It seems the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been unable to close the loop on that South Carolina raw dairy’s campylobacter outbreak.
A South Carolina paper has reported that lab tests on the Tucker Adkins dairy’s milk, by both the FDA and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, have come back negative.
It wouldn’t be such a huge deal if the FDA had kept the matter low key while it did its due diligence. But the FDA instead paid big bucks to a public relations service to issue a national press release–on a Saturday, no less–warning the world of dangerous raw milk coming from the Tucker Adkins dairy in South Carolina, based on three illnesses from campylobacter tied epidemiologically to the dairy. The FDA’s action was of dubious credibility from the beginning, simply because the milk in question hadn’t been distributed even regionally. It is sold to residents who live near the dairy, and also distributed to a private food club in North Carolina, where raw milk sales are illegal.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who had comforting words for a raw dairy farmer. (See below)While the FDA confirms the negative lab result, it sticks to its original finding. “FDA’s test results have come back negative,” says a spokesperson. “However, a negative test result does not rule out the raw milk as the cause of the outbreak. The pathogen may have been in only one portion of the food. A sample taken from a portion that was not contaminated will have a negative test result. The epidemiologic investigation implicated the raw milk as the cause of this outbreak.”
Will the FDA provide information about the test results on its web site? “Not at this time. The investigation is still open,” says the spokesperson.
Now, it may be that some of the dairy’s milk had campylobacter at one point in time. Yet experts differ widely in their understanding of how the campylobacter risk expresses itself in raw milk. For instance, Ted Beals, a retired pathologist and raw milk proponent, stated in his presentation at the Raw Milk Symposium last May, about risk from campylobacter: “Ironically, the potential risk is increased with raw milk that is too fresh. Over time, the antimicrobial components of raw milk will kill Campylobacter jejuni, so—any potential risk diminishes as the milk ages under refrigeration. Longer storage time and exposure of the milk to air decrease the risk to raw milk drinkers. Likewise keeping infected poultry and people that carry campylobacter away from milk handling areas will reduce the risk.”
Yet a veterinarian quoted in the South Carolina paper suggests otherwise: “‘Campylobacter grows faster in the summer because of heat and humidity,’ said Boyd Parr, state veterinarian.”
As a number of people commented following my previous post, there is a frustrating lack of transparency in state and federal public health reports. It seems that if you are going to put out public information alerts, you have a responsibility to back them up. Explain the intricacies and complexities of the risks.
But what if you are more interested in perpetuating an ideology than in promoting public safety? Then you have a problem. It’s called credibility.
It’s unfortunate, because there’s a learning opportunity here, for farmers and consumers alike, about the risks of disease. But so long as political ideology has priority, no real learning can take place. Just shouting past one another.
***
Brigitte Ruthman, a Massachusetts farmer who runs a two-cow herdshare, reports on a meeting she had yesterday with Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.
He happened to be speaking in her tiny town of Sandisfield, in western Massachusetts. He’s known to be a sometime raw milk drinker, but hasn’t had anything publicly to say about the crackdown last year by his Department of Agricultural Resources, which included serving Ruthman with a cease-and-desist order.
According to Ruthman, “I found the governor and told him I am the only dairy farmer in town, and one of just a few in existence. I told him I was under attack by MDAR, and had been told to cease and desist. I told him I needed his help in this effort. He was quite convincing when he looked me straight in the eye and said ‘You are not going anywhere.’ I took that to mean I am not going out of existence. This was so heartening.”
The person I get my bovine raw milk from was talking to a dairy goat farmer recently, I'll call her GF #1. GF #1 says that immediately after she milks and filters, she puts the raw goat milk into pint jars and puts them in the freezer. She removes the jars from the freezer just before the milk freezes. She says this near-freezing process removes any strong goat taste from the milk. When she's used quart jars, it doesn't work – there's still a strong goat taste remaining.
GF #1 attended a local cheesemaking class in which raw goat milk was provided by another dairy goat farmer, GF #2. This goat milk was heated as part of the cheese making process. They might have been making mozzarella, I'm not sure. My bovine milk provider also donated some of her bovine raw milk to the class, which was also heated when made into mozzarella. The goat milk cheese had a very strong flavor and no one in the class cared for it, although they did like the cow milk mozzarella. Because of the strong taste, GF#1 was concerned that GF#2 hadn't processed the milk correctly or potentially there was some contamination.
Do any of you goat farmers use this near-freezing process with your raw goat milk? Can anyone explain why it would eliminate any strong goat taste? Given that the technique doesn't work with a larger mass of milk (the quart jar), the only thing I can think of is that the immediate supercooling must be preventing a bacterial population from becoming established. I'd be happy to hear any opinions about this.
I would call Mike Hulme in San Jose about great tasting goat milk. He produces the most ungoaty tasting goat milk I have ever tasted.
Keep the bucks away. Super clean milking. Use good genetics. Mike says the breed matters. Chill rapidly. Use good feed. I am sure there is more …..it is a near artform.
Mark has some great suggestions from Mike Hulme. I would also add that if the milk is being collected on a pipeline, the pump could be the issue. Pipeline pumps are clean-in-place (CIP) pumps whose primarily purpose is to ensure vigerous circulation of cleaning solutions to properly clean the system in order to prevent bacterial bio-film buildups. These pumps are not designed for handling the milk gently!
Goat milk in particular needs gentle handling, because it has very small and delicate butterfat globules. When the milk is subjected to rough handling, it disrupts the butterfat membranes which normally protect the fat from the lipases (fat-degrading enzymes naturally present in raw milk). This causes the llipases to attack the milk fat, releasing free-fatty acids which have a very strong flavor.
There are also lipases of bacterial origin, which usually originate from cold-loving bacteria (psychrotrophic or psychrophillic bacteria). These bacteria grow best in the temperature range of 45-60 degrees F, and they most often come from equipment that has bio-film buildups.
In either case, cooling the milk very raipdly will slow down the action of native lipases, and of psychrotrophic bacteria. When it takes longer to cool the milk to under 40F, there is more opportunity for bacterial growth and lipase activity.
The govt has again made false accusations. They have no credibility. How could they expect to have any? They have behaved this way for years. All they succeed in doing is further driving a wedge between themselves and the population.
Into pint jars, into the freezer, back out before freezing, and repackaged into selling jars?!? Totally unnecessary and incredibly fiddly.
