So Im reading the lengthy lead article in the Sunday Review section of todays New York Times, headed, A Cure for the Allergy Epidemic? Its by a science writer, Moises Velasquez-Manoff.
It begins by asking, Will the cure for allergies come from the cowshed? It then goes on to explain that the prevalence of allergies and asthma has exploded, so today one in five American children have a respiratory allergy like hay fever, and nearly one in ten have asthma. Nine people die each day from asthma attacks.
Next, it points out that Amish children studied for allergies in Indiana are among the least allergic populations ever described in the developed world. So far, so good.
Then it gets downright serious: The working hypothesis is that innocuous cowshed microbes, plant material and raw milk protect farming children by favorably stimulating their immune systems throughout life… Im not sure I read that reference to raw milk correctly, so now Im glued to the article.
It goes through a long exploration about how farm exposure early in life, including during pregnancy, helps build immunity later in life. One conclusion: Farms with the greatest array of microbes, including fungi, appear to be the most protective against asthma.
After some hundreds of words speculating about the impact of farms on health and pregnancy , we get down to the serious business at hand, as the author transitions: Which brings us to farm milk. In Europe, the consumption of unpasteurized milk has repeatedly correlated with protection against allergic disease. In America, 80 percent of the Amish studied by Dr. (Mark) Holbreich consume raw milk. In a study published earlier this year, Dr. (Bianca) Schaubs group showed that European children who consumed farm milk had more of those regulatory T-cells, irrespective of whether they lived on farms. The higher the quantity of those cells, the less likely these children were to be given diagnoses of asthma. Here, finally, is something concrete to take off the farm.
I cant believe what I am reading. Can it be that the NY Times is about to suggest that we can no longer ignore the clear health benefits of raw milk? That the NY Times is confirming what so many raw milk drinkers have long known about raw milk countering auto-immune conditions in themselves and their children? That raw milk possibly holds the key to countering the scourge of many chronic illnesses? That we should figure out how to safely increase production and get this product out to people who can benefit?
Not so fast. It doesnt take long before I come crashing back to earth…the next paragraph, in fact: None of these scientists recommend that people consume raw milk: it can carry deadly pathogens. Rather, they hope to identify whats protective in the milk and either extract it or preserve the ingredients during processing. Yeah, maybe 25 years down the road. Once Big Ag and Big Pharma figure out a way to profit.
I should have known. The author, Manoff, actually went further in assessing the likely powerful health benefits of raw milk than most any other mainstream writer I have seen. But in the end–despite reporting that nine people die each day from asthma attacks (with none having died from legally produced raw milk products in more than 20 years)— he sticks to the government/industry/university/mainsteam-media party line. He had to–otherwise his article wouldnt have been published, just as the various research he cited wouldnt have been published.
The good news is that, slowly but surely, the word is getting out about raw milk. Intelligent people can read the NY Times article and appreciate the huge inconsistency between daily deaths from asthma versus the dangers of raw milk, so that the choice is obvious. They can appreciate that the infrequent serious illnesses from pathogens in raw milk are at least partly the result of a carefully crafted public health policy of driving raw dairy production underground, and thereby encouraging the illnesses, so as to further demonize the product….all for the sake of protecting a powerful industry.
Eventually, the truth will win out. It is just a long, slow, bumpy road there.
For those reading … It is statistically nearly impossible to deliver a load of virulent Ecoli pathogens to a receptive host when there are practically no coliforms. That is the management secret sauce behind the RAMP program. I will be home on Tuesday. 5598469732.
It’s actually extreme cognitive dissonance (apparently on the part of the editors too), since how else is it possible to write about a beneficial microbial ecosystem, and explicitly refer to the benefits of “consumption of unpasteurized milk”, and then leap to deploring the hermetic concept “deadly pathogens” (but you just said there’s a balanced system of microbes) and advising against consumption of unpasteurized milk (but you just tallied the documented benefits of doing just that).
