The Complete Patient

Dan Corrigan makes an important point in a comment on yesterday's post, correctly raising the specter of a very upset constituency unable to procure a product that has become essential to many if Michigan authorities come down hard on the Family Farms Cooperative and its manager-farm member, Richard Hebron.

Michigan politicians have been slow to react to the twin affronts of a farmer having his home searched and losing thousands in product, and a retailer being intimidated into signing a questionable "cease and desist" order. But now it appears as if the telephone calls and emails by members of the Family Farms Cooperative and others may be paying some dividends.

The Michigan representative whose district includes Ann Arbor, Chris Kolb, says he is quite upset by what happened, and has communicated his displeasure to the Michigan Department of Agriculture. In a letter to constituents who had been pressing him, he said that immediately after reports of the incidents Oct. 13, he contacted the MDA to let them "know of everyone's frustration, displeasure, and outrage with the actions taken by the Department."

In addition, he stated, "I have met personally with the Director of Agriculture Mitch Irwin. I  conveyed to him in the strongest terms my disappointment and opposition to the actions taken by the Department.I also let him know that I expected that future deliveries would be allowed without harassment by the Department. I have asked Director Irwin to review the actions taken. I believe that there were many alternative actions that could have been taken to resolve any concerns the Department had with this farmer and the cow-sharing program."

Rep. Kolb also indicated his support for legislation that would specifically "authorize cow-sharing to ease the availability of raw milk to Michigan residents." Right now, cow-sharing arrangements of the type used by Family Farms Cooperative aren't disallowed, but they aren't specifically permitted under law, so they fall into kind of a gray area that allows the MDA to crack down when it sees fit.

Michigan residents who have contacted U.S. Senator Carl Levin over concerns about the federal Food and Drug Administration's involvement in the case will need to be patient. A press person in his office said the senator is awaiting a written copy via snail mail of a letter he had been emailed last week seeking his intervention, and won't be taking any action till he receives it.

As vocal as the raw-milk constituency is, most politicians likely see it as including a small number of voters. But clearly, the word is beginning to get out. Might Rep. Kolb's visit to the MDA help explain why the investigation into the co-op seems to be moving faster than expected?

 

It’s been more than two weeks since the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the Michigan State Police completed their “sting” operation by confiscating raw milk and other products from the Family Farms Cooperative and conducting a home search for business records.

But what about the investigation that was promised at the time of the seizure and searches? It’s apparently moving along fairly briskly, by law enforcement standards. There is a “high likelihood” that county prosecutors in Michigan will make a decision on whether or not to file criminal charges in the case sometime next week, a prosecutor told me. According to Victor Fitz, the prosecuting attorney for Cass County, which has responsibility for the area where Richard Hebron, the co-op manager, has his farm, the county prosecutor’s office has “received a portion of the (investigative) report” about the case, with “the balance coming sometime later this week.”

His assessment is somewhat more optimistic than that of Katherine Fedder, director of the MDA's food and dairy division, who told me last week she sees the investigation still requiring “a few weeks.”

Sometimes, though, prosecutors can push agencies like MDA to speed things up, especially in high-profile cases as this one has evolved into. (For background on this case, see my original BusinessWeek.com article, along with a followup article.)

Neither Fitz nor Fedder would speculate on what charges might come out of the investigation. Peter Kennedy, a lawyer for the Weston A. Price Foundation, who is providing legal assistance to the co-op, suspects that any charges could involve product labeling issues or the fact that the milk came from out of state, an Indiana dairy. Of course, the prosecutor could decide not to press charges at all.

While there is also a possibility the prosecutor for Washtenaw County, which includes Ann Arbor, the site of the planned distribution of the seized products Oct. 13, could file charges, but both Fedder and Kennedy indicated that the real action is so far occurring in Cass County.

And lurking in the background is the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which has sent its investigators on two occasions to the Amish dairy in Indiana that produces the co-op’s raw milk. It refuses to provide any timetable on possible actions.

Julie is a 27-year-old Floridian who, like many people these days, is seeking to make the transition from dependence on processed foods and Big Pharma to a healthier lifestyle. So when one of her daughters recently came down with a urinary tract infection, she held off on going to the doctor for antibiotics, and instead took girl off sugar and put her on a diet of yogurt and fruit, together with cranberry capsules and lots of water. The girl quickly recovered.

As another part of the family's transition, Julie and her husband joined a food co-op and have begun consuming raw milk. But here Julie is more discreet, voicing a fear I've heard from a number of parents--that if they feed their children raw milk, the parents will be reported by a neighbor or teacher, accused of negligence, and lose their kids.

I can understand if parents want to try the milk first to be sure it’s safe. But to worry about losing their children to overzealous an overzealous government…well, that’s something else.

