Scott Freeman, owner of Kiniker Dairy in Colorado.One of the most emotional issues around the anti-raw-milk campaign by federal and many state authorities is that of illnesses. I guess the question boils down to this: Should we believe the authorities, who are committed to shutting off the supply of raw milk, to investigate and analyze illnesses that may or may not be the result of raw milk consumption?
We now face this question with the recent issuance of a report by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment about the campylobacter outbreak last spring at Scott Freeman’s dairy. It’s something I’ve reported on previously, and which Scott Freeman refers to in a comment following my previous post.
I’ve spent some time reviewing the state’s documents, and I should say, I started off wanting very much to be highly critical. I do have criticisms, but I came away impressed with the thoroughness of the investigation as presented in the report. When I say that, I’m trying to allow for the fact that we’re not going to get a Presidential commission type of investigation—remember, we’re dealing with a public health department that has lots of reports of illness from restaurants and other places to look into, and must prioritize its work.
In this case, public health officials personally interviewed 159 of Scott Freeman’s 208 shareholders. I know some raw milk advocates will read all kinds of biases into the report, and certainly a number are present (which I’ll discuss). But after allowing for those (nearly a given when it comes to the public health community’s attitudes toward raw milk), the report is enlightening from both positive and negative perspectives.
On the negative side:
–The number of people sickened was quite high, according to the report. It states: “There were a total of 81 cases identified in this Campylobacter outbreak… Thirty-one percent of all shareholder households reported at least one person with illness that met the case definition, which is a substantial attack rate.” When you consider that data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows that in the period 1973-2005 there was an average of 54 illnesses per year, one outbreak of 81 cases is a lot. It’s important to note, as well, that only one of the illnesses was serious enough to require hospitalization.
–The department made a strong case that sanitation at the Kinikin Dairy wasn’t up to snuff. “The milking parlor was inadequately built/constructed shed which failed to meet the minimum standards prescribed in the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance or the Manufactured Milk Regulations, as well as the standards described on the dairy’s own raw milk website. The floor consisted of dirt and hay, and was soiled with manure. The interior was unfinished plywood, with openings directly to the outside around the door and other various points within the structure. Overall the structure was not clean nor in good repair. Animals other than cows (dog, chicken) entered the milking area during the visit. The milk room/house (storage area) was well constructed and had the minimum of equipment. There was evidence of manure being tracked into the milk house… There were no handwashing facilities in the milking parlor. Sanitizing solution was not used to sanitize the Mason jars used to bottle the milk, and on the day of inspection, there was no chlorine sanitizing solution present.”
–The investigation highlighted tensions between farmers and public health officials. Scott Freeman initially cooperated with officials. But when he continued to make milk available to shareholders after the Dept of Public Health and Environment requested he end sales, the department issued an order prohibiting distribution. He says he continued the distribution because shareholders requested he do so, and because they own the cows, he was obligated to do so. (Documents associated with the exchange between Scott Freeman and the department are contained in an appendix.)
–The department never found campylobacter in the dairy’s milk. Would that it were so straightforward.It found evidence of campylobacter via a PCR test (polymerase chain reaction, which identifies genetic material from campylobacter), but noted that such tests were not part of its usual protocol, and therefore not conclusive in and of themselves. Further complicating the situation, according to the report, the testing of milk samples was limited, apparently because of the department’s own screwups in handling milk testing samples. “Three additional milk samples were collected on April 22, May 1 and May 6 but were rejected by the laboratory because they were not delivered in the necessary time frame or did not have documentation that they were held at the correct temperature during transit, which is required for formal regulatory milk testing, although is often not required during outbreak investigations.” It would have been intriguing if those three additional tests had shown no evidence of campylobacter. It seems as if the public health people were sloppy in their handling of the samples, which isn’t comforting, given the public health hazard. Inference was the order of the day—based on the prevalence of raw milk drinkers among those with campylobacter, officials concluded raw milk was the culprit. (I think the public health officials make an important point that campylobacter isn’t easy to pinpoint in any food.)
–The department’s negative attitude toward raw milk pervades its conclusions: “Unpasteurized milk has been the source of numerous outbreaks in the past, in Colorado and other states. Another Campylobacter outbreak associated with unpasteurized milk from a cow share operation occurred in Larimer County in 2005. Outbreaks of Salmonella, E. coli O157 and Listeria associated with unpasteurized milk have been documented in other states and have resulted in deaths and cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome. Fortunately this outbreak involved only one hospitalization and no deaths. With the increasing number of cow share programs, outbreaks associated with unpasteurized milk are likely to continue in Colorado.” “Numerous” outbreaks in Colorado, yet all it can come up with is one, four years previous? And “resulted in deaths”? Like any number of governmental authorities, it makes this assertion, even though there aren’t any known deaths from raw milk since at least the 1980s.
On the positive side:
–The department made recommendations to Scott Freeman to improve his sanitation. As I noted earlier, it concluded that sanitation was lacking at the milk parlor. So the department recommended installing hand-washing facilities and improving washing of equipment and bottles to improve sanitation, and he adopted the suggestions. Isn’t education part of the public health department’s role in life?
–One of the most interesting pieces of data from the public health investigation is a survey of the shareholders’ reasons for drinking raw milk. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is buried in the reports (table 7 of Appendix 2), rather than highlighted. It shows the two most popular reasons being that it’s more nutritious and better tasting (than pasteurized milk), with substantial numbers saying raw milk helps relieve their allergies, improves their immune systems, and enables them to overcome lactose intolerance. There aren’t many such surveys around–it’s useful information that helps document why so many people are willing to take whatever small risk might be involved to consume raw milk.
