Mark McAfee and Scott Trautman rally demonstrators outside courthouse in Viroqua, WI, for Max Kane last December 21. Nearly two months ago, I reported on an imaginary job review of the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Plant and Dairy Food Safety, John Sheehan. It was a negative review, given all the marketplace and political inroads being made by raw milk. Since then, the political landscape has shifted to such an extent that I can imagine Sheehan being called back for a followon session with FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, and the conversation going something like this:
Margaret Hamburg: John, I know it hasn’t even been three months since your last review, but I wanted to tell you how impressed we all are with the way you’ve turned this raw milk thing around. Especially since I was kind of tough on you during your performance review.
John Sheehan: Yes, you were a little rough. But we’re a tough bunch at Plant and Dairy Food Safety. I passed your criticisms on to members of my crew, and we’ve all been more resolute than ever about this raw milk situation. One of my staffers even worked half a day on a Saturday on this.
Hamburg: Well, I wanted to hear directly from you how you turned things around. I mean, you are kicking ass, pardon my French, in Wisconsin. That is turning into a total rout. And now you’re even making hay in Massachusetts. Things must be changing there—first they put a Republican into Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, and now they’re shutting down raw milk buying groups.
Sheehan: First of all, I’ve made some personal adjustments. Most of these state people don’t agree with me that we need a total ban of raw milk, period, end of discussion. So I’ve tried to put that aside, or delay that goal, in the interests of the current priority, which is to harass the small dairies producing raw milk and the people who help them distribute the milk, especially these buying clubs. We’re trying to disrupt the raw milk supply chain as much as possible. If we can create enough pain for these small dairies, maybe we can discourage other farmers and entrepreneurs who might be thinking that raw milk offers a market opportunity.
Hamburg: Is that something you just came up with in the last couple months?
Sheehan: No, we hatched this out in discussions in the Midwest a little over a year ago. That protester, Max Kane, got ahold of some emails where we laid it out. I didn’t like the fact that those emails were made public, but we decided to ignore that, and just stay with the plan.
Hamburg: But why does it seem to be working so well now, when it wasn’t just a couple months ago.
Sheehan: Excellent question. We’ve learned some important lessons. Our biggest concern has been negating the raw milk leadership, especially this Mark McAfee in California and Scott Trautman in Wisconsin. These guys are wild men, loose cannons. You know as well as I do, Madame Commissioner, that we hate loose cannons. So we’ve been trying to put them both in a box, shut them up tight. Now, McAfee is tough, because he has such a market presence, and so many devoted customers out there in la la land. But we’ve been pushing hard on this civil suit to become his “partner,” if you know what I mean. We want to be able to come in and inspect his dairy whenever we want, for the rest of his life, and just to show him who’s boss, we get him to pay us for the inspections. How cool would that be? He says the most awful things about me, it’s terribly humiliating. If we get this suit to come out the way I think it will, he’ll be treating me with respect, probably calling me “sir.”
Now, on the Trautman guy, he seems like a McAfee clone. The raw milk people had a rally up there in Wisconsin in front of the court house in late December, and he turns out to be a barn burner, had the crowd all worked up. Then, the really scary thing, he chained himself to the fence outside the governor’s mansion on Christmas Eve. He didn’t stay long, but anyone who would do that, well, you just don’t know what else he might do. He had the people at DATCP, even the governor, all upset.
Hamburg: Okay, I understand what you’re doing with McAfee, but what about Trautman? How have you boxed him up?
Sheehan: There we have to credit the other side. His own people let him down. That rally for the Max Kane guy at the courthouse December 21 was actually a dud. Only 150 people showed up. Our Wisconsin people thought 500 might show, but not all the farmers seemed to support it, and so didn’t encourage their customers to attend. Then, when Trautman chained himself to the fence, they totally hung him out to dry. Only one person showed up in support, Max Kane’s brother. Can you imagine if 50 or 100 people had come out to support him? The whole thing, poor farmers and raw milk consumers out in front of the governor’s mansion on Christmas Eve, it could have been a media circus. Instead, Trautman gave up after a few hours and we all breathed a big sigh of relief.
Hamburg: That still doesn’t explain how we took the offensive.
Sheehan: There I have to give credit to the guy in charge of DATCP. Rod Nisteuen, or whatever the hell, I can never get his name right.
Hamburg: It’s Rod Nilsestuen. Yes, he’s a comer. We might be recruiting him here at FDA one of these days before long.
