Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name *
I keep thinking of the song made famous in the 1960s by Johnny Rivers as I try to make sense of the latest news out of Modesto, CA, home of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. Nearly as suddenly as it appeared out of nowhere, that grand jury investigation into raw dairy discovered by Mark McAfee a couple weeks ago seems to have disappeared. Poof…gone…nearly as quickly as a glass of milk with cookies.
Two employees of the raw milk dairy who had been served with subpoenas to testify tomorrow (Thursday), have been told they need not report. Mark says his lawyer has been told by a federal prosecutor that the investigation is off.
"This is all grand theater for harassment," Mark told me. Mark may be given to hyperbole, but he has a point.
Maybe just another day in the life of a raw milk dairy. It was a secret agent for the Michigan Department of Agriculture who pretended he was a member of the Family Farms Cooperative to gather information for the "sting" operation against Richard Hebron in fall 2006. It was agents from the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets who appeared like ghosts in the middle of a driving snowstorm to "inspect" Meadowsweet Dairy last December. And it was U.S. Food and Drug Administration criminal investigators who came calling a couple weeks ago at the homes of two OPDC employees, going so far as to ask one to wear a hidden wire to secretly tape Mark.
He says this latest episode was ostensibly about OPDC shipments of colostrum to customers around the country. Colostrum, which is produced in the first few days after cows give birth, is considered a dietary supplement under FDA regulations, and thus not governed by the same regulations that restrict raw milk sales across state lines.
According to Mark, the federal prosecutor directing the grand jury "didn’t have a clue" about the distinctions between raw milk and colostrum, nor of the history of OPDC’s involvement in both products, and its communications with the FDA back in 2002 and 2003 to ensure OPDC was complying with FDA requirements. "I think the people behind him (the prosecutor) knew knew damn well what was going on," he says, referring to the FDA.
While the FDA and other agencies that harass raw milk producers obviously intend to increase the costs of conduct ing day-to-day business, increasingly I’d say there is a cost to the government. The publicity around such ridiculous operations makes the secret agents and their bosses look like goons, and perhaps more significant, continues to help pump up raw milk sales. Not exactly a winning investigative strategy.
*from "Secret Agent Man" by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri
Bob Hayles
Interesting press release on the anti-food-poisoning qualities of raw milk cheese –
Her question is, "Are the cows now producing the raw milk that is sold, inoculated for TB and/or other diseases?"
Does anyone here have a solid answer to her question?
but I wonder what it was that doctors knew back in the 20s about milk and tuberculosis? not a whole heck of a lot, i suppose. but this lady says, "what the cultures reported". which is just hearsay, on her part, stories that were told to her as she grew up.
it could have been just a penchant in her baby body for boils, but it seems to me that because she was obviously drinking unpasteurized milk her body should have resisted. she doesn’t say what her treatment was, either, so perhaps i’ll write her back, snailmail, and continue the conversation.
i’m wondering if there aren’t other ‘definitive reports’? i’m wanting one that isn’t associated with wap. that’s what happens when you obviously overstate your case (wap, not you).
This article about TB is very interesting.
http://www.pamrotella.com/health/bovinebacteria.html
The bacterial model of Mad Cow Disease
[Posted 26 September 2004, last updated 19 November 2004]
"The mainstream media has embraced the prion theory of Mad Cow Disease since BSE ( Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, known as Mad Cow Disease) became an epidemic in the 1990s. Other than a few alternative news sources, the press largely ignores other theories of the disease. The bacterial model of Mad Cow Disease is a competing theory with extensive supporting scientific evidence. In his article Is Mad Cow Disease caused by a bacteria?, Lawrence Broxmeyer, M.D., presents documentation supporting the Bovine Tuberculosis model of Mad Cow Disease."
"Britain’s historical battle with Bovine TB is documented by Broxmeyer, with the disease often appearing in the best stables, and creating a slight risk of infection to humans consuming the flesh of diseased animals. Broxmeyer provides maps to show that the concentration of bovine TB in the southwestern area matches the outbreak of mad cow disease. He claims that the link between eating beef diseased with Bovine TB and the human disease is well established."
" Broxmeyer, a doctor who has treated TB in patients and studied it extensively, cites symptoms of TB which match the encephalopathy and neurological damage seen in Mad Cow Disease (BSE), Scrapie in sheep, and CJD in humans. He explains that Tuberculosis often assumes "L-forms," or cell-wall deficient forms, which are hard for researchers to detect using standard methods, and evade the animal’s immune system."
This may be too far out for many people,but if you search for information on L-forms and mycoplasms,you will learn that vaccines are almost always contaminated with L-form bacteria which until very recently were not detectable or possible to remove by filtration.