One of the messages that comes through loud and clear from the report is that investigations of food-borne illness are as much art as science. It’s a form of detective work. As a result, when I read a report like this, covering 81 illnesses, and then see the repeated invocation of the mantra that we have 76 million cases of food-borne illness each year, it’s hard not to be skeptical. The only way to characterize that 76 million number is as a wild estimate, and it underlies the current push for draconian limitations on food producers being proposed in the current food safety legislative push.
I’ll be curious to read Scott Freeman’s take. I know he disagrees with a number of conclusions, most importantly, the one that lays the blame for the campylobacter outbreaks on his dairy. He may have good arguments, but I sense in all this that the public health professionals made a good-faith professional effort to figure out what might have gone wrong at his dairy, despite their own biases. It’s a situation everyone can learn from, and hopefully that’s what will happen, as opposed to ongoing recriminations.
So much for knowing your farmer. In order to sell raw milk safely (if that is truly possible), farmers, like the Kinikin Corner Dairy, need to not only be knowledgeable of sanitary standards and testing methods, but also actually apply and observe them. As raw milk proponents continue to push for their rights to sell and drink raw milk, they need to also understand the need to make food safety a part of the equation. Not having hand washing stations, not using bleach for sanitizing bottles, not using proper dishwashing water temperatures, and [not] monitoring of transport temperatures simply is irresponsible.
http://www.marlerblog.com/2010/03/articles/case-news/kinikin-corner-dairy-campylobacter-outbreak-report-issued/
milk farmer – You must be kidding? I suppose that you also believe that Obama was born in Kenya, the Holocaust did not happen, the CIA blew up the Twin Towers, WMD’s will soon be found in Iraq and Elvis lives down the street?
I don’t know if the dairy in question is pristine and a victim of government or a total hellhole that the government report actually took it easy on…I’ve not seen it.
What I do know is that you want to force government regulation, as opposed to private groups setting standards on raw dairy.
How about we do the same for the legal profession? You folks do have your "dirty daries"…ambulance chasers running TV ads at 3am, the John Edwards of the profession, etc…yet you folks self-regulate with private, state-by-state organizations, like the worthless GA Bar Assn, and no national oversight. You folks self-regulate…but we can’t?
Why? What makes you so special? Or is it nothing in particular, just your profession’s elitism…you know what is best for us better than we do?
I think we oughtta make lawyers government regulated. In todays political climate, with the public’s opinion of lawyers and politicians, you’d do good to make as much as someone who’s job entailed repeating, "Do you want french fries with that?" over and over…that is, IF you were allowed to work.
Hell…the public (government) might declare your profession a danger to the public good and outlaw you…like you want raw milk.
BH
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
BTW…enjoying my blog? I see from my SEO your firms IPO is a regular visitor…
Looks like Weston Price was correct.
Another example of old dogma (low fat high carb) espoused by medicine, government, and big AG is incorrect.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030202091.html?hpid=sec-health
I wonder if the good handler of the law and protector of the public would laugh at and ridicule 1000 + Architects and Engineers who question the destruction of 911
http://www.ae911truth.org/
IMO your comments where totally uncalled for and totally "unprofessional. It is no wonder most Americans view lawyers with disgust!
So, really, Don, you believe that 911 was something other than planes flown by religious extremists?
Do, you folks really think that the CO report is a great governmental conspiracy against a poor small raw milk farmer? David does not appear to believe it.
Report: Former Sen. John Edwards Facing ‘Imminent’ Indictment
Former Democratic Sen. John Edwards is facing imminent indictment relating to his use of campaign funds to cover up an extramarital affair during his 2008 presidential run, according to The National Enquirer.
A grand jury has been investigating the North Carolinian’s use of the funds since April, and the Enquirer quotes a friend of Edwards saying that, although the former candidate does not believe he did anything wrong, he is terrified that he will be made an example of in this case.
Bob, the legal system is not perfect, but it works much of the time.
As for the "imminent" indictment of your campaign contribution recipient John Edwards, I’ll concede it is a small pebble in the wall of justified retribution against elitist lawyers ONLY if the follow through results in the same punishment an itty-bitty peon, like me for instance, would get for the same transgression in a local county race…equal justice, you know.
I won’t hold my breath.
BH
http://www.JuicyMaters.com (see politics>>raw milk wars)
PS…You really oughtta take a look at those FEC filings I commented about a few weeks ago. You’ll find that they indicate you committed a felony…perhaps they are incorrect. If so, I’d be getting them corrected glass houses, you know.
As for claiming I committed a felony by donating money ($50,000) to the Inauguration, you are simply wrong (for once in your life I am sure). It was for tickets so my wife and three daughters could be close to history being made (and go to the Jonas Brother’s concert).
Also, you comingle giveaways with return on "investment". Medicaid and food stamps are giveaways, and while I qualify for both I refuse them. Its not your, or anyone else’s job to care for me.
Medicare and SS, on the other hand, are not giveaways. They are, in effect, insurance policies that people pay "premiums" on their entire working life.
Big difference.
Nope…not the 10K. Other issues. You are a smart lawyer, or so you say ("I never lose")…you ought to be able to figure it out…especially since someone too stupid to make their own nutritional choices, like me, found it in less than 5 minutes.
BH
http://www.seattlepi.com/business/394085_obamadonors30.html
I donated 25K and then other two daughters wanted to go too, so I donated 12.5K and 12.5K.