For 13 years, I milk, then strain right into half-gallon jars which are put in the milk fridge until customer pick-up, usually same day. My goat milk does not have any goaty flavor at all. In fact, many customers tell me goat milk is sweeter than Jersey and prefer it for drinking. Those who want Jersey milk get it mostly for cream, buttermaking and cheesemaking, and cooking… heated goat milk does turn goaty.
Goaty flavor is caused by one or more of several things:
1) Prime suspect is insufficient minerals, primarily copper and iodine, especially copper which repels parasites.
Goats are not grazers of shallow-rooted plants like cattle, sheep and horses. Like deer, goats preferentially browse trees, woody shrubs, certain weeds and other deep-rooted plants like alfalfa that pull up minerals from below the topsoil. They eat entire woody branch tips with leaves, and strip tender bark from larger branches and trunks for extra sugar and minerals. When I moved to my first farm, my herd of 20 goats killed 12 wicked, wild rose bushes 8 x 8 ft wide and high, trampling them into sticks in two years. Goats are the main cause of desertification in third world countries because of their need for browse and minerals.
Lacking free browse and even with it, goats require quality minerals with a high copper content; mine has 1200-1700 ppm; I also feed kelp for the iodine. Never feed "Sheep & Goat" minerals, which are formulated for sheep; the amount of copper that goats need will kill sheep.
2) Worms, mastitis, and other illness: Goats require worming within a few days after kidding to kill certain encysted parasites that lay up in the gut over winter; the flush of hormones during kidding stimulates those worms to break out of cysts and start growing again. Submastitis and other illnesses also affect milk flavor. A sick and/or wormy goat is a goaty goat.
3) Rough milk handling: GM is much more delicate than cows milk. Excessive shaking, stirring, heat during transport, etc, releases lipase and other fatty acids into the milk, which is why pasteurized commercial goat milk is so disgusting. In summer and early fall, I require customers to transport their milk in coolers with ice, straight home and into the fridge.
4) Breed of goat: Toggenburgs have been bred for extra goaty flavor for cheesemaking; Saanens have the most milk but the least butterfat and tastes watery to me; Nubians have the highest butterfat but least production; Alpines and Lamanchas are in-between. My goats are Alpine-Nubian crossbreds: Nubians for wonderful flavor, Alpines for higher production.
5) Bucks usually cause goaty flavor only during breeding season in the fall. I don't let mine run with the does, but they are penned near by and can talk and touch the girls through the fence year-round. Even during breeding season, the milk isn't goaty, because I control for the other four factors.
Sorry this is so long, but it's important info for new goat farmers who are selling goat milk.
See this link. When the cops put 100 bullets into a car and kill someone deader than dead and then they go after the upset bystanders and start crushing privately owned cell phones, you would think that was a story from China or some weird part of Asia….no….this is right here in Florida….USA.
It appears that we have trained and genetically selected a breed of person that is no longer human and or American, and we have given this person a gun ( big bad ones now ), authority and a badge.
Watch out….protect your cell data when the cops and the FDA come to visit you. Do your recordings in Masse ( with 20 people recording… not just one person ) and keep your distance.
Really sick situation and represents the deeper top down oppression and Hitlerish fascist symptoms in America.
http://www.alternet.org/story/151806/15_years_in_prison_for_taping_the_cops_how_eavesdropping_laws_are_taking_away_our_best_defense_against_police_brutality?akid=7328.174761.5J7-Sn&rd=1&t=3
I am certainly not an expert on this topic however it appears clear from what Ive read that exposure to chemicals and radiation etc. can cause bacteria to mutate and give rise to new strains of bacteria which have virulent genes. The speed at which this happens is debatable. A change in resistance is often accompanied by increased or altered virulence. As was the case in Germany with Escherichia coli O104:H4.
For the most part however I believe Migel is suggesting that toxic chemicals can influence mutation and alter or disrupt gut ecology leading to increased susceptibility . Personally I think its a mistake to dispel Migels assertions as far fetched. He recognizes the complexities of the issue as I am certain you do as well.
At the risk of being accused of splitting hairs I would like to share these two articles.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=scientists-discover-that-antimicrob-2011-07-05
https://microbialmodus.wordpress.com/tag/triclosan-fosters-antibiotic-resistance/
The first article is humorous yet informative.
The second article states that, triclosan and its derivatives are now found in the urine and tissues of over 75% of all Americans, and in soils, sediments, and waterways all over the world. The article also states that, some bacteria are naturally resistant to triclosan, like certain Pseudomonas species, while in others it actually causes mutagenesis (directed mutations) of their already existing resistance factors.
It is important to note with these articles that it is not so much the healthy ones in society that are harmed by the use of these chemicals but rather the weakest.
Establishing standards on real food is a mute point if we continue with our aggressive and destructive assault on ubiquitous organisms, and they certainly wont keep the wolves at bay since, as David pointed out above, they need little to no proof.
Ken Conrad
I wholeheartedly agree with Sylvia's comment honoring the knowledge of Goatmaid and other dairy farmers here. I don't even begin to know what I don't know about producing raw milk.
And more importantly, nobody died or even got sick from my early lack of knowledge, though I confess I did not sell milk my first couple of years, but I drank it daily and gave it away with absolutely no problems. And I did battle goaty flavor while I learned about encysted worms, various breed flavor differences, mineral requirements… all the things I mentioned earlier, but those were quickly learned and overcome.
Everything I know, I learned through trial and error over 14 years and through asking questions on incredibly helpful goat and cow forums, forums I still visit. One can never know it all anyway, new knowledge is coming up every day, so I'm still learning things… I even learn things here too. LOL
Producing quality milk REALLY is not a big dark secret that only the initiated can possibly know. The best advice I have is to join a good dairy forum ("Keeping the Family Cow" is excellent), ask a lot of questions there, and be prepared to educate yourself.
And rid yourself of fear… tens of thousands of people in the US alone raise dairy animals and drink their own raw milk with absolutely no problems. But the FDA doesn't want anyone to know know this… it wants people to be fearful of raw milk so they'll continue to buy unhealthy PMO milk.
Don't be afraid to take a different path than everyone else.My experience is that being at odds with the normal way of thinking and acting is not only a lot more fun but it seems to work better in many ways,health,community and economics especially.
