All we have to do is consider the government’s arguments in preserving California’s ten-coliform-per-milliliter standard to appreciate how far out the Human Microbiome Project really is.
As several readers pointed out following my previous post, a California state court judge rejected the arguments of the state’s two main producers of raw milk, Organic Pastures Dairy Co. and Claravale Farm, for an injunction to prevent enforcement of AB1735.
While the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund will presumably appeal the decision, getting a judge’s decision overturned is never easy. Especially when the state is invoking the image of young and old citizens dropping dead from raw milk, as reported in the Fresno Bee article.
As the Fresno Bee reported, Michael Payne, the University of California “expert” who testified incoherently in the recent state senate hearings on raw milk, was the state’s star witness. The state’s lawyer concluded: “There is a very real harm from potential pathogens that are dangerous to the elderly and children,” the state’s lawyer said.
I expect the focus will now shift, as the judge in the case suggested it should, to the legislative side of things. In the California Senate, Dean Florez has been moving ahead with a legislative proposal to lift the coliform standard and require individual dairy safety production plans.
Yet here as well, I suspect the path could be bumpy. It’s much tougher to undo a fear-based law than it is to put it in place. Hopefully Sen. Florez has lots of influence to go along with his persuasion skills. He’s going to need both, because now he’ll have to overcome the anti-raw-milk argument that a court has refused to undo AB1735.
The fight goes on. I am drinking my raw milk and loving it. I hope and pray that we get the right result.
We will NEVER win using safety, or lack thereof, as our argument. The ONLY way we win is on the point of constitutional rights of people to make their own nutritional choices from ALL foods available, not just those approved by the nanny state.
Some day Gary Cox, Steve Bemis, and Pete Kennedy, the laed attorneys in the FTCLDF, will start fighting on that basis. Until that happens we will lose, and lose, and lose. Until we start fighting for RIGHTS, get used to losing.
Bob
C2,
I hope you will read a bit of this book.I found it very interesting.
http://books.nap.edu/nap-cgi/skimit.cgi?recid=11669&chap=1-34
"THE RISE AND FALL OF THE WAR METAPHOR"
"More than a century of research, sparked by the germ theory of disease and rooted in historic notions of contagion that long precede Pasteur and Kochs 19th-century research and intellectual synthesis, underlies current knowledge of microbe-host interactions (Lederberg, 2000). This pathogen-centered understanding attributed disease entirely to the actions of invading microorganisms, thereby drawing the lines of battle between them and us, the injured hosts (Casadevall and Pirofski, 1999). Although it was recognized in Kochs time that some microbes did not cause disease in previously exposed hosts (e.g., milkmaids who had been exposed to cowpox did not become infected with smallpox), the fact that his postulates1 could not account for microbes that did not cause disease……"
*****
1
"Kochs postulates include the following: (1) the bacteria must be present in every case of the disease, (2) the bacteria must be isolated from the host with the disease and grown in pure culture, (3) the specific disease must be reproduced when a pure culture of the bacteria is inoculated into a healthy susceptible host, and (4) the bacteria must be recoverable from the experimentally infected host."
" Early views of pathogenesis and virulence were based on the assumption that these characteristics were intrinsic properties of microorganisms, although it was recognized that pathogenesis was neither invariant nor absolute (Casadevall and Pirofski, 1999). Over the course of the last century, the identification of increasing numbers of microbial pathogens and the characterization of the diseases they cause has begun to reveal the extraordinary complexity and individuality of host-pathogen relationships. As a result, it has become exceedingly difficult to identify what makes a microbe a pathogen. One response to this dilemma has been to define pathogenesis from the perspective of the host, who experiences disease only when the presence of a microbe (whether protozoan, bacterial, or viral) results in damagewhether that damage is actually mediated by the pathogen itself, or by the hosts immune response to it (Casadevall and Pirofski, 1999, 2003)."