Bob — You are getting way too caught up on this John Edwards thing. There are alot worse things that politicians do than lie/cover-up maritial affairs. You know, like screw over working Americans time and again. Or spend way more on the military in various forms than they do on social programs.
Funny how everyone remembers Clinton for his little affair, instead of for the fact that he outlawed gay marriage at the federal level. You tell me which is worse? You can’t sit here and rail about class oppression when you subscribe to half of its ideology with these Ron-Paul-esque rants.
http://www.nocafos.org/news.htm
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/william-marler.asp?cycle=08
Note items #8,9,10,and 11. Three checks for $2300.00 and one for $4600.00. I believe that though the law allows husband/wife to contribute $4600.00, the checks must be written separately and signed by each contributor. The left column shows either Bill or William Marler as the doner…no mention of another family member as required by law.
The one that really jumps out though is item #17. It isn’t illegal, but sure indicates the kinds of folks you hang with.
BH
So, back to the raw milk debate. Again, as long as there are deniers, you are never going to move forward and find common ground with regulators. Raw milk works in Washington. People can buy it and farmers can sell it. Yes, there are outbreaks and recalls, but they are hopefully limited by regulation and inspection.
I agree with you that there is a need to create standards for raw milk, but the fact of the matter is that the dairy regulations in this country (especially in WI) are designed to protect big industry from competition. How are we to create standards that are designed for the needs of small raw milk producers? In my mind, a private non-profit certifications agency is the only way. I do not trust the state to do this job, as they are incompetant and can’t even enforce their own standards for pastuerized milk.
Interesting idea on the private non-profit certifications – are you aware of the CA Leafy Green Marketing Agreement? Since the 2006 Spinach E. coli outbreak – there have been E. coli and Salmonella problems, but somewhat limited. Part of the problem with the LGMA, is that it did exclude small producers from sales into the broader system. It would be interesting to see if the small producers were able to find a market outside LGMA – I do not know.
Again, I see the WA raw milk model as workable. I still worry about retail grocery sales.
I’m not here to point blame on any person. I’m simply pointing out that our entire political system, including the regulatory regime, is utterly controlled by corporate money. Even the American Cheese Society, which was founded by small farmstead back-to-the-land cheesemakers, is now largely controlled by big specialty cheese producers. The Raw Milk cheesemakers association has been neutered. They don’t want to push the issue of abolishing the arbitrary 60-day rule in favor of a science-based approach to raw milk cheese, for fear of upsetting the powers that be.
It would be interesting to know what the Campylobacter Titre’s values are for all of the Cow Share members. I would bet that most of them that did not get sick have a Titre already.
Science tells us that once you have been exposed to Campy you are immune for long periods of time and that Campy immunity does not require a serious infection. In other words Colorado now has some healthier stronger immune system citizens. Prior to 1972…Campy was not listed or considered a human pathogen by the CDC. It was classified and considered "travelers diarhea".
I am forever troubled by the much abused fear word…."sickened".
What the heck does sickened mean??? Does it mean diarhea…??? Does it mean hospitalization? Does it mean a fever…..what does it mean?
When an immune system is weak and it starts doing its push-ups and sit-ups trying to get back into conditition…is this sickness? or is this a wake up call that the common immune system in the common non Weston A Price American just has an open welcome mat for every bad boy bug to come make them sick….what ever sick means.
The most dangerous thing anyone can do is walk arround with a weak immune system.
Expose yourself daily to minute amounts of bacteria….biodiversity is your very best friend.
Drink your raw milk and rage against the FDA sickness making machine.
Mark
http://www.ftcldf.org/ (see upper right side)
This is the criteria used by CDPHE to determine if a person had Campy in this "outbreak" :
"Case definitions:
Confirmed: A person with lab confirmed Campylobacter infection with illness onset since March 15, 2009, who consumed products originating from Kinikin Corner Dairy.
Probable: A person with onset of a compatible gastrointestinal illness since March 15, 2009, who is epi-linked to a confirmed case or who consumed products from the Kinikin Corner Dairy within 10 days prior to onset. Compatible gastrointestinal illness is defined as a gastrointestinal illness lasting greater than one day with the following symptoms:
– Diarrhea accompanied by at least one other symptom: bloody stool, fever, or abdominal pain;
OR
– Three or more episodes of diarrhea within a 24-hour period.
NOTE: In the following tables, a primary case is defined as a person who meets the case definitions who has the earliest illness onset within a given household. A secondary case is person who meets the case definitions who has an illness onset one or more days after a primary case….."
This was supposed to be a "cohort study"; where you compare 2 groups of people in the same area with similar eating habits except for the suspect food.
Their ‘cohort’ population was a previously conducted FoodNet survey by residents along the Front Range (eastern Colorado). They admit that it is not a comparable population, yet they use that data anyway. At the time of this outbreak, there was an intestinal bug going through the valley (Western Colorado), which could easily cause 3 or more episodes of diarrhea in a 24 hour period. But we’ll never know how many in a true cohort study met that criteria, will we?
PCR tests can identify the DNA of bacteria, but they are known to give false positives or negatives. CDPHE obviously did not trust the results of their PCR tests, but they sure let it be known that they think they got a positive result, maybe – perhaps?
They do their best to compare this small dairy’s milk barn with an industrial Grade A dairy barn; noting it wasn’t up to snuff according to the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance ($250,000, easy), that a dog and a chicken walked in, that there were gaps in the barn wall that allowed the circulation of (suspicious) air. They say there was a pile of manure on the floor (in a barn???), and that there was evidence that manure was tracked into the milk parlor. Did they take a photo of that evidence?