Goats are smaller, less intimidating, very lovable, they don't give too much milk, and are FAR EASIER to milk–I milk each goat out in two minutes and usually get 1/2+ gallon per goat per milking at peak; or I can leave the kids on and and not milk at all except when I want to; plus it's far easier to train someone to milk a couple of goats for vacations than it is for cows. Goats cost about 1/10th of a cow; they're hardier than cows; they're much cheaper to feed; their manure is little dry berries that scatter as they walk so it's less dangerous to walk without looking (lol), and they pee much much less than a cow. Goats require a LOT less land than cows; they're easier to transport (adults go in the back of the pickup with a camper shell, kids in a dog crate), easier to breed and much safer for a novice to handle alone. And the offspring are delicious to eat, tasting like lamb and definitely easier to butcher by yourself than a calf.
Goats are the perfect animal for someone to start their own homestead milk production and self-sufficiency.
Downsides?
They need good fencing.
They cannot be alone; never get just one goat.
They are incredibly smart….
"Where It's Legal to Farm Goats in the City"
They say it's impossible to do all by yourself, but I'm here to say it's not…. I retired to the farm, did it for 14 years, and still am. LOL
Check it out.
Now they didnt find the Campylobacter in the bottle of milk that was tested and everyone is saying, See, it wasnt the milk." How could they find Campylobacter in the milk if it dies off in a few days?
You cant have it both ways.
MORELL
12:31:32
Campylobacter is very common at this time of year. It does not last in raw milk. In fact, if you keep raw milk in the refrigerator for a couple of days with some air at the top that will get rid of the Campylobacter if there is any in there.
12:30:32
Yes, well here's a case where they don't have any proof. They have an association. In other words, these three people who got sick drank raw milk, but they did not find it in the milk. And they didn't find any matching strains or anything like that. So we find a lot of the so-called cases of illness, "associated, but not proved."
MORELL
12:31:32
Campylobacter is very common at this time of year. It does not last in raw milk. In fact, if you keep raw milk in the refrigerator for a couple of days with some air at the top that will get rid of the Campylobacter if there is any in there.
So, again. Sally makes claims that Campy pathogens will be gone within a few days, but at the same times states that didnt find the matching strains in the milk. Well Duh! They wouldnt find it if Campy only lives a few days in raw milk.
This time it was the USDA doing a "Controlled Buy" ( USDA lingo for Sting Operation to Catch Mark McAfee doing something criminal like….. the legal sale of unpasteurized raw almonds).
The CA Almond Marketing Order exempts and allows raw almond sales if the farmer sells his own product from his own farmers market stand or on-farm store. That is exactly what OPDC does. Nothing criminal here!!
However, the USDA and The CA ALMOND BOARD does not like this. They took it upon themselves to interpret this to also mean that no phone calls can be recieved from consumers that wish to buy over the phone ( USDA does not want calls to be made from consumers to the farm store ) and have these truly raw almonds shipped to them.
I think that I should sue the USDA for my anger management therapy. This makes me so very pissed off….it should turn the gut of any true American.
There is no language in the Almond Marketing Order that says anything about phone orders to an on farm store….nada….nothing.
The good thing is that I had a very nice phone conversation with Candice Spalding, an enforcement officer in WA DC at the ARS USDA today and she and I came to an agreement.
I will return to my war room and continue to find a legal route arround this mine field and continue to serve my customers regardless of this USDA coercion with industry.
I was speechless when Candice told me that: the "Almond Board Needs to Control all of the Almonds and you do not let them do this"… near quote.
Well duh????? As Joel Salatin says…US-DAH….I want to serve one person,….my consumers. I have no desire to serve the USDA or the CA Almond Board or the FDA or the PMO.
USDA enforcement goal…..Control all of the Almonds so they can assess fees on farmers and destroy the nutritional value by misslabeled pasteurized raw almonds. Clear and simple.
What a bunch of confusing words….yet it is reality.
Sick people, sick motivations, twisted goals….
Mark
You then complain, I guess, that if this likelihood, i.e. campy was not in the milk, is in fact the case, then it's unfair to question the tests which likely will not find campy in the milk. However, there are additional tests, which may have been used in the SC case (I don't know about SC, but I do know of this additional testing in at least one other case). The additional testing is very sophisticated, and is designed to determine if there ever was campy in the milk by in effect looking for the pathogen's fingerprints even if it's now gone. Hence, if this additional testing was used (and I'll bet FDA did their best to use every gun in the arsenal), and it also came up negative, then there is actually meaning to the science, and to the conclusion that there was no campy in the milk. In other words, with the additional tests, the science would have said, "There never was campy in the sampled milk." This is undoubtedly why the FDA spokesperson went the extra mile to suggest that the problem somehow was that they just didn't get the right sample, because supposedly the campy didn't distribute equally in all the milk. What is missing here, then, would be even more information about where the tested sample came from – did it come from the same glass from which the people drank? From the same jug? From a jug in the same "lot" that was purchased? From the same bulk tank? These are the kinds of transparency issues which would help to shed more light on this case. Without this information, we are in the dark about how firm the epidemiology (conclusions based both on the science and on the circumstantial evidence about what foods were consumed) really is.
As David points out, we aren't getting that transparency. What we are getting are pronouncements, carefully phrased by an agency which knows exactly how it is parsing the truth without necessarily telling the whole story, but always layered with conclusions which have been fully baked for decades,.
This theory about Campylobacter seems to have cropped up after the outbreak in Colorado. Can you give me some history behind it? Who came up with this theory? Is there any scientific research that validate this belief?
Mary
This monograph is extremely informative and authoritative both concerning the nature of the "big four" pathogens as well as concerning the extremely low actual incidence of raw milk-caused food poisoning. This is not to say it doesn't happen, and certainly doesn't minimize the injury that can, in rare cases, occur. The writing is a major contribution, I feel, to the sensible dialogue that we're trying to have on this blog.
I have checked the WAPF website and it doesn't yet appear. Wise Traditions has a generous open policy concerning copying and distributing its contents, with appropriate attributions and so long as no use is made for monetary gain, so if you don't have the publication and are interested in the monograph, I think it should be easy enough to get.
He is an experts expert on this subject.
Campylobacter does not like oxygen. That is why it is best friends with biofilms found on dirty milk lines and equipment. Campy hides out ad buries itself in the oxygen protective biofilms and re-emerges later in fresh raw milk to contaminate a new milking. This is known science. It is why being clean with milking equip is critical.
I hate to sound like a broken record here, but see this study (which I've posted dozens of times between Marler's blog and this one):
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101007093617.htm
This is what Mark is talking about above.
