When Gen. David Patraeus takes over direction of the Central Intelligence Agency sometime in the next few months, he may want to begin mining the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for some new talent.
The FDA sent a number of its agents into undercover mode to gather the goods on Dan Allgyer, the Pennsylvania Amish farmer named in a complaint filed on behalf of the FDA by the U.S. Department of Justice seeking a permanent injunction prohibiting the farmer from distributing milk outside of Pennsylvania.
According to the complaint filed in U.S. District court a couple weeks back, the FDA undercover effort has been going on for more than a year. “In late 2009, an investigator in FDA’s Baltimore District Office used aliases to join” the cooperative that Allgyer’s farm was supplying in Maryland and Washington, DC. The complaint noted that the group “warns group members to ‘not share information about our group and certainly not about our farmer’ with government agencies or doctors…”
Over the 15 months between December 2009 and March 2011, additional FDA investigators used the cooperative’s “online ordering website and placed orders for unpasteurized cow milk on 23 occasions…Payment for each purchase was made in the form of a money order payable to Dan Allgyer.” Payment was either mailed to Allgyer “or left inside a zip closure bag that was located at the pick up site in Maryland. FDA investigators picked up each unpasteurized milk order at various private residences in Maryland.”
I’m sure it will reassure the owners of these homes to know that FDA investigators were roaming their garages, decks, and back yards, snooping around, doing everything necessary to protect the owners and other food club members from not only the milk, but the eggs, beef, chicken, and other foods they sign on for from the Allgyer farm.
That wasn’t the end of the investigation, though. “An FDA laboratory analyzed twelve of the twenty-three samples of milk purchased by the FDA investigators and confirmed that all twelve were unpasteurized.” Whew! Got to tie up those loose ends.
Investigators also visited Allgyer’s farm on April 20, 2010, and “observed numerous portable coolers in the Defendant’s driveway and a walk-in cooler/freezer on the property that contained products that appeared to be milk and other assorted dairy products. The coolers were labeled with the names of various locations within Maryland, including ‘Takoma Park,’ ‘Bethesda,’ ‘Bowie,’ and ‘Silver Springs’.”
The complaint notes that the consumers had “club membership,” but doesn’t explore whether that counts as “interstate commerce.” Most food clubs are set up to take delivery of food they already own under leasing and agent relationships.
Certainly the Allgyer experience reinforces the push by food clubs to carefully screen their members. It’s difficult, though, when you’re dealing with determined professional agents driven in their mission to deprive ordinary people of real food.
The Washington Times reported as well this morning on the investigation, labeling the federal effort a “sting.” I’m not sure I’d give the investigation that level of professional recognition, and on second thought, Gen. Patraeus may want to hold off on going the FDA route for new investigators.
Note that raw milk was not listed anywhere in the top ten list:
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/diet/articles/2011/04/28/report-ranks-top-sources-of-illness-related-to-foods#
The FDA and the USDA and the CDC and all the other acronyms and abbreviations that are harassing and criticizing raw milk producers, including those on this blog, must stop wasting time and government money on raw milk and FOCUS ON THE REAL NATIONAL PROBLEM!!
Sixty THOUSAND people every YEAR (take note CP, MM and BM…that includes many many children!) sickened by poultry alone, each year. Raw milk will never even come close to that astonishing number.
Drop your raw milk vendetta and work on a serious project that will improve the health of EVERYONE in this nation.
Raw milk is NOT the problem.
Either way, it's still an incredible amount of people sickened per year…
What has really struck me over the past few days, however, has been the feeling of suddenly realizing that "it can happen to us." I've been reading about all these other farms, and other clubs being shut down, in this constant state of disbelief… and now that it's happening to us, I feel just completely stupefied, like, how can this be happening? The same way a disaster victim feels, I imagine, though vastly less tragic.
All the more reason to lend your support to your brothers and sisters in arms, regardless of where they live! Because it just might be you next!
The State or Federal government depends on this fear factor to limit expansion of the distribution of local foods, and uses our deep seated and learned reponses for that limitation.
If that fear takes hold and keeps everyone from continuation, they have won.
Or if a certain percentage of people defect, the club is no longer viable in its distribution system.