Scott milks with a closed system. His milk tests prior, during and after this outbreak came back clean as a whistle. He sent samples to CSU lab and Microbial Research, in addition to the samples sent to CDPHE lab – all negative for Campy. He sent individual cow samples in, as well as bulk tank, and he tested the water too. All negative.
We did not have samples from the suspect batches of milk. When Dr. Meg Cattell asked him if all the people who were sick got milk from the same batch, he said no; they were from 3 different batches of milk. She said that made it even less likely that his milk was the cause of illness – statistically speaking, you might contaminate one batch, but not 3 in a row. Meg has a Master’s degree in Epidemiology.
I don’t think Scott got a fair shake here.
-Blair
Bill…I don’t care where Obama was born, but am disappointed that the change he so stressed during his campaign has been superficial at best…and while I’m not sure who else was ‘in’ on the twin towers, a check of the seismic record will show more than can be explained by planes. As far as WMD, this lie, purposefully put on the American people has resulted in thousands of Americans killed, and contributed significantly to our economic problems lately…hardly a joking matter.
And with regards to Elvis all I can say is "the King is dead, long live the King" and
"In the name of the Father and the Son,
In the name of gasoline and a gun
It didn’t turn out the way we planned….."
Blair gives some insight into the really nitty of the report…and again, without taking a representative sample of non milk drinkers from the same area and comparing it to raw milk drinkers, there is no definitive way to expressly prove, especially without a positive test from a milk sample, that the dairy in question was the real cause. Anyone with any sense, half a brain, and an objective mind can see this. Blind trust of the authorities, their methods agendas and reports, is definitely not warranted…here in CO or anywhere else. Their actions dictate this, not the lack of bleach bottles or a wash sink.
Now personally, I expect Lykke, Bill and others who have it out for freely produced raw milk to ignore this obviosity, and try and discredit those who try and point out the ‘opportunity’ that many take in bashing raw milk. Read between the lines and you’ll find the real reason this report was like it is…and it has little to do with real public safety.
Comparing a west slope illness to an east slope population was not done unintentionally……
How many other cow share programs had 31% of their households with Campylobacter infection? Applying your logic, you just eliminated almost all the deli meat and processed food, pasteurized milk, and fast food outbreaks.
But, suppose the whole thing was a vast government-agribusiness conspiracy against a small cow share program in rural Colorado. Are you, milkfarmer, and miguel suggesting that milking in dirt/straw with manure in a building that didn’t even meet the "standards described on the dairys own raw milk website," tracking feces into the processing room, and not washing hands while handling raw product (hard to do that with no facilities) are acceptable practices? In this context, your private lab tests are meaningless – why not spend the money improving cleanliness?
State health departments need to learn that biology is not static…and how to handle raw milk, for it is not what they are use to dealing with…
Raw milk producers need to learn that just because it is written in a book that anything green is good and can be called grass will fix the ills of the dairy industry, and milk will hold its own against the many pathogens the animal industry has implanted in our dairy herds…is patiently wrong.
In our new muti-species small farms the vectors are mutiplied by the number of different species that are on the farm…..most of which originate from large conventional facilites…hatcheries included.
Any chicken found in the parlor or eating calf grain is immeadiately supper till the others learn or your out of the chicken business.
Chickens on pasture following cows and exposed to air is fine.. near bovine feeding areas is not and can be a cause of contamination in cows for life.
Probiotics for both will do wonders but if it was not mentioned in the articles of a few years a go sunshine and karma seems to be the only defense our milk cows have for the dairy industry contaminantes.
Raw milk producers are the seed savers of the dairy cow….however there are many things to remove from our herds and simple pasture or emotional demands of consumers will not allow for the end result we all expect….or need to actually provide what we claim we do.
Tim Wightman
"In our new muti-species small farms the vectors are mutiplied by the number of different species that are on the farm….."
NEW multi-species small farms? That’s not new…its really rather retro…like my great-grandfather’s farm in Nashua, NH with its draft horses for logging, cows for meat and milk, chickens for eggs and meat, pigs for meat…that kind of NEW multi-species small farm?
New? Soiunds pretty good…and old-fashioned…to me.
BH
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
Rather than hash it out here, in an inappropriate forum, I’d be glad to do it on either your blog or mine…just no email. For the few who might be interested, as Louis Brandeis said, sunshine is the best disinfectant.
BH
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
They obviously want to make it look like the states where raw milk is legally obtained have an increase in outbreaks attributed to raw milk.
Meg brought up one of the most important aspects to this; that there is no standardized investigative approach defined for all federal, state, and local labs when analyzing an outbreak, or even testing suspect samples. Each state seems to have their own preferred methodology. Thus the bickering, finger-pointing and doubt on both sides that always follows these investigations.
Perhaps the best thing that could come of this is improving that investigative process. Then we’d have CDC data that was collected with consistent and reliable methods, sans political agendas.
On another note, RMAC does not dictate how farmers produce raw milk. They can milk out in a field with their feet, standing on their head – as long as their milk tests clean on a consistent basis.
We acknowledge there is a risk, but with small pasture-based farms (Scott feeds no grain), we feel that risk is acceptable.
We will continue to self-regulate, share knowledge and improve – but if this organization starts behaving like regulators, I’m outta here!