We see how corporatism engenders stupidity and irrationality along with criminal greed. The core line seems to be how the goal is to literally “take something off the farm”.
This small disclaimer completely contradicts the entire article. Which basically says there are no pathogens on the farm. We are actually talking about 3 completely different things. 1. The benefits of raw milk. 2. The benefits of early exposure to natural human flora. 3. The harmful effects of pasteurized milk.
Thats their way of acknowledging the merits hygiene hypothesis while attempting to save face or maintain credibility in light of the shortcomings of their disruptive and toxic theoretical approach to microorganisms. Its an age-old pride driven political and bureaucratic tactic.
They know damn well that the hygiene hypothesis is growing in popularity, has merit, and is inversely proportional to their methodology, which is failing and loosing credibility in the eyes of the public.
Ken
#1) He stated that there is less asthma amongst the Amish because there are less Amish people (read: head count) than there are other people in the general public. It took a scientist to realize this?
#2) This is hidden pretty well, but it IS there: ” . . . they hope to identify whats protective in the milk and either extract it or preserve the ingredients during processing.” Do you know who they is? The same they that tries on multiple levels to imitate nature and gets it wrong to the point of causing people more and worse problems than what they started with.
This guy is a science writer, so he’s all about the science. Even though he talked about the health benefits of raw milk, he expressly dismissed the idea that unpasteurized milk should be consumed. If there ever was a marriage of truth and fiction in one article, this would be one of them. I’ve seen many other articles that are written up in a similar fashion, and I looked up some more yesterday. The amount of disinformation on the web about raw milk is astounding.
But the scientists want science to trump nature – so it does. Even Pasteur knew he was a liar.
The key to progress is learning from errors or omissions and always learning with an open and inquiring mind. Her heart is definitely in the right place.
Today I had the extreme honor and priveledge of sitting next too and having lunch with Jack Mathis. Mathis raw milk dairy was the second to the last AAMMC certified raw milk dairy. He had stories to tell and massive experience and expertice from his near 40 years of certified raw milk production experience. Wow. A have a great new mentor and friend. He has a big box with 85 years of the annual preceedings of the AAMMC board meetings and nearly 100 years of American raw milk history and drama. This is huge for all of us. So many lessons.
Glad you had that conversation, Mark. Sounds as if she got an important lesson in that brief time about testing for coliforms.
“They” is academics, probably working together with Big Pharma, trying to come up with PATENTS. Those are the real gold in this–they provide the holders with 20 years of exclusive sales rights (or licensing fees). You see, there is no profit to Big Pharma in selling the milk itself. In fact, the real milk represents unwanted competition. So, you get your universities (which you fund with millions) and regulators (whose boss politicians you fund with millions) to work relentlessly to block real milk….till you can isolate the key components and make pills. If you don’t succeed in isolating the key components so they work? No big deal, just thousands more deaths from asthma and untold suffering for the millions with allergies. Collateral damage.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172262/Why-milk-gone-sour-Tasteless-stripped-nutrients-churned-battery-cows-blade-grass.html
When I found this article, I was searching for some information about the Maori or the Maasai tribes and how they have milked their cows in the past, before sanitation was even on the horizon. They must have had ways of milking without too much incident because I do not recall ever hearing about a mass exodus of those tribes due to e-coli or other infectious diseases concerning raw milk from cows, or camels, or yaks, or donkeys – or whatever they may have been milking. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, I just haven’t been able to find out if it did or not.
I also hope you read the link I posted earlier, David, about the British milk situation. You’ll like that one!
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15156-over-200-scientists-agree-no-consensus-on-gmo-safety-food-industry-mag
It refers to surveys which reveal various kinds of corruption within the “scientific” establishment.
—–
Given the scientific evidence at hand, sweeping claims that GM crops are substantially equivalent to, and as safe as, non-GM crops are not justifiable,” said Prof Elena Alvarez-Buyllla, coordinator of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of Plant Development and Evolution, Institute of Ecology, UNAM, Mexico.