The fact that they proved it was raw milk in my estimation was not the only thing they were testing for, they just left out the fact that the tests performed did not find what they were hoping to find.
As pressure ramps up against the ever increasing expansion of raw mlk and local foods, it will do us well to remember that our seemingly rational response is not one that is normal and is very much a learned response from the very agencies whos wish it is to limit our options.
Just because we have had this fear and mistrust response all of our lives and has been a part of our generational upbringing does not mean it is a natural human response.
Support and stand behind your producers and resist the urge to go elsewhere and be a normal consumer.
Club members have left that classification behind and now are partners in this arrangement and should demand the access this arrangement details.
Tim Wightman
Is there a legitimate reason that the govt et al would want to "deprive ordinary people of real food."?
yes, it is incredible in the amount of people that are sickened each year in America and the cause is far from raw dairy….
Tim is right, be cautious about being divided amongst each other…that is a sure way to divide and conquer….there is strength in numbers
Excellent point. Authoritarian regimes rely on citizen spies, and thereby create the conditions in which friends and neighbors distrust each other. As our regime becomes increasingly authoritarian, and fearful of its own people, we will need to resist the tendency to distrust each other.
Sylvia,
I should have added that we are dealing with professional agents who have access to training and guidance from the Defense Department's Special Forces, the CIA, the FBI, and the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms, among others. There is no legitimate reason they want to deprive us of food, but that doesn't stop them from wanting to do that. Nor does it mean we can't fight back on our own terms.
David
I am asked to meet with several senators and topresent to several MN consumer groups and a group of raw milk dairymen about food safety plan development when I am in St Paul
Then when I am all set to go and every one is good and fired up in MN and ready to rally at the Ag Committee I get an email that says that the Ag Committee chairman has cancelled the hearing.
Now that is the oldest trick in the book. Nice one LandOLakes.
I rescheduled my two presentations in CA and unraveled all of the MN rally effort
A day in the life of raw milk activism in the face of sterile food highly processed foods.
Turn the other cheek I will go again if asked but Sally will take them on at the rescheduled hearing.
Ugly raw milk trench fighting.
Mark
I would love to be in Mpls for the conference, it is 4 hours from my home, but it doesn't look promising.
It is about processor jealously and their money and their market control.
An old dairyman told me once.
"Who ever controls the milk controls the markets….."
Raw milk dairymen control the milk, the local consumer direct markets and this scares the manure lagoons out of them. Bottom line…..that is why science does not matter, data does not matter, nothing matters. It is the money$$$$
Mark
I am forever amazed at the consistently low coliform numbers and SPC counts we get every week from our RAMP program. This week our coliform tests came back all less than 3 on eight samples we submitted to our consulting lab ( Sierra Labs in Tulare CA ). The average SPC of 3,000.
This has a side effect of delicious milk, longer shelf life, fewer complaints, and the assumption is made that this results in better safety. Although I think the jury is still out on this. I truly believe that safety is based on the "environmental conditions" and type of competing bacteria and not solely the levels of bacteria. Although levels of bacteria can say alot about the environment.
One thing for sure, fewer hassles from inspectors. They are down right impressed, blown away and amazed.
Food Safety is a planned event…just like check lists, standards, judgment, maintenance, repairs and inspections when flying an aircraft. Precious cargo ( thousands of feet between what is under your butt and the ground ) and responsible pilots have much to be compared to raw milk production and its consistent safety.
My recent Minnesota experience and the seemingly insistent Minnesota culture and imparative that no one inspect the raw milk and that dairymen just fly anyway they want with any old uninspected aircraft is going to lead to crashes. Untrained pilots and uninspected bad equiptment are proven elements and ripe conditions for bad outcomes.
In the air or with raw milk….safety is no accident. It is a planned outcome.
I can not imagine taking off in an uninspected aircraft, with out checking fuel, oil or all the hundreds of elements of the systems that could and will go wrong. I can not imagine not having a certified specialist inpect my aircraft frequently to assure that my family and my life are riding in a vessle that is up to standards.
Pride and freedom based fundamentalism is fundamental stupidity when it comes to safety. You are free when you are prepared and you are safe and your passengers arrive happy and healthy.
You also assure that you never give LandOLakes or Bill Marler a bullet to shoot at you. Yes….you the farmer give the other side the bullet. It is of your making.