-Blair
Objectives New to Healthy People [by year] 2020
FS HP20209:
(Developmental) Increase the number of States that have prohibited sale or distribution of unpasteurized dairy products. (as defined by FDA, unpasteurized liquid milk and cheeses aged < 60 days).
http://www.healthypeople.gov/hp2020/Objectives/ViewObjective.aspx?Id=490&TopicArea=Food+Safety&Objective=FS+HP2020%e2%80%939&TopicAreaId=22
-Blair
Regarding my own 11 Great Thoughts (see right column of home page at ftcldf.org), two of them seem pertinent in this discussion:
"8) Educational materials (directed to both producers and consumers) for the safe production, handling and processing of raw milk and raw milk products should be developed and widely distributed generally and in the producer’s advertising and sales media."
With respect to educational materials, as Lykke kindly pointed out, we have Tim Wightman’s and Peg Beals’ materials now prominently featured on the home page of ftcldf.org, including sample pages from the booklets and a RIVETING video excerpt from Tim’s DVD’s – check us out.
"9) An open, collaborative, transparent and scientifically rigorous and neutral approach should be taken by producers, consumers and public health officials in all instances of disease outbreak with a common commitment both to protect public health and to protect continued viability of responsible producers. Public health warnings which are not connected to outbreaks of illness or warnings which prove to have been unfounded, shall be followed by public health advisory followups which are communicated with the same level and extent of publicity as the initial warning, including exoneration of producers as appropriate."
It seems that this GT might have been a helpful guideline for the state to employ as it struggled to control its anti-raw milk reflexes (not unlike Peter Sellers’ renegade right arm in "Dr. Strangelove") in studying, and reporting, on the CO outbreak.
OK, relax, I use the renegade-arm analogy against myself as a lawyer unable to control the reflex to red-pencil.
What purpose does spreading misinformation about a non-existent correlation between Campylobacter and grain feeding serve? I know that 100% grass/pasture feeding is a central component of the raw milk religion, but there is no basis for such statements when talking about Campylobacter. Pasture grazing may even increase Campylobacter in cattle feces:
Temporal and farm-management-associated variation in the faecal-pat prevalence of Campylobacter jejuni in ruminants
"Peak prevalence of C. jejuni in both cattle and sheep was observed during the summer and in cattle this apparent seasonality was associated with grazing pasture."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19845998
Monday look under politics>raw milk wars>>unethical (hypocritical) lawyers, with a post using you as an example. Hell…you might get lucky…I might write something actionable.
BH
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
The CDC website says that campylobacter is more common IN HUMANS during the summer than in winter —
http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/campylobacter/
Nothing unique here about ruminants or grazing practices. It is a bacteria that likes warm weather.
Further, there are studies that indicate campylobacter is far more common in feedlot conditions than in pasture conditions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_feeding#Diseases
And of course, this doesn’t mention that acid tolerant strains of E. Coli like O157:H7 (as well as a host of other disease causing organisms) are much, much, much more common in feedlot animals than in pastured animals. Numerous studies have indicated this:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/281/5383/1666
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/short/74/1/38
Do you seriously believe these things you are saying, or are you just trying to be inflammatory?
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=7n2m-X7OIuY
Watch the 6 minute video by former Judge Andrew Napolitano
Legal question #2 does anyone disagree with what this former Judge states concerning the regulatory agencies. If you disagree with him what laws do you base your disagreement upon?
I trust this source and their references over wikipedia,
http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/dairy/nutrient-management/data/publications/E%20coli%20O157%20in%20hay-%20or%20grain-fed%20cattle%20Hancock%20and%20Besser%2011%2006.pdf
This is another good review on the subject.
http://www.marlerblog.com/2008/08/articles/lawyer-oped/grassfed-vs-grainfed-beef-and-the-holy-grail-a-literature-review/
Bottom line: grass and pasture-based systems cannot be used as a *substitute* for good sanitation during milking, bottling, transport, etc. (or maintaining the cold chain). The outbreaks tied to "grassfed" beef and dairy animals illustrate the vulnerability despite diet (including the highly publicized spinach outbreak in 2006 that was linked to grassfed cattle).
I still buy grassfed beef and pastured chickens. They are wonderful, but it is important to realize that diet and pasture are not reliable prevention measure for food safety as implied by comments in this thread.
Lawyers usually have each other’s backs, and I know three that certainly have Andrew Nopalitano’s back if they have seen that video. Their names are Pete Kennedy, Gary Cox, and Steve Bemis.
I also know one who probably hates Nopalitano for what he stands for…the constitution. Bill Marler.
BH
http://www.JuicyMaters.com
All that your links tell me is that the science is inconclusive at this point. But at Marler acknowledges and affirm the study which shows that feeding distillers grains is positively correlated with O157:H7.
I agree about the need for sanitation and clean practices. But it doesn’t take a scientist to figure out that animals whose diet is entirely or primarily pasture are generally going to be healthier than their counterparts who are fed a lot of grain, all else being equal.
This is one of those times when all the science in the world can’t replace common sense.
Let me give you an example of the sheer idiocy of our Wisconsin dairy scientists and their ill-concieved study on grazing several years ago. This study compared the qualities of milk from 3 controls: grass-only vs. grass+grain vs. TMR (Total mixed ration — a scientifically formulated cow-chow that is the feed of choice in large conventional confinement dairies).
The study was loaded with design problems, from the start.
First, they used Holsteins bred for confinement who had spent their entire lives in a barn, on a TMR. Suddenly, one day the study starts and these cows are expected to graze. (FYI — cows are social animals, and the calves learn how to graze from the herd. They also need to develop certain rumin bugs for grazing, and different ones for TMR. It doesn’t happen overnight.)
Secondly, they just used some abandoned field as their pasture… no fertility program, no pasture management, no mineralization of soils, etc… these things are all critical to the practice of a good grazier.