I can't find a single non-WAPF-sponsored article written by Dr. Ted Beals in the medical literature. What articles support these statements and suggest he is an expert in this subject area?
MW
MW
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2876755/
The above Pub Med article is on a Danish studys research into the use of fly screens to prevent campylobacter infection. In its conclusion the Danish study states, Our study provides evidence that flies are vectors for Campylobacter spp. in broilers and furthermore, probably explains the seasonal variation of Campylobacter spp. in chicken products. Flies may also play a role in direct transmission of Campylobacter spp. to humans (14,15). Certainly, the issue deserves further scientific investigation.
Ken Conrad
This feels a bit like the BSK study which we all know does not validate the belief that raw milk kills pathogens. I found it interesting that Sally Fallon is still holding tight to this belief despite the fact there are no studies that prove raw milk 100% kills pathogens dead. Reduce is does not mean kill.
This is what Sally stated on the radio show she did with Bill Marler, And if you do a challenge test with raw milk and put in large numbers of pathogens, these diminish over time and then go away. So we really don't need pasteurization.
Is this a correct analysis?
Here is a link to the study Mary Jean is citing:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC242162/pdf/aem00180-0150.pdf
Though this study confirms what we are saying (that campylobacter can only expire in milk, and cannot grow) I have criticized this study in the past as being completely unrealistic. The researchers have innoculated an unrealistic quantity of campylobacter into the milk — around 10^7 per mL (or 1 million campy cells per mL). As a reference point, the standard for Grade B milk for pasteurization and Class 4 manufacturing (aka very low-risk products like butter, cheese, or powder), is 300,000/mL bacteria standard plate count (SPC) at the farm, and 1,000,000/mL at the creamery tank. That is total bacteria, both good and bad types.
Any CERTIFIED raw milk should have an SPC of no more than 15,000/mL, clearly on a totally different order of magnitude than anything being suggested by the authors of this study. IF on an off-chance, campy was present in a batch of certified raw milk, it would still be a very small player in the larger microbial eco-system of the milk, and would quickly expire.
Though the study does confirm what we are saying, it is a deeply flawed study in its approach and conclusion. The University of Wisconsin Madison dairy research facilities are notorious supporters of BIG AG policies, and ran early test runs on Monsanto's rBGH in the late 1980's, before it was even approved for use by the FDA, sellling the dairy products produced with this hormone-laden milk to the university students and general public without even informing them that it contained unapproved rBGH. They still use rBGH to this day in the university herd, and recieve most of their funding from big business because of how our public institutions have been so thoroughly privatized by neo-liberal economic policies. Therefore, it does not surprise me about the author's conclusion — the study was probably commissioned by some large dairy agri-business corporation.
I say this having taken over a dozen dairy science courses at the University of Wisconsin. The agenda there is very clear — big ag, commodity production, and crushing the small sustainable farmer and artisan cheesemaker.
I would appreciate seeing more of these controlled studies with published materials and methods.
Thanks to all for posting and discussing this sort of study–we need more of this….
My opinion — I think there is likely a synergistic relationship when there is a large population of campylobacter, as compared to a small population. In other words, I don't think we could simply take the death curve for a population of 1 million campy per mL, and extrapolate that curve onto a smaller population (particularily when you consider the relative population of competative microflora).
When there is such a large population that is also the dominant organism is the milk, there are likely to be other protective mechanisms at work such as biofilms, which slow the death curve.
I too would like to see more peer-reviewed research done in this field. The biggest barrier, as usual, is the corporate power structure which has such an iron-clad grip on the thrust of scientific research. I am confronting this power structure very often, in my quest to develop a brand of artisan cheeses. It is why I am so adamant about the need to be very thorough about food safety. We cannot effectively challenge the power structure with illnesses on our record… the illnesses (and the subsequent conspiracy theorys and denials from our side) only play into TPTB narrative about raw milk being inherintly dangerous.
You and I agree on most things. I think the thing we disagree about is blaming illness outbreaks on contaminants that kill bacteria. I believe that 9 times out 10, these raw milk outbreaks identified by the health authorities are due to bad conditions and/or bad practices on the farm. I do not think that chemical contaminants are the issue at hand.
Also, while there may be a place for questioning the legitimacy of epidemeological evidence, I would prefer to leave that to experts such as Dr. Ted Beals.
I also think that food safety means safe for everyone regardless of immune status. Both you and I are probably immune to many of the pathogens we talk about here, because of our regular exposure to dairy animals and farm enviroments. But most of the public does not share this immunity. As producers of food, we have a responsibility to produce food that is safe for all of our customers, regardless of immune status or the individual's exposure to chemicals.
Producing something that is safe for "ALL" is not realistic. Simply because too many peoples immune systems are depressed from their daily on-slot of environmental and consumed chemicals. I think these people will be lucky if their immune system becomes marginal….
Our society does not encourage nor teach healthy eating/living, etc…. I think you can only strive to produce the safest products you are able to and hopefully that will enable some to improve in their health and education. Nothing is 100% safe.
I agree with you Sylvia. There is no such thing as 100% food safety. Even pasteurized milk has caused many deaths from post-pasteurization contamination, most often from listeria. 20% of listeria infections result in death. PMO milk bottling plants are breeding grounds for listeria because they lack a positive pressure of beneficial lactic-acid producing bacteria. (Cheese plants are a different matter, of course…)
The key here, though, is that you produce the safest product you are able to. I think that monitoring of milk quality through regular laboratory testing is one of the critical tools which helps us produce the safest product possible.
"made from by-products that originated in oranges, they can be added to the orange juice without being considered an ingredient, despite the fact that they are chemically altered."
Chemically altered? I'd bet the majority of people don't know this…..
Too often, credible means merely inside-the-box thinking, in line with the current paradigm. The poor guy who believes something different from the majority, especially when his reasoning suggests flaws in the status quo, risks being ridiculed and ostracized (or worse, forced to act outside of his belief system).
Science ideologues (at least of the western variety) stake their flag on a self-proclaimed high groundthe controlled-variable research studywhich they say is the only source of credible information. These people are seriously delusional. To see why, take a few minutes and read this lay-primer on the true value of scientific research:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
(A summary quote from the article: much of what biomedical researchers conclude in published studies is misleading, exaggerated, and often flat-out wrong as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed. Science ideologues please note: The source of this opinion is Dr. John Ioannidis, one of the most well-respected meta-researchers in the world.)