If American Raw Milk is going to fly….think FAA not FDA.
Mark
My point was that It is not possible to fake raw milk and a plan for raw milk that includes standards and inspections and testing is rewarding safe.
It works. The FDA is not interested in enhanced safety they are interested in creating conditions that favor crashes because they sleep with the NCIMS CAFO Food Inc and want bad outcomes for Raw Milk.
Mark
It is not going to be helpful to be inspected if the checklist has got everything backwards.It may be that letting each individual farmer devise his own priorities could result in better milk than having all of them make the same standardized mistakes.
Before we try to come up with standards,we better throw out all of the old methods and take a look at what the most recent scientific research is telling us.WE are symbiotic communities of microbes,so are cows.We may have more in common than we have differences as far as our communities of bacteria are concerned.The cow acts as an extension of our immune system.Drinking raw milk is a way to reconnect to the cow's environment . To a certain extent the cow's environment becomes part of our environment.Are we happy with this connection?Is the cow living in an environment that we would be happy in?
Obviously,bacteria count only matters if you are dealing with an out of balance environment in the first place.Of course this is the world we are living in now.Otherwise there is a lot to be said for a high bacteria count as is the case with yoghurt or kefir or fresh cheeses.
I doubt that we are learning anything at all from all of the "pathogen" tests.The tests are flawed.They only are done to offer reassurance(false) or to find blame.
Until someone comes up with some standards that make sense,I will stick to what seems to work.The cows should be living as healthy and stress free a life as I would like for myself.Milk should taste sweet as it comes out of the teat and delicious when clabbered after 48 hours.Anyone can be the inspector using these standards.
Go here to read an Atlantic article about Dr. Ioannidis: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
One needn't agree with Ioannidis on the particulars of his research (though few disagree) but the underlying problem he is exposing is undeniable. Our beloved science is not necessarily scientific. And when that flawed science becomes institutionalized, as is happening today with massive businesses and an ever more powerful and intrusive government virtually (or actually) forcing their views onto society, the effect can be catastrophic.
One of the more interesting aspects of Dr. Ioannidis' research is his discovery that multiple research studies on a given topic often come to very opposite conclusions, but many times only one side gets attention. Importantly, that sort of error is abetted by our tendency to treat news as science. The case of Chris Martin and OPDC is representative. Ken Conrad's story, for example, has as much validity as a decision-making tool as does Chris Martin's, but which got the press? Which, based on our own institution-induced bias, do we find more believable? (You can go back a post and see Ken's brief summary of how he nursed his twins after their mother died in childbirth: http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/2011/4/25/taking-illness-bull-by-the-horns-should-raw-dairies-be-issui.html#comments )
Diversity of opinion leads to diversity of actions of course. We may not feel comfortable with every outcome, but we play with fire when we disallow that diversity. True sciencetrue realityoften abides in small, quiet places. If we become over-confident in our systems, if we are not careful to properly dissect ideas (and their associated rules), we may just give our institutions enough power to stamp out science completely.
I wonder, where would Ken's twins be nowwhere would we all beif Ken had not opted to act outside mainstream opinion?
1. Are the animals upright and walking? Check.
2. Are the animals unable to walk and have to be dragged to the slaughter floor? Check.
3. Are the animals still breathing? Check.
They're good for slaughter.
Excuse my cynicism, but I have an extremely jaundiced view of consistent inspection processes when it comes to giant packers, from fish to beef.
600,000 people become ill per year from poultry alone. How much inspection can there be? How long before there's finally a little news report on it, buried in obscure online sources?
Yet, let a couple of people claim they became ill from raw milk, the FDA is immediately all over the raw milk producer with instant press releases warning against the dangers of that milk, even though hundreds or thousands of other consumers were perfectly fine.