The conclusions this study came to:
1) Grassfed milk tastes different. Oh really? ya think? I guess they never asked the Swiss or the French or the Italians or the English about this, because all of those dairying societies have known this simple fact FOR MILLENIA. (That is why certain traditional cheeses are only made during the grazing season.)
2) The "ideas for future study" was to look into feeding strange plants to cows with terpene and other aromatic/sulferous compounds to produce differently flavored milk. Am I the only one who sees how idiotic this is? I’ve heard stories from old time dairymen and cheesemakers about what they did back in the day when the cows got into a wild onion patch — THEY DUMPED THE MILK OUT!
And yet, these are our top Wisconsin dairy scientists. Go figure. I wonder how much money they wasted on this hairbrained study. Again demonstrating that all the science and money in the world isn’t a substitute for common sense and tradition.
Unfortunately, we Americans have very little in the way of an agricultural or culinary tradition to draw on, so our best bet is to look to our European relatives. And guess what Lykke? Raw milk is not only legal in most European counrties, but many traditional raw milk cheeses (including a whole variety of high-moisture fresh and soft-ripened raw milk cheeses, aged only a few weeks) ARE PROTECTED BY LAW as traditional agricultural products, from competition from mass-produced pastuerized immitators. Camembert de Normandie, Brie de Meaux, Meunster, Eppoise, and Reblechon are the most famous French examples. Vacherin Mont’Dor in the Alps (There is actually a very famous example from 1980’s of a raw milk French Vacherin being falsely blamed for a listeria outbreak that later was determined to be from a pastuerized Swiss Vacherin). In Italy they have the Robiolas. The list could on and on.
I guess all these Europeans must be dropping like flies from eating all that fresh, soft, stinky, ooey, gooey raw milk cheese, hey Lykke?
http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=10550&title=Judge_Napolitano_at_TXCC_10th_Amendment_Town_Hall
Perhaps today we could also say the King can not make factory food fit for HUMAN consumption that alchemy just doesn’t work!!!
http://www.newsweek.com/id/57368
From the above article Stanford biologist David Relman states, It’s awful the way we treat our microbes people still think the only good microbe is a dead one. We try to kill them off with antibiotics and hand sanitizers. But bacteria never surrender.
Ken
(go to page 121)
http://books.google.com/books?id=TmRuoa40mQgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=raw+milk+vacherin+listeria&source=bl&ots=Zr2XWePqxd&sig=tvviCX_ABxmBySc7SmL1fyd2lp0&hl=en&ei=2riRS96oHomwNtHrhI8N&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=vacherin&f=false
We agree. And, I have some stinky raw sheep cheese in my frig too.
"The germ theory is driving us to the brink of insanity."
Disagree. The germs are alive and well and dangerous. Common sense would dictate that we keep them out of our food and water supply. The "old days" might seem romantic, but go to a developing country and get brucellosis, or watch your child die from cholera – germs are a buzz kill.
"Year 2020 goal to increase prohibition of raw milk in states across the US." [paraphrased]
Disagree. Raw milk and cheeses made from raw milk are foods that people desire and people should be allowed to make that choice. These products should not be banned, but instead made available by farmers who produce them under sanitary conditions and operate using best known safety practices. There should be honest labeling and disclosure to consumers that there are potential risks, especially for children, the elderly, pregnant women, and persons with compromised immune systems.
Bill Marler has said he opposes retail and mass distribution sale of raw milk products. From a public health and business point-of-view, that makes total sense. A local, short supply chain distribution is the most logical and sustainable approach with raw dairy.
Does this mean these 81 cases were verified in a lab? Or were they just assumed?
Maybe you are right. The state epidemiologists woke up one day, got to work, and said, "hey, lets create a fake raw milk outbreak. We have nothing better to do with our time." Indeed, we went to school to study science with the goal to put small farmers out of business. Every morning, we wake up with the idea that our education and training has nothing to do with prevention of infectious diseases, but rather a way to figure out how to ruin small farmers. We do this to get a big fat check from agribusiness and fast food resaurants – yet, every time we go to our mailboxes, no fat check. Where’s the reward?.
Thank goodness that I post anonymously – wouldn’t want Bob Halyles running down my campaign contributions or lack thereof (or knowing who I voted for).
Ill rephrase my statement, the germ theory has prompted excessive and irrational behavior with respect to how we deal with organisms has nurtured a false sense of security and drives some individuals to the brink of insanity.
Common sense should dictate that it is impossible to keep them out of our food and water supply and we should therefore be searching for more constructive ways of living in harmony with them in order to limit their effect.
The organism is and will respond to our arrogant attitude in ways you cant even begin to imagine.
Ken
http://www.alternet.org/media/145936/the_skinny_on_oscar-nominated_documentaries_%27food_inc.%27_and_%27the_cove%27_
Lykke,
I have no problem with this statement, unless the government is involved in enforcing it. In that case it is a contradiction. The ‘best known safety practices’ as defined by PMO and similar impose a cost of compliance that will de facto ban raw milk in most cases.
The statement also has an underlying false assumption: that we can know the best safety practices. As is evident here, there is much disagreement on that. This is why the only tenable option is to leave it up to the farmers and consumers to decide what is best.
Diarrhea and fever. Many parents will recognize those symptoms; they commonly accompany TEETHING in children. And by that measure each of my kids has had campy several times.
Frankly this makes the findings in CO so non-specific as to be utterly worthless and destroys their credibility.