“Twenty years ago, the international academic associations of ecologists and molecular biologists met at the International Council for Science. The two groups agreed that their fields of expertise were complementary and that they needed to cooperate in order to assess the ecological impacts of GM crops in a systematic way. However, many molecular biologists involved in GM crop development today persistently ignore their own blind spots and the science emerging from the complementary environmental segments of the science community, turning the application of GM technology into a social risk.”
—–
Here’s another interesting entry about the corruption of “science”, especially in light of how the transparency principle has become controversial around here.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15157-scientists-with-gm-industry-links-more-likely-to-withhold-data-study
I dislike being the devils advocate in light of your efforts to provide healthy raw milk. However, if we are going to evolve it aught naught be based on a one sided approach that accommodates the current disease model. This would be self-defeating and tend to mislead the consumer.
The medical profession is screwing up peoples immune systems with their vaccines, antibiotics, antibacterial chemicals, hormones, and drugs etc. The industrial ag industry is doing likewise.
Lowering the coliform count in raw milk is insufficient on its own and suggesting that a, very low coliform count in raw milk means no pathogens is misleading. What clearly needs to be understood by the consumer is that the benefits that are acquired from drinking raw milk or any whole unadulterated food for that matter are not sustainable in light of the above toxic assault.
Ken
Analyzing data collected from thousands of children over two decades in the Philippines, researchers have concluded that a healthy dose of germs and pathogens during infancy reduced cardiovascular inflammation in adulthood a precursor to heart attacks and strokes.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-03-24/features/ct-x-n-health-dirt-20100324_1_nu-professor-northwestern-study-immune-system
Modern medicine is like a completely separate entity, learning everything from scratch, with no previous training or knowledge. Just a couple of guys who realized there was money to be made, now only interested in inventing new imaginary illnesses not in curing the old ones.
More than 3,000 years ago ancient people discovered that some molds could be used as a cure. The Egyptians, the Chinese, and Indians of central America would use molds to treat rashes and infected wounds. http://www.essortment.com/history-antibiotics-21157.html
1871
The surgeon Joseph Lister, began researching the phenomenon that urine contaminated with mold would not allow the successful growth of bacteria. http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/Penicillin_2.htm
Why Is Health in the U.S. on Such A Steep Decline?
U.S. public health officials say there are no clear answers for why our maternal mortality rate is skyrocketing.61 They dont know why so many of our babies are dying on the first day and within the first year of life, in stark contrast to many other nations where maternal and infant mortality rates are declining.
Public health officials also cant figure out why so many infants and children in America are plagued with brain and immune system problems. The unprecedented, unexplained chronic disease and disability epidemic 62 has gotten worse in the past three decades with 1 child in 6 now learning disabled; 63 1 in 9 suffering with asthma;64 1 in 50 developing autism;65 1 in 400 becoming diabetic66 and millions more suffering with severe food allergies,67 inflammatory bowel disease 68 and other chronic illness.69 70
U.S. Number One Market for Drugs & Vaccines
What is not on the list of potential causes for this failing public health report card is lack of access to drugs and vaccines. With a population of 316 million people out of 7 billion people on the earth, the U.S. spends nearly $3 trillion dollars per year on health care74 – more than any other nation in the world75 76 – and we consume 40 percent of all drugs sold globally.77 78 79 In addition, America is the leading purchaser of vaccines in the worlds $32 billion dollar vaccine market.80 81 82
Since 1981, 95 percent of all children entering kindergarten have received multiple doses of seven vaccines including pertussis and measles vaccines.83 In 1991, the CDC recommended all infants get a hepatitis B shot at 12 hours old84 and, by 2012, more than 70 percent of all newborns had received a hepatitis B shot at birth while between 80 and 90 percent of three year olds had gotten multiple doses of eleven vaccines.85
In a crusade to eliminate an expanding list of microbes, U.S. health officials currently direct pediatricians to give children 49 doses of 14 vaccines by age six starting on the day of birth with more than two dozen doses administered by an infants first birthday.86 More than two dozen additional vaccinations are recommended or mandated for teenagers and adults, including annual flu shots throughout life.87
During my lunch with Jack Mathis he shared with me and others his stories from the archives of the early AAMMC. One of the early health department recommendations for milk producers was to perhaps use water to rinse off their equipment three times per week. Of course we know that the AAMMC went far beyond this with testing and basically a RAMP plan and critical inspections by a board of doctors.