Hypocrites.
http://yogarasayana.wordpress.com/articles/milk-in-the-age-of-convenience/
"We live now in an age of convenience. Many of our children in the big cities associate apples with a supermarket shelf and not a tree in an orchard. We expect to find any and all foods at any and all times conveniently provided, forgetting that Nature gives us seasonal foods for a reason. Milk is associated with plastic and paper cartons with the picture of a grazing cow, and yet the reality is what is inside that carton, not in its outside advertisement. It is understandable to want this convenience, after all it is the fruit of our social and cultural advancement, but we must at some point ask not just at what price but also how many of Gods fair creatures, of whom we are supposed to show the most promise, are actually paying this price and in the end, we have to ask ourselves, what does this say about us? In the war between cows and humans and there is no question that we have subjugated them much as prisoners of such a war, there can never be any winners. After all, we started out as the best of friends and how could a war between friends ever end in a victory for one? They have not only been our partners all through our rural growth, but in a mutual trust and respect, continued to act as our mothers after we had become adults, providing us with milk, cheese, butter, and even fuel for our fires as cow dung and buffalo chips. A cow digests the essence of the earth through its grass, a very concentrated and hard food to assimilate, but because of their four stomachs, they are able to draw the earths energy out of it and, having fed their babies, they share this wonderful panacea with us. When we treat a cow as a commodity to increase our convenience, when we refuse to see it as a living being, we demean ourselves. And in the end, when we make a cow sick with the wrong foods and inhumane treatment, it, in turn, makes us sick with mutated and perverted milk that is no longer a panacea but is instead very much a poison."
"In this age of Kaliyuga, when Surabhi, the celestial cow, stands on one foot, Milk, the complete food, turns into Milk, the complete destroyer. If we heed the cries of Nature, we will in fact, hear the cries of the Mother. Every mother wants her milk to nourish her child, not be its poison.
It is also imperative that in this age that we see the potentiality of the next age of perfection. We can begin living it by honoring one of the symbols of that age, the cow standing on all four of her legsif we begin to drink only milk that comes from cows that roam free, that eat good grass, that are able to nurture their calves, we may just find that indeed, milk is the perfect food of the yogis, both a cure and a rejuvenative."
http://mises.org/daily/3440
Having just watched Tom Naughton's Big Fat Fiasco again, I already knew all the details but it just gets more infuriating every time. Bad science might have given us Ancel Keys' "lipid hypothesis", but it was the state that issued official "guidelines" (and how long will those remain mere advice, the more your health becomes the assumed business of the state?) to eat less fat, and to eat more grains and vegetable oils. Between the ever-increasing fervor of such advice, the controlling of research funds to ignore anyone not following received wisdom, the vast network of agricultural subsidies and other financial industries enforcing the USDA food pyramid (psst — pyramids were built by slaves), it takes a lot of skepticism to swallow the red pill and eat real food, and in particular to reject the notions that grain and "vegetable" (industrially processed seed) oils are great for you, or that saturated fat will give you heart disease and chronically shameful flatulence. But again, the thrust is that the state's approach is fundamentally "one size fits all", and when human beings get caught in the gears, its answer every time is to stretch or cut those humans to fit some arbitrary, nebulously defined and ever-shifting Procrustean bedframe.
(And yes, I'm perfectly aware that it's human beings who claim to act in the name of the state. But their mindset is fundamentally the same — "obey, or die.")
I think Ken's twins may have had health issues as the average American infant/child does, had he not taken matters in his own way. Ear infections, cold, viruses, GI issues, allergies, etc. It appears they have a strong immune system.
Wayne Craig
Clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop
…..BANG
clopclopclopclopcloclopclopclopclop
Amish Driveby shooting
Here's to all the hardworking farmers and cheesemakers who produce the dairy products which have nourished generations. Let us join in solidarity with other struggles for social justice in our quest to save the small sustainable family dairy farm, while providing healthy local foods to all.
Speaking of "shining the light on FDA", I have officially been banished from Bill Marler's blog for shining a very bright light on FDA:
http://www.marlerblog.com/case-news/fda-seeks-permanent-injunction-against-pennsylvania-dairy-rainbow-acres-farm/
Which was met with this response from Marler in the next thread:
http://www.marlerblog.com/case-news/fda-seeks-permanent-injunction-against-pennsylvania-dairy-rainbow-acres-farm/
Ahhh.. have to love the hypocricy of Bill Marler. Defending Monsanto cronyism at FDA! And then trying to tell me I should "please seek medical attention" for questioning FDA's agenda and his support of the revolving door between FDA and Monsanto. I believe that is a tactic used in totalitarian regimes, no?