You can pay lip service to legalizing raw milk, and best practices, but that has not been the experience of raw milk here in America’s dairyland. The debate about raw milk has largely been framed by the politics of the dairy industry, while the regulators use strong rhetoric about raw milk being illegal, and legal threats against producers which are driving the market further underground.
One farm *supposedly* gets people sick (like the evidence about grass vs. grain-feeding, the evidence in this case was inconclusive) and the so-called "food safety" regulators go on a rampage shutting down every single farm they can find that sells raw milk off the farm.
The WI experience has made it abundantly clear that these so-called "food safety" experts are more about fear, control, and protecting big industry, than they are about best practices or consumer health. As far as our WI regulators are concerned, they would LOVE IT if there were more outbreaks from raw milk, because it would give them yet more reason to go on these rampages.
As for raw milk not killing anyone and therefore it is not dangerous is such a ridiculous argument. Ive lost track of the number of raw milk outbreaks in the past 5 years that have involved children contracting an E.coli 0157:H7 infection which then turned in HUS. The only reason these children didnt die is because modern medicine kept them in a suspended state of being alive until the Shiga toxins could work their way out of the body. Twenty years ago, all of these children would have been dead.
Everyone is happy noone has died from consuming contaminated raw milk, but the parents of children who now are faced with the fact their child someday may need a kidney transplant are not so happy. Would you be if this was your childs fate after drinking raw milk? http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/03/living-with-esrd/
Heres a video you can watch about a child who was sickened by E.coli 0157:H7 and developed HUS. She faces a kidney transplant. It doesnt matter which food source is contaminated, Ecoli 0157:H7 does not discriminate. http://www.marlerblog.com/2010/03/articles/legal-cases/marler-clark-clients-elizabeth-and-ashley-armstrong-profiled-on-cnn/
cp
Lets see if anyone on this blog will support your belief.
cp
Lykke, I take from your comment, "Disagree. The germs are alive and well and dangerous. Common sense would dictate that we keep them out of our food and water supply." that you think all germs (bacteria) are bad and that there is a feasible way to eliminate all of them. Pasteurization doesn’t eliminate all bad bacteria, just reduces their numbers. I think we (as a society) are starting to realize, there is no way to eliminate bad bacteria altogether.
I think that the overall theme is more on the lines that there is no way to 100% ensure bad bacteria will not be in *any* food. We can do our best to ensure safe & clean methods are used (in any food processing – not just raw milk), but it will never guarantee safety.
A *companion* approach to using safe and clean practices would be to strengthen our immunity which is becoming more and more clear as meaning having the right good bacteria in our digestive tracks. By trying to eliminate all bacteria we are getting rid of the good guys at the same time. That spells disaster.
There is a point at which Mr Whittle talks about how the Declaration was formed by free people who consented to be governed by their representatives, NOT RULED OVER by people who saw them only as a source of revenue.
Something sounded real familiar about that with what we face today.
Here is the clip:
http://www.pjtv.com/v/3168
What do you all think?
A friend of ours in her 60’s told us store milk makes her feel awful and even pass out. Once she started drinking raw milk (which didn’t cause that response) she has more energy and her allergies went away (among other positive benefits). Usually she is on drugs all year long to even be able to leave the house. Last year she had no allergies all spring until suddenly halfway through the year she drank some pasteurized milk and came up with the sneezes.
I will say it again, so called safe pasteurized milk makes people sick, and reliably so. In contrast raw milk produced under varying conditions (much of which wouldn’t pass PMO) often heals people.
The PMO can’t guarantee healthy milk. The only thing its burdensome, expensive, and subjective rules guarantee is that farmers will be driven out of business by its requirements and their subjective and even punitive enforcement.
pete,
Well, if that’s how you feel, then put it on your label: "This product was produced under unsanitary conditions and contains cow fecal matter. Our family does not wash our hands when preparing and handling this product. Enjoy and happy immunity!"
Question – would you eat produce irrigated with human sewage water containing hepatitis A virus? In almost all cases, you are immune to hepatitis A virus for life after a ~2 week bout of nasty illness. In a few people, they die or need a liver transplant and their life is changed forever. Would you be able to look into your body (or your customer’s) and know which category you/they belong to? Should sewage water be a "best practice" since it is full of nutrients and immune boosting germs? May the best immune system win.
I’m not sure whom you think the milk label fits. You completely misunderstand my point. This has nothing to do with common sense approaches such as hand washing and keeping manure out of the milk. Much of the burdensome PMO requirements for sanitary conditions has nothing to do with that at all and is even counter productive.
And I don’t dump raw human sewage on my fields. The conventional farmers do (right next to public water supplies with the governments blessing no less), but no truly organic farmer would do so with all the chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals people consume.
Pete
To answer your question about dirty verses safe and sanitary verses clean….all that is a needed is a brief review of Alta Dena and why they had repeated Salmonella based recalls which in the end was the political force that stopped their vibrant raw milk business in May of 1999 after 55 years in CA.
Alta Dena and Steuves Natural belived that super clean cows udders was the sole basis of clean raw milk and no pathogens. They went to extreme meassures to wash and clean the udders prior to milking….to no avail. They still kept getting Salmonella pathogen tests back positive.
What they forgot was that they had thousands of cows in crowded conditions being fed grains and antibiotics. The entire environment was wet and deep with manure. They thought that by careful cleaning of the udders that the milk would be clean. They were udder cleaning fanatics.
They got part of it right…a clean udder helps…but not that much.
Steuves did not have the environment correct. Alta Dena and Steuves were a CAFO system. They had repeated positive Salmonella tests that could not be politically tolerated and sustained. They needed pastures and little or no grain and no antibiotics. They treated raw milk safety like the germ theory instead of the environmental ecosystem reality that it is.