The current inside-the-box notion that all decisions must be based on controlled-variable studies is extremely damaging. It causes us to not only make mistakes, but also hinders the development of our own natural observation skills by endlessly directing our attention to experts and away from our own experience, and by training us to do as the experts do: examine the trees to near exclusion of the forest. Look at what this has done to us: Today we value intelligence over wisdom, knowledge over sense, microchemistry over macrobiology, and technology over human labor. We feel crazily, smugly confident trading thousands of years of human experience for the undiscerning details of a modern research study.
True credibility comes from real-life experience, clear-headed observation of the world and its workings, respect and reverence for natural systems, patience, and humility. Make that your foundation, add the occasional data from a narrowly-focused study (and even advice every now and then from an expert) and you will likely end up with well-balanced, and reasonably credible, idea.
"From WENDELL BERRY
Exerpts from Home Economics (1987)
The small family farm is one of the last placeswhere men and women (and girls and boys, too) can answer that call to be an artist, to learn to give love to the work of their hands. It is one of the last places where the makerand some farmers still do talk about making the crops is responsible, from start to finish, for the thing made. This certainly is a spiritual value, but it is not for that reason an impractical or uneconomic one. In fact, from the exercise of this responsibility, this giving of love to the work of the hands, the farmer, the farm, the consumer, and the nation all stand to gain in the most practical ways: They gain the means of life, the goodness of food, and the longevity and dependability of the sources of food, both natural and cultural. The proper answer to the spiritual calling becomes, in turn, the proper fulfillment of physical need
The family farm is failing because the pattern it belongs to is failing, and the principal reason for this failure is the universal adoption, by our people and our leaders alike, of industrial values, which are based on three assumptions:
1. That value equals price that the value of a farm, for example, is whatever it would bring on sale, because both a place and its price are assets. There is no essential difference between farming and selling a farm.
2. That all relations are mechanical. That a farm, for example, can be used like a factory, because there is no essential difference between a farm and a factory.
3. That the sufficient and definitive human motive is competitiveness that a community, for example, can be treated like a resource or a market, because there is no difference between a community and a resource or a market
Here we come to the heart of the matter the absolute divorce that the industrial economy has achieved between itself and all ideals and standards outside itself. It does this, of course, by arrogating to itself the status of primary reality. Once that is established, all its ties to principles of morality, religion, or government necessarily fall in place.
But a culture disintegrates when its economy disconnects from its government, morality, and religion. If we are dismembered in our economic life, how can we be members in our communal and spiritual life? We assume that we can have an exploitive, ruthlessly competitive, profit-for-profits-sake economy, and yet remain a decent and a democratic nation, as we still apparently wish to think ourselves. This simply means that our highest principles and standards have no practical force or influence and are reduced merely to talk
As a nation, then, we are not very religious and not very democratic, and that is why we have been destroying the family farm for the last forty years along with other small local economic enterprises of all kinds. We have been willing for millions of people to be condemned to failure and dispossession by the workings of an economy utterly indifferent to any claims they may have had either as children of God or as citizens of a democracy. Thats the way a dynamic economy works, we have said. We have said, Get big or get out. We have said, Adapt or die. And we have washed our hands of them
Finally, I want to say that I have not been talking from speculation but from proof. I have had in mind throughout this essay the one example known to me of an American community of small family farmers who have not only survived but thrived during some very difficult years: I mean the Amish. I do not recommend, of course, that all farmers should become Amish, nor do I want to suggest that the Amish are perfect people or that their way of life is perfect. What I want to recommend are some Amish principles:
1. They have preserved their families and communities.
2. They have maintained the practices of neighborhood.
3. They have maintained the domestic arts of kitchen and garden, household and homestead.
4. They have limited their use of technology so as not to displace or alienate available human labor or available free sources of power (the sun, wind, water, and so on).
5. They have limited their farms to a scale that is compatible both with the practice of neighborhood and with the optimum use of low-power technology.
6. By the practices and limits already mentioned, they have limited their costs.
7. They have educated their children to live at home and serve their communities.
8. They esteem farming as both a practical art and a spiritual discipline.
These principles define a world to be lived in by human beings, not a world to be exploited by managers, stockholders, and experts."
Bill provided a link for excellent research, but this one is even more on point with your concerns about Campylobacter survival and how campy actually creates its own or buries into biofilms to be protectedfrom oxygen only to re-emerge later from the oxygen deprived areas that it needs for life. Again…it does not like oxygen.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100324184602.htm
The courts in CA found Dr. Ted Beals ( OPDC and Claravale v. CDFA ) to be an expert in pathology and in fact his credentials are extensive in this area of study. He is a pathologist….that is what he was for years and years.
Your attack against his statements and credentials are really quite revealing. I have his CV and can email it to you. You will be blown away.
Please stop attacking the brutal truth and facts and…. the scientist.
Mark
I have no idea what you are talking about. Attacking credentials? I think you better reread my posts. I am simply asking for clarification. Are these Teds opinions about Campylobacter or are they based on scientific research? I asked to see the research. Some has been provided.
I see that you are highly impressed with Teds credentials. Not that I brought up credentials, but for the record, they dont impress me. I spent two months in the hospital with Chris. He has some absolutely amazing doctors and some shitty ones. They all had the same credentials. I found the doctors with the biggest egos to be the ones most impressed with their doctorness.
BTW, thanks for the email. It answered my questions.
Mary
http://www.about-campylobacter.com/campylobacter_outbreaks/view/alexandre-ecodairy-farms-raw-milk-campylobacter-outbreak/
I was not aware that Bill Marler is an expert on campylobacter.
He is certainly an expert on manipulating victims of food borne illness. I find it very interesting how silent Marler has been on the recent developments surrounding Mike Hartmann. It would seem to me that he does not care one iota about the welfare of this foodborne illness victim.
Any thoughts as to why this is? Marler certainly had a lot to say about Hartmann earlier this year, and late last year, if one were following his blog at the time.
If you want Bill Marlers thoughts on Hartmann, email or call him.
I read the link. Mari is a victim, not an expert. Unfortunately, victims are not the ones who have the power to stop foodborne illness outbreaks. Educated, empowered, and socially responsible food producers & handlers prevent outbreaks.
Do you see now why I am a socialist? I believe in the power of working people to change society for the better.