The coorelation in England between the area where cattle were regularily tested for TB and the emergence of mad cow disease could have a cause and effect relationship.Repeated injection of cows with "killed" TB bacteria to test for a reaction would likely introduce these L-form TB bacteria into the cows blood.
i will certainly check out that article, steve. it seems that dr. beals comes very highly recommended. and with his expertise, i’ll bet he’s written for other journals, too.
Raw-milk cheese implicated in 35 TB cases
Mar 17, 2005 (CIDRAP News) This week’s health warnings about soft cheeses made from unpasteurized milk were based on 35 recent cases of tuberculosis in New York City that are believed to have been linked to raw-milk products.
The cases occurred from 2001 to 2004 and were caused by Mycobacterium bovis, which can be found in raw milk from infected cattle, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDH) said in a Mar 15 statement. In one case, a 15-month-old child died of complications of M bovis infection.
The New York cases prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week to warn against consuming raw-milk soft cheeses, especially those imported from Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
NYCDH Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden stated, "As a rule, people should not eat food products that are unlabeled or not labeled in English, as is required by law. Illegally imported food products may not be manufactured or packaged in compliance with the FDA’s strict regulations; consuming these products may endanger your health."
Consumers should not eat cheese that is not clearly labeled as pasteurized, the NYCDH statement added.
The 35 people who apparently contracted tuberculosis from contaminated unpasteurized dairy products include 22 adults and 13 children, according to a Mar 16 New York Times report. All the adults were born abroad, most of them in Mexico.
The report said health officials began an investigation 4 months ago after determining that all the younger children were American-born, raising the possibility that contaminated products were coming from abroad.
The NYCDH said it is working with federal and state agencies to find the source of products linked with the illness in the city. The department is testing unlabeled or improperly labeled cheese obtained from some Mexican grocers in Brooklyn and Queens.
The common form of tuberculosis is a lung infection caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. M bovis accounts for less than 1% of tuberculosis cases in the United States and other countries where few cattle are infected and milk is pasteurized, according to the NYCDH. M bovis is more likely than M tuberculosis to cause tuberculosis in organs other than the lungs, such as the lymph nodes or intestinal tract, officials said.
General symptoms of M bovis tuberculosis include fever, night sweats, and weight loss, the department said. Lymph node infection may cause neck swelling, and gastrointestinal infection may lead to abdominal pain and swelling, officials said.
The statement said symptoms usually don’t appear until months to years after infection. Frieden told the Times that the illness often goes unrecognized when it does not affect the lungs. The illness is treatable with a combination of antibiotics. If it is not treated, it can be fatal in rare cases.
interesting that CIDRAP says "M bovis accounts for less than 1% of tuberculosis cases in the United States and other countries where few cattle are infected and milk is pasteurized, according to the NYCDH."
CIDRAP (Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy) is jumping to a conclusion here, packaging pasteurization with the cattle not being infected. for our purposes the two should be looked at separately.
CIDRAP seems to be a university group, but midwest universities are all about big FARMA, heh.
thanks for this.
Frightening? No. All we need to do is understand what makes us healthy and avoid compromising as much as possible.There is no short cut to health,no testing and culling program or vaccinations that will take the responsibility for our health from us.Why test cows to see if they have been exposed to TB,when the only reasonable approach to preventing TB is proper nutrition?
http://www.trap17.com/forums/pleomorphic-bacteria-and-cancer-report-t35533.html
Where Do These Microorganisms Come From?
We’d like to think various diseases come from the environment — something external so that we may simply put up a barrier to protect ourselves. Asthma sufferers do not go outside, hemophiliacs avoid knives, and people with immune deficiencies do not seek public places during the flu season. But when the enemy is within, how do we protect ourselves? How do we protect ourselves when we don’t even know what causes our sickness?
The answer could be in the age-old ritual of staying healthy. Sir Albert Howard describes his observations on a particular group of well-fed livestock and their reactions to epidemic diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease. He noted that while none were inoculated nor segregated from infected animals, none became infected. He explains this ‘immunity’ to well-nourished protoplasm . Andre Voisin, in an unrelated study, noted the increased susceptibility to foot-and-mouth disease in cattle grazing in areas of high lime soil content verses sandy or granite areas . He explains the copper deficiency in the areas with lime prevented the animals from producing enough catalase, the predominant protective enzyme in the immune system. Voisin also noted in regard to tuberculosis: "The lungs of each one of us are inhabited by millions of tuberculosis bacilli, which we manage to accommodate quite well. They live there very peacefully without delivering frenzied attacks against our cells. Why then, do they suddenly thrust themselves upon one of our organs (most often the lungs) and make us tuberculosis sufferers?" Voisin demonstrated that defective nutrition is the cause of many diseases, simply because the changed internal milieu forces a change in the symbiotic microbes within our bodies.
I don’t know if grand jury findings can be used as precedense in other legal proceedings but if they could be and the FDA lost that would severely hamper their ability to to protect the profits of the commercial milk industry.