BUT….just rinsing off your equipment three times per week with water was their idea of a good idea.
I can not imagine the biofilms and the horrible stench of that raw milk!!! It is no wonder that pasteurization was heralded as the savior of the day!!
Now, today, if we intend on feeding Americans, we must absolutely appreciate the depths of the immune reality of the Standard Americans Immune status.
Low coliforms does not mean anything was not taken out of the milk….it just means nothing was put into the milk! Any of you out there that think that low coliforms are a bad thing….ask the kids in Tennessee how HUS feels. As responsible raw milk producers we all must stand up and take measure of reality. if we intend on serving people, their status must count.
Todays raw milk must be safe for todays consumers. Raw milk is what comes out of a healthy cow. Raw milk is not what comes out of an unwashed milk line filled with PMO ( pasteurized milk ordinance and FDA standards ) authorized biofilms. What comes out of an unclean milk system needs to be pasteurized.
Raw milk for humans requires a new set of tools and a mind set that serves its consumers exactly what comes out of a healthy cow and nothing more and nothing less.
Let’s hope it passes the final hurdle!
The final hurdle will probably be the guv, and Scott Walker has already indicated he will likely veto any raw milk bill.
What happened to your bragging about the probiotic benefit of your milk? You used to brag about how your customers were immune to Campy because they’d been exposed to low levels in your dairy. And how the beneficial milk bacteria were a protection against pathogens. And how your milk healed people and helped build strong immune function.
Now you sound for all the world like you’re trying to produce sterile, bacteria free milk. I guess if you can produce raw milk without the native flora the government will leave you alone and you can keep making the money huh? All style, no substance. But then that’s marketing for you.
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The Pharmaceutical industry has always been the driving force behind milk regulation. Their goal has always been to get fresh cow’s milk out of the hands of the general public because it was being used to cure disease.
Our raw milk contains an average of 1200 diverse bacteria per ml. That is not sterile….that is what comes out of a cow.
What is up with your negative approach? Have you ever tested the milk that comes out of a cow? Do you know how that raw milk tests? Any of our RAWMI LISTED dairymen’s bacteria counts will demonstrate what that counts looks exactly like.
Pete…are you saying that you think that some how culturing the raw milk with random dirt or biofilms is a good thing….well I agree, it can be a good thing if you like a random approach to a stronger immune system and a random approach to serving people.
My insurance company does not like a random approach to anything and would rather know that I know what the hell I am doing to reduce risk. My consumers love clean fresh delicious raw milk.
Anyone with higher coliform numbers also has shorter shelf life and random weird flavors in their raw milk.
What comes out of a healthy udder is not random…what goes into my bottle should not be.
Intentional culturing with Kefir grains is awesome…but that is not fresh raw milk.
Pete….love you brother…but please pick sides. I embrace your love of the first amendment, but where is your deep appreciation for love of your fellow human? Under your plan…there would be no plan and Tennessee would be random and routine. We can and will do better than Tennessee. Instead of bitching and moaning…how about some constructive and objective teaching.
In 1847, Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor, first identified hand washing as a means to reduce mortality among patients, a practice widely ridiculed among his peers and still ignored by many doctors today.