I have already spoken over the phone to Bill Marler, about Mike Hartmann. My opinion about Marler is that he does not have much to contribue about raw milk food safety, except when there are outbreaks he can profit from. I would be happy to see him contribue to RAWMI, no strings attached. I'm not counting on it, though.
Can the farmer sue the state and fda for false accusations? potential for harm to business or actual harm to business? And where do all the consumers who were involved stand? What is their rights in regards to these false accusations?
If an entity tells me that my milk is contaminated and I need to toss it, and I do, and later it is found that the milk was not contaminated, does the entity that made the false accusations reimburse me for the lost milk to include the cost of driving to get the milk? How are they made accountable for their accusations? Where is the justice?
Alexis de Tocqueville stated, Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
Now, restraint and servitude are admirable qualities when freely chosen; the problem however rests with mandating and regulating such qualities.
Again Alexis states in his book ?Democracy in America that, "Moreover, almost all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same. In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.
There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and their debasement, while in America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfills all the outward duties of religion with fervor.
Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country." I wonder if he would draw the same conclusions today.
Ken Conrad
Mari Tardiff is an expert on what Campylobacter can do to the human body and what it takes to recover from its damage. Her expertise can teach us all something. Did you known that C. jejuni is genetically diverse with certain strains being more virulent and persistent and it is believed that the strains that cause GBS carry certain types of carbohydrates on the cell surface that are reactive for certain people's immune system? Maybe some strains die off in a few days, but others can last for weeks.
As for Bill Marler, why would he want to work with you? You have been nothing but insulting to him. You may perceive yourself as a person who wants to work with others to make society better, but you dont know how to cultivate relationships to make that happen. The place to begin would be a public apology.
If you dont believe Bill Marler has anything to offer regarding raw milk food safety, why would you even want him to contribute to RAWMI? What to politically use his name? Bill Marler endorses RAWMI!
I believe he as actually contributed much to the raw milk safety movement. He has a website that lets victims tell their side of the story. Prior to this website, WAPF was in charge of disseminating facts about the illness with an attempt to sweep them under the rug. Basically the illnesses didnt happen.
BTW, you never did answer my question I asked you over on Bills blog.
Mary
In this battle for truth, Marler plays a central and vital part. He is the antagonist. The simulous for change, and thought. He represents a power that we must progressively and strategically overcome.
As a constructive pro-tagonist, I tend to take a different strategy. If you constantly feed a lion it tends to get bigger and stronger and eat even more.
If you stop feeding the lion, and especially stop giving the lion " human slaves"…it tends to starve, become less important, fade and die away.
Marler is a lion who has become fat from eating slaves and recieving huge checks from scared, litigation adverse insurance companies. He shows up on his white horse, creates a few heart wrenching tear jerking, internet videos, makes a public scene, cries about children being sickened and wow….he gets gets checks, he is feared, he is revered….he is a well fed lion. He also ignorrs the true sources of his ill complaintants. He refuses to address the origin of the cause of tens of thousands of sick, immune depressed, asthmatic kids across America. Because….it does not serve or feed him. In fact it is the fountain of eternal wealth from which his riches spring.
In the old days, man eating lions would be dealt with quite differently.
Now…we stop feeding them and we train farmers to avoid them completely. The lion then eats only the farmers that have failed to get smart, seek refuge and intelligent methods of risk avoidance while serving their consumers.
Stop feeding this lion….he is dangerous and loves ignorant exposed farmers.
I know it is hard to stop staring at this lion, remarking about this lion and jabbing at this lion…. it seems so fun…but in reality, it is a sorry animal that is lost in a world that embraces carnage and grotesque Romanesque Human sacrafice for the benefit of the FOOD INC and Pharma God Emporers…..
We live in a potentially better world than this….a world were humans are treasured and well fed and nutritional prevention is practiced. A world that loves its children and does not perpetuate crises like Autism at 1 in 80 births, or diabetes at 30% of future youth our asthma at 25% of the young population….a world were farmers are best paid, consumers and fully nourished and lawyers efforts are relegated to more mundate tasks.
Stop feeding this dangerous beast. His actions just perpetuate illness, fear and the depressed immunity for those that we endeavor to help most.
The youth of our world.
Focus on constructive change and teaching safe raw milk so this overly arrogant, pompus lion starves and stops eating villagers……
Mark
I got a call from a Parent in Oakland CA two weeks ago stating that their child was in a hospial with Ecoli. This parent said they loved our raw milk but wanted me to know that that health department was testing it for ecoli to see if it matched the childs fecal sample.
The parent shared with me that the health department and treating doctors had done a nutritional history and discovered raw milk consumption and he shared with me that the immediate asumption was raw milk. The parent then went on to share with me that hamburger from Whole Foods was also consumed and eaten by the child.
I took down all the information.
The child fully recovered and never had severe HUS and was not treated with antibioics.
In a follow up call yesterday, I called the parent to see how things were going. The child is home and playing with his siblings and doing great.
The health department tests confirmed that it was the Whole Foods Hamburger that was the source of the ecoli.
Welcome to the life of a raw milk dairyman. Thankfully, I have a RAMP program and I am slowly turning the chapters and pages of history and the Lion is not going to eat me.
You will not see Wholefoods Hamburger in the news as a culprit.
Injustice comes with the territory. But in my heart I know the truth….that is what matters.
You are not being picked-on any more than the other high risk food industries identified on the case report form. In fact, it sounds like the state investigation worked effectively and found the culprit and ruled-out your milk.
For more information, see what is actualy asked about during a case interview:
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/pubsforms/forms/CtrldForms/cdph8555.pdf
These are the foods that are asked about because of their known history of causing E. coli O157 infections:
Raw (unpasteurized) milk
Raw milk products
Untreated water
Ground beef
Other beef
Venison or other game meat
Dried meat (e.g., salami, jerky)
Unpasteurized apple juice or cider
Raw vegetables
Leafy green vegetables (e.g.,spinach, lettuce)
If patients have none of these items in common (or another risk factor such as visiting a petting zoo or being in a day-care), additional interviews are conducted with longer lists of food items. Unusual vehicles like "cookie dough" may take weeks to discover since such a product would be very unexpected.
It's not a pretty list – hopefully each industry on the E.coli O157/STEC high risk list is taking measures to get off of it by becoming a rare or non-existent food vehicle.
