.
Mark
There are many M.D.s who say that Shaken Baby Syndrome is actually Vaccine-Induced Encephalitis. The high-pitched screaming the baby has ("the baby won’t stop crying!") is actually a product of massive brain swelling. Brain swelling is a real reaction to vaccines, as are allergies, asthma, and ear infections. I don’t doubt that raw milk helps these poor children, but, in my estimation, your doctor is barking up the wrong tree calling all these cases Shaken Baby Syndrome and blaming the parents or caregivers, when it’s the vaccines and the doctors administering this junk who are to blame.
Read a list of vaccine reactions here:
http://www.nvic.org/Downloads/4507NVIC11x17HIRES.aspx
Notice that ‘sudden death’ is listed as a vaccine reaction.
I will lean on an assumed understanding that Mary and I have from way back, and say, gently, that it is insane to consider a pharmaceutical, even a good pharmaceutical like a probiotic, as an integral part of life. For Chris, of course, given his history, and for anyone else who can get them and chooses to take them. But please, not ever as a health fundamental.
God created man and earth to thrive in symbiosis. (Mary and I, I believe, are on the same page here.) Proper stewardship of creation includes the integration of mankind into His earth, and I believe completely that in doing so we will live healthfullyoptimally. Yes, there will be calamities, and they will be troubling and difficult and heart-breaking. But that does not justify remaking the natural world into a manufactured one. By all signs (and by intuitive knowledge as well) fabricating unnatural life systems will not end calamities, but make them worse.
Man has lived well for millennia with natural foods (most definitely including milk) taken from healthy soils and healthy animals. If we helicopter up and look at our planet–full of diverse landscapes, peolples, and cultures–it becomes obvious that health paradigms built on modern manufactured products are unsustainable and undesireable. On the other hand, look for example at grass, plain grass, and you will see a nearly universal flora. Man cannot digest it, but wonderfully we have been given ruminants that turn grass into a very complete, life-sustaining food. We should be only grateful for the relationship.
Once again we come to paradigms. Lykke says, there are alternative treatments for asthma that don’t carry the [raw milk] pathogen exposure risk. OK, but is that really the best we can do? Continually chase, with treatments, the negative consequences of our inventions? Personally, I cannot accept that paradigm. Nevertheless, even here in the land of the free, I and others like me are reduced to arguing microbiological details in order to obtain a little bit of slack in the ropes that tether us to it.
We each have our bias when it comes to raw milk. Chris eats a wholesome diet that includes probiotcs. The health benefits since adding probiotics have been amazing. Raw milk was not so kind to us. I do respect the lifestyle you have made for yourself. Youre a man who lives by his convictions. I admire that.
Dave, we do have an understanding that was established many years ago when I first found this blog. I have a tender place in my heart for you, Steve Bemis and Ken Conrad. The three of you reached out to me in a dark time in my life. I will be forever grateful for your kindness and support.
We will never agree about raw milk, but I know we can agree to disagree.
With great fondness,
Mary
I cant remember exactly what the alleged cell phone quote from you was, but I think that you claimed to call the nurses station and they told you he was on his cell phone.
I appreciate you making that statement now about the cell phone, but it should have been made back when it occurred. It was something that could have been easily been rectified. David did make a public apology about his part in making accusations that the videotape of Chris had be tampered with and now you clarify the misquote regarding the cell phone. However, that doesnt change the fact that Sally Fallon has made recent statements that the videotape is a complete fabrication. Why does she do that Mark? What information have you fed her?
As for my anger, you continue to feed it. Im not angry about Chris illness. Im angry at your continued lack of regard for people who become ill from raw milk. How many more outbreaks have there been since 2006? Your comments about Mari Tardiff were unforgivable. The nerve to publically write that she is doing well and almost fully recovered, when the truth is the poor woman is paralyzed. This is your M.O. You want people to believe the damage done by a pathogen in raw milk is no big deal. You pulled the same crap when Chris and Lauren were ill. You down play the illness or try to discredit the facts of an outbreak. Your latest mantra, Campylobacter is good for you. Need I say more? You are the master of spin.
I will be harsh with you because you deserve it. When I see that you are serious about providing balanced information on raw milk, I will be kinder. Until then, dont expect a sweet, gentle Mary.
The first place you can start telling the truth is on your website. The day I see realistic information about pathogen contamination on the OPDC website, I will be at peace.
.
Mary McGonigle-Martin