Sheehan: Right, Nilsestuen. Anyway, the guy is a genius. An absolute genius. After the Trautman fiasco, he came up with this plan for a “working group” to study raw milk. When I first heard the idea, I thought it smelled of capitulation. Something like that Michigan working group that eventually concluded raw milk is good for you. What a joke that was. But no, Nilsestuen is much smarter than that. His working group is perfectly positioned to be whatever he needs it to be. He can use it to delay any legislative action on raw milk. If the opposition gets its act together, he can have it recommend some narrow and very strict from-the-farm sale permit. Or, since it’s stacked with anti-raw-milk people, he can have it affirm Wisconsin’s ban on raw milk. Or he can have it do nothing, just kind of disappear into the ether, like so many government initiatives. No matter how you cut it, it’s a win. And he’s distracted the raw milkies into thinking he’s doing something positive.
Added to that, the raw milkies continue to help our cause. They can’t settle on a consistent strategy in Wisconsin. First they’re quiet about the legislation. Then they tell their people to call the legislators and DATCP. Then they say to be quiet. Supporters don’t know what the hell is going on. Now we hear they’re fighting among themselves. I thought at first it was a mistake to go after this guy Dan Siegmann, since he’s a leader for the legislative push to legalize raw milk sales from farms. But now he’s blaming other farmers for informing on him and causing the shutdown of his business, and is pissed at the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. So other farmers are mad at him for only rallying the troops when his own business came under attack. On top of that, this other group, the Wisconsin Independent Consumer and Farmers Association, has come out against the legislation that would legalize raw milk sales for Class A dairies. So the legislature has a good excuse to avoid the whole thing, and say it was the raw milkies who couldn’t get their act together. It’s a classic case of all-for-one and none-for-all. Beautiful. I couldn’t have choreographed it any better.
Hamburg: But that’s just Wisconsin. Granted, it’s a big dairy state, but how does it affect other places?
Sheehan: Excellent question. The really good news is that the Wisconsin situation tells us this movement lacks leadership. So our people in other states can use the Wisconsin scenario to mount a counter-offensive, and reduce raw milk consumption, or drive it underground. If it goes underground, and people start getting sick, we can just say, “We warned you.”
Hamburg: You should be feeling good, John. You’ve totally turned this situation around. If you keep this up, we’ll be looking to you for bigger and better things. Maybe put you in charge of our meat and veggie irradiation program, figure out ways to speed up acceptance of that cleanup effort.
Sheehan: I’m very optimistic. Time is on our side. The new food safety legislation looks likelier than ever to pass, since it has bipartisan support. Obama needs a win after the Massachusetts Senate race derailed his health care legislation. When the food safety legislation passes, we’ll have gobs of new funding we can use to grease the skids with the states, which are desperate for funding, and will prostitute themselves no matter how they might feel about raw milk. We will definitely be in the driver’s seat.
I like to thank the complete Patient for this accurate account with Hamburg.
I am thrilled that the message finally gets to those, who cannot and would not listen.I am so concerned about the babies, the elderly, the pregnant women, the immune compromised and me and myself. It is heartening to see the results of my efforts. We actually kill more farmers now than farmers kill people. That is the real success of this story. I will promise you , that as long as I can milk this story of raw milk’s doom and destruction,I will use schock and awe to get this milk curdled. I do respect the current engagement of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan but I was assured by the Pentagon, that as soon some of our troops return we will take on these raw milk foodies and smoke them out of the last barns standing,until no cows come home anymore.
Thanks again
John (always on guard for the homeland)
Thought you might want to know that some of your FDA investigators were pulled over today in Pen by the local cops when they were caught following a delivery van for several hours. The van driver turned them in for harrassment and great pictures were taken. Ouch!!!
Things are not all going your way John. In CA raw milk sales have again hit all time highs with a new record in January and now OPDC is involved with an Animal Rescue group out of LA and more organic cows are joining OPDC to produce even more raw milk and that raw butter they always hord and can not get enough of.
That McAfee ignores the FDA and is focussing on telling closelyn held dairy secrets in his Share the Secret educational outreach program and now with Stanford doing that Lactose Intolerance study….the FDA is screwed in CA.
So I think the FDA better concentrate on the states that still revere fear. If I were you….I would not step foot into CA…. the raw milk moms will eat you raw. Just some friendly advice.
By the way…a researcher in LA ( that works at UCLA ) is starting a study of CRP ( C reactive protein ) and has found that people that drink raw milk from grass fed cows have dramatically reduced CRP levels…..these levels indicate inflamation and infection in the body.
John…..better tell your buddies in the pharma regulation dept to talk to their statin drug lobby bed mates and consider cooling the drug pushing….raw milk is getting ready to kick its ass with published data. Just some friendly insider stock advice. Would not want you to lose out on a good retirement tip. You will need it sooner than later.
All the best,
Mark
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/publications/animal_health/content/printable_version/faq_traceability.pdf
IT WOULD SEEM WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!!!
If I cross the state line to buy a calf/chicken/horse/pig/etc from a farmer, does this mean the govt will be involved?
The govt wasted only 120mil? And according to them @36% participated…Seems the "committies" didn’t do their own investigations. What a waste of money.