MW
I feel it is highly likely there is more to this story. I can't think of a scenario where state health dept would start doing food testing based on the interview of 1 case. If they were doing food testing,I am guessing there was a cluster of cases, but that is just a guess. Also, if a health dept strongly suspected a product as the source of illness, they would not discount this product based on 1 test. There are many issues with food testing, long story short, a negative test does not necessarily mean there is no pathogen in the product. Epidemiology should and would lead the investigation. If they indeed had good epi that raw milk was the cause of an outbreak, there would be more testing and investigation into the product. Lastly, if a product is determined to be the source (in this case it is said to be Whole Foods hamburger), there should be a recall and publicity so that people don't eat the contaminated food.
I am not suggesting that anyone is being untruthful, I am saying that there is likely more to the story.
You know too much.
I think you just blew your cover. You either work for or with CDFA, CA DHHS or FDA. People just do not have access to internal investigaton document templates.
As you know, raw milk does not appear on the top ten most risky foods list in America. Pasteurized cheese and ice cream both appear on the top ten list Sounds like and looks like a political food hit list to me.
Why don't you use a real name like Mary or Bill Marler. At least I can respect them for standing up and being real. Fake names make you brave. If you had any guts you would stand up and be counted.
If you work for the state at least say so. I can respect your need to save your neck!!
I've said before that I am a public health worker, and like a number of other valuable anonymous contributors on this blog (goatmaid, milk farmer, miguel, etc.), choose to use a pseudonym.
I agree 100% with Interested's comments about your specific example (of which I have no knowledge other than your account). If your version is correct, we'll see a Whole Foods recall. If not, we'll wait and see if they identify something else. These investigations take longer to figure out than suggested in popular one-hour TV shows about forensic investigations.
MW
Let's step way back and see how all of our troubles relate back to the IMF,World Bank and such institutions.The world economy is primarily an informal economy.The World Bank spends its energy and time studying how to incorporate some portion of this informal economy into the formal global economy.The formal economy must continue to grow in order for the Bank to make money.As Wendell Berry put it,the informal economy or home economy is concerned with family,neighborhood and local community first of all.The local food movement builds community and much of it operates informally without government involvement.Growth of local informal food production is damaging to the global trade of food.Look what the interference by the IMF in Somalia did.They were trying to eliminate a part of the local food economy so that global grain exports would increase.
http://maravi.blogspot.com/2011/07/sticky-globalresearch-somalia-real.html
WE need to build community.Trying to be part of the formal economy will only result in more loss of community.This means we need to stay away from government regulation and control over our local food production.
Thank you for sharing this insightful information about how US economic imperialism (also known as neo-liberalism) has destroyed local food economies in third world nations. It is a story which has been repeated in so many places… India, Haiti, Chile, Panama, to name but a few of the victims of these ultra-capitalist policies imposed through force and coercion by the IMF, World Bank, WTO, CIA, etc…
However, I think there is an important question which you need to ask yourself, when talking about our own local situation in the United States — How much of the food consumed in the United States do you think is grown locally?
The fact is, we are a thoroughly capitalist and commercial society, whose prosperity is bolstered by our cheap oil and many imperialist conquests. The corporate free-market system is a reality which 95% of the American public has to deal with every day. To suggest that we could simply abandon formal commercial economic systems for an informal economy, in this social-political context, is totally unrealistic.
For those of us in the other 95% (I am genuinely jealous of you for being in that 5%, btw…) we must figure out how to make commercial economic systems work for the greater good. If this means accepting some reasonable, scale-appropriate, voluntary regulation, I am not opposed to that.
I greatly appreciate your contributions here. Please continue sharing your insights!
The following book can be downloaded for free and is worth reading. The author Trocme encourages passive resistance.
http://www.ploughbooks.co.uk/english/jesus-and-the-nonviolent-revolution.html
Loving, forgiving, and doing good to our adversaries is our duty. Yet we must do this without giving up, and without being cowardly… We shall do so without fear, but also without pride and without hate.
Ken Conrad.
Jesus Christ is one of my heroes. He was a true revolutionary and practiced many ideas which were socialist in nature before the term "socialism" existed. From throwing the money-changers out of the temples, to his advice on taxes ("give unto Cesar what is Cesar's"), to his famous proclamation that the meek shall inherit the earth… there is no question in my mind that Christ was no friend of capitalism.
Christ drank raw milk, too!!
Pathologist: A doctor who identifies diseases by studying cells and tissues under a microscope.
Microbiologist: A scientist that studies a wide range of microorganisms in various sub disciplines of biology, such as bacteriology, mycology, parasitology, and virology.
Based on these definitions, a pathologist is an expert on disease. So a pathologist knows what the disease of Campylobacter looks like under the microscope and specializes in the disease aspect of Campylobacter. The pathologist deals with Campylobacter after this bacterium enters the body. On the other hand, a microbiologist is a scientist who actually studies the Campylobacter microorganism. This is the person who is an expert on the nuances of this bacterium.
So with it comes to Campylobacter, Salmonella, E.coli 0157:H7, Listeria, etc, the microbiologist is the expert on the behavior of bacteria before it enters the human body, and the pathologist is the expert on the bacteria after it enters the human body.
If we are talking credentials of expertise, which scientist is the expert on the behavior of Campylobacter in raw milk, a microbiologist or a pathologist?
The WAPF experts are an English major and a retired pathologist. Where is the microbiologist? That is someone who has a Ph.D in microbiology.
Do you want to know about just campylobacter or how it reacts in the human body?
The pathologist is required to study a "wide range of microorganisms in various sub disciplines of biology, such as bacteriology, mycology, parasitology, and virology" just as the microbiologist is.
Knowing campy is in milk doesn't matter if the milk isn't consumed. If the milk is consumed and it has campy (or any other potential bacteria) then knowledge of how it reacts in the human body is needed.
The Curriculum for both degrees are pretty close, unless you wish to delve into something specific, for example Genomics or immunology.
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/ns/departments/mip/graduate/curriculum.aspx
At one time, Chris has a nephrologist, gastroenterologist, cardiologist, and neurologist all at the same time. The attending PICU physician would listen to the recommendations of each specialist and then a plan of treatment would be decided upon each day.