The true answer to optimal health is actually very simple, though not in the way scientists think of simple. Frank Lloyd Wright explained it pretty well back in 1954, in his book, “The Natural House”:
“This is, I believe, the single secret of simplicity: that we may truly regard nothing at all as simple in of itself. I believe that no one thing in itself is ever so, but must achieve simplicity–as an artist should use the term–as a perfectly realized part of some organic whole. Only as a part becomes a harmonious element in the harmonious whole does it arrive at the state of simplicity. Any wild flower is truly simple but double the same wild flower by cultivation and it ceases to be so. The scheme of the original is no longer clear. Clarity of design and perfect significance both are first essentials of the spontaneous born simplicity of the lilies of the field. ‘They toil not, neither do they spin.’ Jesus wrote the supreme essay on simplicity in this, ‘Consider the lilies of the field.'”
Wright understood that simplicity is achieved by becoming a part of (one could say by submitting to) Nature, which is already developed, infinitely intersected, and exquisitely balanced. Modern man, indoctrinated into believing that humankind can understand (and thus control) all things with science and man-made systems, will not submit. For the so indoctrinated, nothing is true until “proved” by a western-style, controlled-variable study (proof that is far more lie than truth because it is smallness masquerading as bigness) and nothing is safe unless part of a man-made system (which are really extremely unsafe because the long-term negative effects are hidden behind short-term positives).
Nature’s whole is (simply) beyond us. Sure, we understand bits and pieces, and that understanding is beautiful and worthy, but while the unveiling of a bit or piece ought to create first in us awe for what we DON’T know, it rather does the opposite, increasing our confidence, and enticing us to believe that the bits and pieces are all there is. (Apparently that’s a better outcome for vain Man than admitting his smallness.) This overconfidence is the cause of so many ills, from the transplanting of pests like Japanese beetles to political tyranny (often tragic, but always sold as “good for us”).
Here’s another beautiful quote, this time from Solomon:
He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
Solomon knew, and I think deep down we all know, that we will never understand Nature from beginning to end. And because all things in Nature are interconnected, neither will we ever truly know all there is to know about those bits and pieces.
So, the practical and very simple answer to the question of how to build optimal health is this: Stop worrying about it, and rather eat, work, play, love, and live, naturally. It is amazing to me that after all our failures, after our many, many unintended consequences, and after implementing one failed, expensive, and unwieldy system after another, we still think that with just a little more work, by god, this time we’ll get it right. Hygiene, concrete sidewalks, packaged and processed everything, pesticides, bacteriocides, herbicides, genocides, indoor jobs with nothing anywhere to lift, push, or drag… this is all a huge catastrophe. It is slow-motion death.
Here’s a poem everyone ought to read and understand, by Wendell Berry:
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
.
With this level of idiocy. Humans need to die off and let the healthy survivors repopulate.
There must be a self destruct gene in human culture.
Dave, the problem is with human nature, and such tendencies as arrogance, a desire for control and, most of all, greed. The scientists doing the work I wrote about, whose goal is to somehow extract the healing qualities of milk, are greedy. But they are also well-meaning. So they rationalize their approach by convincing themselves that raw milk is too dangerous for people to consume, even though millions are consuming it each day without illness. I like to think that nature isn’t truly “beyond us,” but rather that we haven’t gone to the trouble to enlighten ourselves.
So we should keep that in mind when assessing how “well-meaning” these technical cadres (not at all real scientists, who by definition would operate according to the scientific method rather than according to power dogmas) are. I would be suspicious of how well meaning anyone who regards the people as a lower life form, and indeed as nothing but a resource mine and waste dump, could be.
In the late 1700s, Edward Jenner decided to get to the bottom of rumors that milk maids weren’t getting smallpox.
They were getting cowpox, a disease that thankfully I have never seen in any of my cows. The rather benign lesions transferred to their hands. Jenner scraped the puss from one of them and “inocculated” a boy volunteered by his parents in rural England. He suffered milk symptoms, but did not fall ill.
Vaccination comes from Latin word vacca meaning cow. Jenner laid the foundation for another doctor-scientist- Louis Pasteur- who of course invented the process of pasteurization, and back to where we began looking for a cure to science.