Here's how Julie puts it in a post yesterday, under Health Changes:

“Hubby and I are drinking raw milk. We are not comfortable giving it to the children yet and I don't know if I will say when we do, because some people might twist it around and try to accuse us of being negligent. I will report on how hubby and I do on the raw milk. We did a ton of research before we decided to go for it. We read a lot of pro and a lot of con and eventually decided to try it. Taking the kefir daily will help any stomache problems we might encounter. I will tell you this about the milk: it’s the best stuff ever. It’s so yummy. It's thick and creamy and very filling.”

I wish I could tell Julie that this is a free country and if she wants to serve her kids raw milk, and tell the world about it, well, by all means do it. A few years ago, I would have said that. But in today's climate, with stings and home searches and confiscation of food co-op records and snitching neighbors reporting to Big Brother, I don't feel comfortable doing that. Here's what we've come to: if you put raw milk on your kids' Cocoa Puffs, Big Brother cares not a whit that the Cocoa Puffs are much more dangerous than the raw milk.

 

I slept a lot better last night, as did Richard and Annette Hebron.

Richard didn't get home to Vandalia, MI, until about 11:30 last evening (Friday), dead tired after having been stuck in Detroit traffic for two hours, and Annette was nearly asleep, but they were both feeling pretty good. "This time he made it home without any problems," having made deliveries to Family Farms Cooperative members in Ann Arbor and Birmingham, Annette told me this morning.

What she meant was that this was a much better outcome than two weeks earlier, when he was stopped on his way to deliver raw milk and other products in Ann Arbor by Michigan State Police and inspectors from the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA), who served him with a search warrant and confiscated $7,000 worth of dairy and meat products, prior to serving Annette with a search warrant and rummaging through their home.

Before returning home last evening, Richard appeared in a video posted to the Family Farms Cooperative site to thank co-op members and others who have supported him, and express optimism that all will end well. "I'm hopeful we're going to get a good outcome and it will be better for farmers all across the country."

This case finally seems to be generating some buzz in the Michigan media, as the Ann Arbor News today published two articles on matters I've covered--the revelation by a co-op member that the family-sickness incident that sparked the investigation into the co-op likely was likely triggered by bad pasteurized milk and yesterday's resumption by Richard Hebron of deliveries to Ann Arbor.

On the latter item, the resumption of deliveries, a sense of relief and even celebration seemed to prevail among the 100 or more co-op members who swung by a barn in Lodi Township, a good ways outside Ann Arbor, to pick up their raw milk, eggs, and meat. One commentator to my post yesterday, Shana Milkie, put it this way: "It was indeed a celebration today. All of us were so glad to see Richard again and to regain access to the wonderful food our cooperative produces. My kids cheered when they got to drink fresh, delicious, health-giving raw milk for the first time in two weeks!"

Yet some tentativeness and uncertainty intruded. One member told me she was following another car on her way to the barn, and when the two cars arrived, the occupant of the first car said she worried that this member's car might have been MDA agents intruding on the distribution. This member also ordered some extra raw milk, and suspects a few others did the same, just in case next week's distribution isn't as smooth.

There were some provocative comments to my post yesterday, and I've added responses in a new post at the end of that one.

I slept badly last night. I know the reason, and it has to do with the raw milk problem in Michigan.

Since mid-day yesterday (Thursday), I’ve been in possession of information about the details of the distribution of raw milk scheduled for today (Friday) to Ann Arbor-area members of the Family Farms Cooperative. Normally, this would be no big deal, since the distribution has been happening regularly on Fridays for several years. But since the sting operation Friday Oct. 13, when the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the Michigan State Police seized the co-op’s raw milk and other products from manager Richard Hebron while he was driving to Ann Arbor, there has been no distribution there.

Yet the state has been so intent on preventing it from resuming that it served Ann Arbor retailer Morgan & York with a Cease-and-Desist order to prohibit it from allowing the co-op to use its warehouse, as it had been doing for a couple years.

So I figured I’d post something first thing today to the effect that the distribution was scheduled to occur today, with an explanation that I was constrained from providing details about the wheres and whens of the delivery and pickup by members--much as I'd like to celebrate the event--for the same reason co-op members were reluctant to discuss it yesterday: everyone feels intimidated. I even wrote the item.

But as I tossed and turned last night, I realized I was nervous even about posting something first thing this morning. What if the police and MDA read my posting and decided to track Richard Hebron’s truck…and confiscate his goods again. That would be a disaster, and I’d be at fault.

So I decided to put off posting anything until mid-day today, when the distribution was already well under way or even completed.

Unfortunately, the kind of anxiety I experienced is exactly what the MDA wants everyone to experience. It wants farmers to be so scared they back off from leasing cows to distribute raw milk and it wants co-op members to avoid using it. Richard Hebron is to be applauded for his bravery in resuming deliveries.

But what we have is a situation not unlike what happens in repressive countries when the government tries to prohibit people from having access to normal products like, say, certain movies or alcohol. People gather surreptitiously to do their business, out of the glare of government authorities. The U.S….repressive? It doesn’t look that way, but it sure feels that way.