That is why OPDC has never had a pathogen found in its raw milk samples in ten years of testing. Pathogens may be present but they fail to express themselves or they are simply not there. The OPDC internal and external ecosystems in and outside of the cows and pastures are sundrenched correct and natural. These environmental conditions are the basis of the USDA NOP standards, something Steuves did not have at that time.
So…clean udders are not the answer, they are but a small part of the answer….good bacteria with cows living in the right kind of environment with natural feed is the answer. The bacteria found in healthy pasture grazed cows manure are the exact kind of bacteria that are needed in our food supply to make us healthy. Raw milk is the food to get it back to our gut!!. Our gut is our immune system!!
So…go eat a little pasture poop and thrive…..
All the best,
Mark
I’m not from Wisonsin and have no "insider" insight into their regulatory activities. My opinions probably run to the far left (or right?) of some of my colleagues regarding prohibition, but it makes for a healthy debate.
Regarding best practices. Every industry has uncertainty and is contstantly adapting their best practices to new science. You start with common sense (like basic hygiene) and build from there. For raw commodities, no one expects them to be sterile. To say you don’t know all the answers therefore should do nothing is not responsible, as cp says (are you saying that raw milk should be produced and distributed like a third-world country with no running water or proper cold-chain so as to be like the old traditional days?).
All you have is the one report on the conditions of our farm from the health department whose purpose was to blame us for the campylobacter outbreak. Nothing was reported that was positive. So you get disgusted.
We had a two compartment dairy wash sink with hot and cold running water in the milk room. Do you really think having a separate, dedicated hand washing sink would improve our sanitation. We wash the cows teats with a weak iodine solution (warm water and new rag for each cow) and dry them before attaching the milking claw and we sit right there with the cow until she was done. Look at our testing history. I would think if we really had a bad environment for harvesting milk our tests would have shown it.
Isnt the coliform test a measure of fecal contamination?
The commercial dishwasher we use has a short 90 second cycle and the cold jars require several cycles to get up to 120 degrees F. Most jars are returned washed and then we put them through the commercial washer for three cycles, allow a short time to dry and then are lidded and stored. Does clean jars washed three more times seem unsanitary? All milk handling items, buckets milking claws, hoses etc., all get sterilized in chlorine (200 PPM) immediately before use. As they have a relatively large amount of milk going through them any residual chlorine is diluted. Not for an individual jar. Our customers do not want the chlorine so we chose to not use it in the dishwasher. If that was truly the source of contamination, why had we been getting away with it for so long.
I had suggested that the HD test the dishwasher water. They said they did not have a protocol for that, so did no test. Also, one of the visiting inspectors said the problem was not in the milking area, so our unsanitary conditions there must not have been that bad.
I hope to have a more complete text about our side of this campy story posted on our website in a few days. Time for this sort of thing is limited, but I got a bit defensive. I probably should have taken a nap instead.
Scott
Well, Lykke, I gotta say… I did just that for ten years, before I could afford to outfit the milking barn with running water. Not one of my many customers fell ill with even a stomach ache… AND they all knew how I milked because I always invited new customers to watch me milk, and taught them how to milk if they wanted. By the way, I also handmilked on a dirt floor for years and years, and no one said a peep. In fact, one year I took a two-week vacation and a bunch of my customers took turns milking twice a day… in those very same conditions you bemoan as "third-world."
Funny thing is, my first two years I used to be bacteria-phobic too… obsessive washing of hands, buckets and teats with approved, expensive, dairy chemicals. I used pre-dips and post-dips, and rubbed bag balms on those poor udders chapped from all the washing and drying and harsh chemicals; bag balm, by the way, collects dirt and manure even faster than a plain untreated udder, making udder washing even more essential. And I constantly battled staph mastitis from chapped, cracked udders, and used antibiotics to cure it… before it returned, again and again.
In the middle of the second year I stopped all that nonsense. I watched the kids and the calves nurse their mothers and realized none of them ever got sick from sucking unwashed teats! If bacteria is so deadly, why didn’t they even get sick? In fact, the only goatkids that got diarrhea were orphans fed milk replacer.
I threw away all those chemicals and never looked back once. I no longer have mastitis in my herd, by the way.
In all those years since coming back to sanity, none of my customers or family ever got sick, including 3-month old babies who couldn’t drink anything else including their own mother’s milk, and several people with IBS; one woman drank only my raw milk for nearly two years before her gut finally healed enough for her to eat other things. She, too, saw how I milked and had no problems with it.. literally.
So babble your nonsense, Lykke. Poor thing, you simply cannot, will not, understand. You think that everything has to be scientifically proven before you will accept the truth, and believe that empirical evidence has no value. But over two years, I saw that woman with severe IBS change from nearly concentration-camp-thin to normal weight…. on MY raw milk, produced in those third-world conditions.
You will never convince me that pasteurization is essential.
Do you still use an iodine dip, and "strip" the first few squirts before milking into the bucket?
If a cow has recently lain in muck (which, by the way, you will never see a goat do), I wash her udder clean, then do a final wipe-down with warm water and a little Bronners. But that’s rare, maybe once a month at most? Most times, a good brushing is sufficient.
By the way, the Amish believe there are healing bacteria in cow poop… they say that fresh cow dung on a cut heals up quite nicely. While I myself haven’t tried that, I do notice that when a cow’s udder is sore with a cut or the calf is too vigorous in nursing, the cow does tend to lay on her poop more, so maybe there’s something to it.