Pete…you are not right and you are not wrong. a little dirt will not hurt. That is a great idea and protective concept. However, it is not something that will bring more raw milk to more people in todays reality. I suppose that as more people become healthy ( very much a difficult goal for sure ) from raw milk….more exposure to natural environmental bacteria would be a good idea. That is not the current set of conditions and it is illegal. Progress is made with the conditions we have not the conditions we wish we had.
Unfortunately they think that they are enlightened and their so-called success at manipulating the public and nature has stroked their ego.
If we stand back and observe nature and mutually coexist with it. then much of what it has to offer is not beyond us.
Unfortunately that isnt the case. Their rationalized approach is complicating things to the point of incomprehensibility.
Ken
I am having trouble finding Alaskan salmon (the whole fish). I live between two oceans but not near one.
How stupid do these Dutch Creamery operators think we are???
And we thought pasteurization and homogenization was bad. Who knows what crazy freaky white fluid that will create. Lets all stick with what comes out of a cow with 100 million years of mammalian trial and error behind it. It appears that corporations will stop at nothing to try and capture the emerging raw milk markets. The Joke is on them…. very confused and consumer detached CEO’s and market research departments for sure.
Grasping the extent of how artificial persons co-operate for remitting profits (via usury) to the Banxsters, and for dominance in the economy, explains whence cometh the opposition to REAL MILK = fascism outlaws anyone who dares to operate independently.
Since insurance is one of the biggest rackets in the world, interlocking all the creatures of statute, the minute that raw milk producers can get product liability insurance the controversy is over. If you’re willing to compromise on that, you can come in from the cold. Insurance premiums are then just another cost of doing business |||| not a whit different, ethically, than paying the local Mafioso to “take care of any especially “difficult” customers”.
So I guess we owe a big debt of gratitude to Mary Martin McGonnigle + her gunslinger, Mr Marler for their pioneering efforts demonstrating how it goes with that particular aspect = the ‘shakedown’
See : Affordable Cartel Collusions, on the Hawaiian Libertarian
http://hawaiianlibertarian.blogspot.ca/2013/11/affordable-cartel-collusions.html
Well, the long exploration about how farm exposure early in life, including during pregnancy, helps build immunity later in life has been done and redone, and even the near blind can see the writing on the wall: One conclusion: Farms with the greatest array of microbes, including fungi, appear to be the most protective against asthma. And by the way, protection against asthma is just the tip of the iceberg.
Saying we can drink unpasteurized milk and thereby gain the benefits of farm life is really just another lie, albeit a more mild one than we are used to hearing from died-in-the-wool purveyors of industriotechnological food and industriotechnological life. Trucking microbes around in bottles and jars is another attempt to extract a piece of Nature and fitting it into one of our systems—this particular system being life in modern cities and suburban developments, with factory and office jobs, and responsibilities to paychecks but not to neighbors. No farms nearby, no regular exposure to diverse microbial engines (no manure!). Packaging and retailing microbes may slow the deadly trends of isolation, but it will certainly not stop them.
Now please spare me the opining that the modern world is too well developed by now to expect that everybody should live on or near a farm, that expecting exposure to diverse, non-toxic microbes for everyone is pie-in-the-sky thinking. It is no more pie-in-the-sky than believing that health can be achieved without such exposure.
It is high time we begin reinventing our lives according to Nature’s very clear messages. We must do so if we are to survive. We are fast approaching the point where serious illness is becoming normative in modern populations. We are becoming sicker and weaker with each successive generation. Most telling, we are putting more energy into our systems than our systems are returning to us. The game is over. Our enormous and growing debt (fueled in no little part by exploding rates of serious illness and our silly response of bigger and more expensive medical care) is a sure sign.
How many generations will it take to turn the tide? I don’t know. How many generations do we have left before the tide turns it for us?