Government of the people by the people and for the people? Until it comes to the subject of money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/business/05livestock.html
This report has been confirmed at the highest level.
"…officials said they would start over in trying to devise a livestock tracing program…
"The officials said that it would be left to the states to devise many aspects of a new system, including requirements for identifying livestock."
The USDA has notoriously thrown money at the states to implement NAIS. They’re prosecuting farmers in WI, where Premises Registration is a state statute. I’ve seen DATCP’s paperwork with my own eyes. They mean to chip our livestock. Do we really believe they’re throwing it out the window for a kinder, gentler version?
http://www.wicfa.org/Motion%20for%20a%20New%20Trial.pdf
http://www.wicfa.org/Motion%20for%20a%20New%20Trial%20exhibits.pdf
It really frosts me when government uses the phrase compelling interest to justify unconstitutional actions. But what else should we expect? It’s a sure-fire strategy.
I believe that most Americans really have no idea what natural freedoms look like, and no interest in learning. It is a very, very sorry state of affairs, and the accelerating episodes of increasingly blatant disregard of founding principles suggests that before too long we will have no constitution left, and no hope of restoration short of revolution.
Here’s an instructive bit of evidence, in a short article published by The Heritage Foundation.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/05/it-will-be-as-if-the-american-founding-never-happened/
A quote from the article:
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Under proposed changes in [North Carolina’s] high school history curriculum, the U.S. History course (which seniors take) will cover events from 1877 forward only.
It will be as if the American Founding never happened.
According to Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the goal of this change is to teach what students will feel connected to, where they see the big idea, where they are able to make connections and draw relationships between parts of our history and the present day.
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David’s mock conversations with agency bureaucrats are all too real, and it is critically important that we understand why. The reason: We have become a populace indoctrinated into a government-is-god ideology.
Rebecca Garland surely would deny that she has been so indoctrinated, even as she works to indoctrinate our children. But the truth is as undeniable as our blindness to it. The virtues our founders held in such high regard–independence, responsibility, a healthy suspicion of power–have been overwhelmed by a galloping collectivist mentality that government may, indeed MUST, both give and take away rights. We demand that government act on every compelling interest. Do something! we say again and again.
America needs to wake up NOW to the fact that we have never been so well-behaved that our ideas warranted power enough to trump a man’s natural rights. Jefferson, Madison, Paine, and others understood that very well, and undoubtedly believed that they had as much as cast it in stone when they wrote the constitution.
Pull it together, Wisconsin! Trautman et al need your help!
We feed them with our tax dollars and with every non thoughtful purchase and they use it against us all in the name of their 9 to 5.
However if we look to the real issue at hand we see people taking responsibility for their actions and health, and to those who know their rights and demand their product…the milk will not stop.
Clearview Acres was asked 4 seperate times in 4 years to cease and desist because of various negociated agreements that the State changed their minds on, because the desired effect the State was looking for did not pan out.
We said we stopped….but we never did…we couldn’t… it was not in our contracts to inforce the State wishes on the shareholders, our bosses who were the legal owners of the animals.
DATCP has marginalized the shareholder/consumer/co-producer by not recognizing the rights within the negociated agreements because the shareholder/consumer/co-producer/VOTER HAS LET THEM.
This is not a David and Goliath story we are seeing played out here, as many a producer & reporter has defined it.
This is how business is practiced against the consumer… by removing the comparision of the created products they advertise as good and expand the healthcare industry of which most food companies have a large stake in.
We need more shareholder consumers to exercise their right to choose what they are going to eat and whom they are going to spend their money with.
So….Drink your milk..take thoughtful action to every purchase and remember..FDA & the Corporations know this all starts with raw milk..and what strikes the fear into the Corporations hearts the most is strong, local, healthy economies….and we out number them 10,000’s to one..why would we think they have all the power.
Tim Wightman
The reason this distinction is important, is because the laws more and more talk about "consumers" and then define the word broadly – as anyone who "consumes" anything, which is eventually argued to mean any human with a pulse. This blurring of distinctions then morphs into talk about "consumers" this and "consumers" that, effectively obliterating the distinction between "public" and "private."
If the state has an interest, it should be limited to "protecting" the "public." This was a critical part of Michael Schmidt’s case, in which the judge carefully took the health statute apart and revealed that it was designed to protect the public. Not the private.
The word "consumer" blurs this distinction, and I believe should be avoided. Let’s talk about people who enter into cow-shares as "private contracting parties" (pretty smooth, eh – Dave or Miguel, come up with something better). Those that purchase at retail in stores are arguably the "public" and may require more regulation to protect them.
Just like there is a difference between raw milk intended for pasteurization and raw milk intended for direct use, there is a corresponding difference between the public and the private.