Now, when a child has HUS, the nephrologist is top dog of doctors and each of the other specialists fall below him. Thank goodness for Chris, heart and brain issues were related to HUS and as the Shiga toxins died off and his kidney function became stabilized, heart and brain issues dissipated and there was only acute damage, not long term. Once kidney issues became resolved, then the nephrologist took a back seat and the gastroenterologist became the top dog doctor because Chris pancreas just didnt want to work. Eventually, Chris pancreas issues resolved and he was released from the hospital. For Chris long term care, the nephrologist is back in the drivers seat because of the long term consequences of having had HUS at a young age.
So pathologist and microbiologist, one trumps the other depending on the situation.
What I described happened at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital. The care he received was amazing. I can not say the same dynamics happened at the Kasier PICU in L.A. Thank goodness were were only there for 3 1/2 days. If we had been there any longer, he would have died.
I read the 1982 study by Doyle and Roman. It was published in the Applied and Environmental Microbiology journal, so I am making the assumption that the study was conducted my microbiologists, not pathologists; although Doyle and Roman worked in the Food Research Institute within the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
They start out the research paper stating C.jejuni can be found in cow feces and in the udder of the cow, so these are the two ways it is passed to the milk. Next is a review of previous literature. They site a few studies done with C. jejuni and sterile milk. A study had never been done on C.jejuni and unpasteurized milk, so that is the purpose of this study–What are the long-term survival profiles of DIFFERENT strains of Camplobacter in unpasteurized milk stored at refrigeration temperature?
Next they discuss the material and methods used. They used 8 different strains of C.jejuni: three human, one pig, one poultry, 2 cow, and one acid resistant thermophilic pig (whatever that is). All were placed in unpasteurized milk. For comparison purposes, three of the strains (two human and one poultry) were also placed in sterile milk and brucella broth. They tested the strains at 1-2 day intervals for 14 days and one for 21 days.
What did they find? The survival of the eight Campylobacter strains in refrigerated unpasteurized milk VARIED GREATLY. One human strain was not detectable after 7 days and another human strain was still recoverable after 21 days. When looking at the chart they provide, it appears that 2 or 3 strains died (day 7, 8, 12) & 7 strains remained detectable, but 6 of these a low rates. I say appears because these charts are difficult to read.
I think the most remarkable finding was the COW strain. It barely died off after 14 days. Isnt the cow strain of C.jejuni going to be the typical strain found in contaminated raw milk? Let me repeat this. THE COW STRAIN OF CAMPYLOBACTER IS THE ONLY STRAIN THAT REMAINED AT HIGH LEVELS AFTER 14 DAYS.
Nowhere in this study did they mention the levels of oxygen coincided with the death of C.jejuni. They did discuss the possibility that lactoperoxidase played a role in the death Campylobacter in unpasteurized milk, compared to sterile milk. The death rates in sterile milk were lower, but parallel to death rates in unpasteurized milk.
Based on the findings, the authors concluded that the presence and possible persistence of C jejuni in raw grade A milk REAFFIRMS THE NEED FOR PASTEURIZATION.
So that is my brief review of the Doyle/Roman study. From this study, certain people came to the conclusion that C.jejuni dies off after a few days, therefore it would be wise to wait a few days before consuming raw milk to give Campylobacter time to die and that this process can be hastened by allowing oxygen to be exposed to the milk.
I dont know about the rest of you, but after reading this study, I have to agree with the authors findings, especially regarding C. jejuni found in cows. It was alive and well after 14 days and if it contaminates raw milk it could make you ill, therefore it is probably wise to pasteurize your milk.
I was very surprised when I saw that WAPF cites the Doyle and Roman study as "support" for competitive inhibition. The study clearly shows the failure of this system in unpasteurized milk as a preventive control for Campylobacter because it takes too long: 7-21 days at least. These studies should be repeated – many lab techniques have changed since 1982. Perhaps few people read the details of the results and the author's conclusions like you did. I looked at WAPF with an open mind initially, but after drilling down and examining their "evidence," they have little credibility as an organization speaking about raw milk safety.
MW
The Doyle and Roman study is not about competative inhibition. Rather is it about the natural death curve of campy in millk (both raw and steralized milk).
Here are my comments about that study, which I will post once again:
Though this study confirms what many in the raw milk movement have said (that campylobacter can only expire in milk, and cannot grow) I have criticized this study in the past as being completely unrealistic.
Why? Because the researchers have inoculated an unrealistic quantity of campylobacter into the milk — around 10^7 per mL (or 1 million campy cells per mL).
As a reference point, the standard for Grade B milk for pasteurization and Class 4 manufacturing (aka very low-risk products like butter, cheese, or powder), is 300,000/mL bacteria standard plate count (SPC) at the farm, and 1,000,000/mL at the creamery tank. That is total bacteria, both good and bad types. Any CERTIFIED raw milk should have an SPC of no more than 15,000/mL — a totally different order of magnitude than anything being suggested by the authors of this study
Additionally, IF on an off-chance, campylobacter was present in a batch of certified raw milk, it would still be a very small player in the larger microbial eco-system of the milk, and would quickly expire. There is likely a synergistic relationship when there is a large monolithic population of campylobacter (like the scenario in the study) as opposed to a small population with much more competative microflora.
In other words, I don't think we could simply take the death curve for a population of 1 million campy per mL with comparatively little competition, and extrapolate that curve onto a smaller population. Protective factors and the relative population of competative flora (and types of competative flora) will all play a role in the death curve of the campy.
And regarding the institution which conducted the study… The University of Wisconsin Madison dairy research facilities are notorious supporters of BIG AG policies, and ran early test runs on Monsanto's rBGH in the late 1980's, before it was even approved for use by the FDA, sellling the dairy products produced with this hormone-laden milk to the university students and general public without even informing them that it contained unapproved rBGH. Talk about unethical…
They still use rBGH to this day in the university herd (and still refuse to place labels on their products stating that they are produced with rBGH) and receive most of their research funding from big business, because of how our public institutions have been so thoroughly privatized by neo-liberal economic policies (such as those promoted by the Walker administration, and to a lesser extend by the Obama administration). Therefore, it does not surprise me about the author's conclusion about the neccessity of milk pasteurization — the study was probably commissioned (directly or indirectly) by some large dairy agri-business corporation.
I would like to see more peer-reviewed research done in this field. The biggest barrier, as usual, is the corporate power structure which has such an iron-clad grip on the thrust of scientific research. It is too bad that the public health community is more concerned about the non-issue of raw milk than with the very real issues of lifestyle diseases and unhealthy eating habits. It would seem that they are very much in the service of the same corporate powers which the dairy researchers are.