Nutritionally, that began with an author, Adelle Davis, and I have never looked back or looked to mainstream medicine again to ensure a quality life for her. Then came WAPF who confirmed 20 years of my efforts and Dave G.s web-site regarding this sacred food natural, whole raw milk and writers like you, Mark Mc., and others. I come to this blog daily, and feel apart of something that affirms all my efforts to procure decent food for my family. There are many heros in my life family, friends, and this blog and I thank Almighty God for His direction in leading me to authors that write profound truths that I can say, Amen after reading their written word. When you have a moment Dave M., google the word Desiderata. A message from as far back as 1692 tells us how to live in a world of sham and drudgery. In part, You are a child of the universe, no less that the trees and the stars You have a right to be here and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Thank you again Dave G., Dave M., Mark and others for all your efforts producing healthy, unadulterated, farm fresh milk, and/or writing about the controversial issues. I dont think humanity, per se, is headed for extinction, but I do believe our industriotechnological food/life-styles arent sustainable, and therefore, will implode and go extinct. Its an ugly thought of what the world would be like but the survivors WILL make the BEST of it! Marietta P.
So, there is a poison-pill here. All customer names will be given to government officials (and law enforcement and/or national security agencies too?)? Right now in Canada, we suspect that law enforcement agencies have been collecting information on raw milk farmers and consumers, without even any criminal laws being broken.
Not only that, but how much will the WI gov’t charge each farmer to ‘register’? Are we looking at thousands? E.g., $90,000 each, as the note attached to the NJ bill reads? “The departments recommend that a minimum licensing charge of $90,000 per farm should be assessed to cover their anticipated costs.” (from “FISCAL NOTE [First Reprint] ASSEMBLY, No. 743 STATE OF NEW JERSEY 214th LEGISLATURE / DATED: JANUARY 10, 2012”)
Call me a pessimist, but I have my doubts about this bill – and this is likely why they’ve done it this way, to ensure we have our doubts.
I think you signed as Marietta P
You speak from the soul of America. Bless you! There are so many just like you that live a life in silent grace in service to your challenged chilld. Thank you for speaking up and sharing your story. It is for your dream of healthy children and for the future that we all toil.
Marietta, thank you for relating the story of your difficult personal journey. Many of us advocating often feel as if we are working nearly alone, that few are listening. Your appreciation makes my week.
With admiration for your courage.
Dave, I think the medical system’s edict this week that millions more people need to take statins kind of pushed me over the edge, to fully appreciate your view. It will be touch and go whether future generations can turn the tide. Anyway, this op-ed piece in today’s NYTimes, from two medical people, about the corruption underlying the edict, is slightly hopeful. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/opinion/dont-give-more-patients-statins.html?_r=0
Your wisdom is very much appreciated.
Ken
I concur with David, D, and Mark.
Ken
http://www.whale.to/c/devilspriests.html
This is an age-old problem that continues to this day and considering human nature, will regrettably continue for a long time to come; or as CS Lewis points out, There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way.
Ken
Here’s the key sentences in the piece:
“The group that wrote the recommendations was not sufficiently free of conflicts of interest; several of the experts on the panel have recent or current financial ties to drug makers. In addition, both the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, while nonprofit entities, are heavily supported by drug companies. ”
We can say the same about the pro-GMO, pro-glyphosate corruption of these, the AMA, etc. All such organizations systematically obscure structural explanations for these epidemics in favor of ad hoc ones, and suppress information about structural preventatives and cures, in favor of corporate profit-seeking “solutions”.
“I come to this blog daily, and feel apart of something that affirms all my efforts to procure decent food for my family. There are many heros in my life family, friends, and this blog and I thank Almighty God for His direction in leading me to authors that write profound truths that I can say, Amen after reading their written word.”
This is also why I am a daily reader, not only for the excellent insights provided by those in the business of producing real food but also for the perspective provided by people like you. We all have a place in life that we should accept and embrace, no matter how insignificant it may feel at the time. Every man (and woman) is my inferior that I may learn from him.