"A broader view, reflected in many workshop presentations and discussions, considers how pathogens coexist within host-microbial communities and places infectious disease within an ecological context. This perspective acknowledges the ecological and evolutionary impact of advancing civilizationand particularly the war on diseaseon host-microbe systems, and promotes a more realistic, deeper, and nuanced understanding of the relationships upon which these systems depend (Lederberg, 2000). The time has come to abandon notions that put host against microbe in favor of an ecological view that recognizes the interdependence of hosts with their microbial flora and fauna and the importance of each for the others survival. Such a paradigm shift would advance efforts to domesticate and subvert potential pathogens and to explore and exploit the vast potential of nonpathogenic microbial communities to improve health.2"
"RAISING AWARENESS OF THE HOST-MICROBE RELATIONSHIP"
"Our war on infectious microbes has restricted the spread of several pathogens and drastically reduced the burden of human disease, but the metaphor appears to be reaching the end of its usefulness. Recent findings on host-microbe interactions in a variety of settings, which highlight the many benefits of some microbesas well as the potential for exploiting those benefits to further advantagereveal the limitations of pure antagonism toward the microbes among us. At best, the war metaphor is a limiting mental shortcut that distracts from abundant opportunities to improve human and animal health. At worst, it represents a dangerous influence on disease control practices that have accelerated the development of antimicrobial resistance among human and animal pathogens, and perhaps also increased virulence in some pathogens. Put simply, the war metaphor must be replaced or, as comically (yet ominously) predicted in the epigraph to this summary, the bugs will win. We hosts are far better served by recognizing microbes as the allies they (mostly) are, and by making the best of our intimate alliances with them."
"Such a message, which does not invoke the threat of catastrophe, will be difficult to send. The notion of microbes as the enemy will not fade quickly, especially given the relative complexity of the ecological perspective that would supplant the us vs. them paradigm. The most optimistic scenario for changing this opinion may be to begin within the infectious disease research community, where scientists who tend to focus on interactions between individual microbes and hosts could be encouraged to better understand and incorporate the concepts of community and ecosystem dynamics in their studies. A better-informed research community could then help to influence governmental and other funding agencies to recognize the importance of studying and funding proposals to examine host-microbe relationships to human health. Recognition of the commercial potential of probiotics could also encourage federal support for research, regulation, and the development of strain collections, reagents, and good manufacturing practices."
"A similar sea change could occur if medical professionals encourage their patients to appreciate the benefits associated with the microbial flora and fauna that exist on and in us, and indeed to recognize that without these microbes, life as we know it would not exist. Many physicians are exercising new caution in prescribing antibiotics and some are able to explain their reasons for doing so to……"
This is hard to say, but you are right. LOL. Your strongest argument relates to rights and choice.
The illnesses and outbreaks due to raw milk are real–100’s of them across the world: Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli O157:H7, brucellosis, tuberculosis, Q fever…"Proof" that consumption of raw milk can cause illness is not needed…and an absolute declaration of cause will never happen in a "real outbreak" because the investigations occur weeks to months after the event–Gwen will never get her "proof" unless we experimentally create an outbreak and test during the experiment; any volunteers?
Hint from a double agent: denying the food safety issue, or countering it with nutritional claims that are held by a minority, isn’t likely to resolve the fundamental question about how raw milk is produced, sold, and marketed. And, how that differs from other products with a history of food safety challenges…
Miguel:
Thanks again for the information. Koch’s postulates are evolving and already scientists have adapted them to the revolution in molecular biology. Bacterial communities are the next step toward changes in this "working hypothesis." I don’t think a good scientist would disagree that fundamental principles need constant re-evaulation and adjustment as technology advances.
C2/Darth
The "natural foods" crowd has used scientific distortion to great advantage in the past – interesting to see you guys cry fowl when you think bad science is being used against you. By the way – the guy who says unproven nutritional claims won’t cut it against a food safety issue is right on target.
If you have an opinion about something more specific,I would like to hear it along with the "good science" that supports it.