The serious thing about my humorous post is that every little thing I was reporting is 100% true. I guess tragic humor is really funny in a weird funny way.
There is a movement in CA starting and it has the support of all of the organic dairies and creameries that have been contacted so far…not all have been contacted yet. The movement is to create a new Organic CA Milk Pool as a sub part of the current CA Milk Pool. The current milk pool takes money from organic certified USDA ( pasture access required ) producers and sends it off as an equalizationn payment to the CAFA Mega dairy that feeds soy and antibiotics in the feed and the sticks their cloned GMO cows in the Butt with rBST Hormones. It is the most unconstitutional, illogic, and undemocratic thing you can immagine. It is a hold over from when all dairies were conventional prior to the organic dairy revolution, the USDA NOP and it really has the organic producers and creameries pissed. A shift of sustainable dollars to unsustainable crap lagoon pit CAFO’s. It hurts my fingers to type this post.
Last year the raw dairies and organic dairies tried something like this but the conventional processors freaked out and did some serioius back door politics to kill the bill.
This year is different….organics will not be exempted from the pool….they will just have their own as they should and no more cross subsidy of organic dollars into CAFO Mega dairies with their fake California "Got Milk?" advertisements produced and shot in New Zealand. All dollars would stay with organics. The big difference from 2009 to 2010….the CA dairy system is no longer big and proud…they look more like beggers with not a pot to collect pennys with. Sadly….raw milk and pastuerized milk products could share a bright future. I have tried and tried again to get the attention of the CA Dairy leadership. I have tried so many times to educate them about how they could eliminate lactose intolerance by suggesting raw milk to consumers so they could sell their processed enzyme and biologiocally dead products. They will not listen to me or their own researchers at UC Davis ( Dr. German of the Milk Biome project funded by Got Milk? ).
When the diary inductry is their own worst enemy and so hard headed that they refuse to learn then I give up on them. They need to be scrapped and learn the hard way. They need to learn to listen and connect to their consumers and respond with food that they can eat. Until then they will send their consumers to soymilk. One of their other huge errors.
I am sure that there will be hearings….I will not be leading the charge….the moms and all the organic dairies and processors will be.
Hard to vote against them.
Mark
"CAFO Mega dairies with their fake California "Got Milk?" advertisements produced and shot in New Zealand. "
Is this true? Bet the public isn’t aware. I really didn’t understand the ad about importing a cow from another country…was it suppose to mean something? Why would Ca need to import a dairy cow? What happened to buy American?
Can’t say it enough, education is the key to success. people are slowly opening their eyes to what they consume (it does, unfortunately help, when the foods/toys/items are contaminated), they want to know where what they consume comes from.
When they are ill and main-stream medicine isn’t "curing", they are opening their eyes to what their lifestyle is and learning to change.
It is a slow process, slow absorption means there is better retainment of what is learned. Just keep educating, tell the truth about all known factors and debunk the lies and people will listen and remember.
Having discussed the NAIS issue and its ramifications and glairing faults..from my perspective the camp against biggest problem with NAIS was its approach of all animals are the same and all practices have the same result.
I am not a total grass based fan because I know grass is not a cure all…I can kill a cow on too much grass just as too much grain.
Those of us in the middle ground tend to see each camp not having a true understanding of the needs of the animals, and throwing an ear tag on one will not account for what our practices are doing to the common herd or address why we have these problems.
NAIS would have in part solidiifed practices that inhance some of the diseases you bring up.
Opposing NAIS challanges many careers, and many years of practices which may be need looked at, but threatens years of advertising and trade contracts.
What really needs to happen is honest conversation and using science properly to understand our roles in an animals life which we are benefit from.
Science, in my perspective over the last 40 years has tried to turn animals into units, while ignoring the principals of soil, animal & human health for a percieved short term profit.
Dis-ease is the result of that process and the natural fail safe for the propigation of any species.
Just because we are good at suspending the fail safe won’t mean a new one will not show up to do natures work.
Creating more traceability is not the answer……realizing our role in the food web is…and in most cases realizing there is a web……
Tim Wightman
Sir Albert Howard came up with a successful way to control foot and mouth disease around 1910 in India where foot and mouth disease was endemic.His careful research is described in "The Soil and Health".The health of the soil is the key to healthy animals and to our health.Unfortunately ,farmers have to find a way out of the conventional trap they are in before they can begin to treat their soil and livestock in a way that promotes health instead of undermining it.
In regards to Lykke’s comments. If USDA finds foot and mouth within a couple miles of your place no animal ID program will save your livestock. They will be depopulated, a USDA term for killed!! There is no other option under present USDA prototcols. You also need to be aware that the main driver behind NAIS in the US is to be in compliance with WTO teaties the US has already signed. This was all about trade and for that reason I am sure it will be reincarnated in some other form in the future.