The dozens of visitors to Oake Knoll Ayrshires’ farm in Foxboro, MA, a week ago Sunday had many questions for Terri Lawton, the manager of its raw milk business. They wanted to know about the impact of grass, hay, and other feed on the cows’ milk output; her sanitation procedures, the cows’ birthing timetables; milking schedules, and so forth. (She’s shown in the photo at right holding the sanitizing solution she uses to prepare the cows for milking.)
One question that didn’t come up—and I must admit it didn’t occur to me, as well—was what kind of testing the state does for pathogens. (The big four are E.coli 0157:H7, listeria monocytogenes, salmonella, and campylobacter.)
When I chatted further with her last week, I learned in the course of conversation that the raw milk from her seven cows isn’t tested for pathogens. That’s because Massachusetts–unlike Pennsylvania, New York, California, and other states that allow raw milk sales–doesn’t regularly test for pathogens any of the nine farms licensed by the state to sell raw milk. (Actually, a review of the web site of the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture and Markets reveals nothing current about raw milk, positive or negative.)
Interesting, I thought. Should the knowledge that no tests for pathogens are being done on the raw milk I purchase make me hesitant about buying in the future? Should I be suspicious that the farmers, knowing their milk isn’t being tested for pathogens, are careless?
I was trying to answer those questions for myself last week as I monitored the heated debate on this site about Mark McAfee’s latest encounter with state authorities over the discovery of listeria monocytogenes in his dairy’s cream. A number of readers spoke to this issue of testing milk in one way or another.
Anna recounted, in a comment following my posting, "Will the Real Mark McAfee Please Stand Up!", “I’ve been buying what I guess is essentially probably illegal (no official oversight at all) raw goat milk the past few months for a couple of reasons: it is delivered to me (how cool is that?!); at $7/gallon is half the price of OPDC milk; it is more local (same county) rather than half a large state away; and I like making cheese with it.” While she said her family tired of the "goaty" taste, she seemed to have no fears that the milk wasn’t being tested for pathogens.
No food I can think of, other than raw milk, is regularly tested by major states for pathogens at the time it is sold. Other foods are only tested if someone becomes ill. The reason for such testing of raw milk is based on…what? The obvious answer is that it’s based on the disease outbreaks from tainted raw milk in the early 1900s.
But if you try to dig into the history of the testing, you don’t find clearcut answers. One of my questions for New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets when I was reporting on the listeria problems with New York farmer Dawn Sharts’ milk for a BusinessWeek.com article was about the history of the state’s raw milk licensing and pathogen-testing procedures. The answer I received was that the history was kind of blurry. Raw milk sales were overseen by county health departments until the mid-1970s, when the state agriculture agency took over, and the agency doesn’t have those records. The permit system was instituted in 1981, and presumably the testing for pathogens as well.
I think milkfarmer said it best in a comment following my posting, "What Made Brit and Her Husband Ill?", “Raw milk demands a higher level of responsibility from those who produce it AND consume it. Some farmers, and consumers, being preconditioned to having the State assume the lion’s share of this responsibility, aren’t up to this.”
I agree. I made my decision to buy and drink the milk from Oak Knolle Ayrshires after touring the facilities and listening to Terri Lawton answer questions about her production methods. She made a decision to sell to me based on my agreement with her explanation that there are "risks in drinking raw milk" and willingness to provide my name and contact information in the event of a recall.
I suspect most of the others at the farm that Sunday made their decisions to purchase and consume the farm’s raw milk based on similar considerations. I don’t want to start waxing eloquent about Massachusetts’ enlightened policy because I am sure part of the reason it’s not testing is due more to the fact that there hasn’t been much demand for raw milk until recently than any conscious decision. Or because, like some of the other states that use tests for pathogens as an excuse to harass raw milk producers, officials can’t remember why they did or didn’t institute such testing in the first place.
I like the dairy regulatory environment in MA: the regulators pay attention but not too much! Particularly if your farm is well tended and managed. They even rather like hand-milking. (Some states prohibit it.) My monthly standard bacteriological tests show my goats’ milk drawn by hand to be exceptionally clean. I did try a full panel profile through QMPS out of curiosity: nothing to report. My herd is closed and healthy and live in a clean and interesting environment. We don’t think about adverse consequences of drinking fresh milk.
I think Mark McAfee would do well to franchise his operation into limited-size businesses rather than to run such a large herd: his scale of milk production and distribution is just bound to have quality problems. CA, however, is notoriously unencouraging of small-scale dairy production. I hope Terri keeps to a size that is manageable (and adequately profitable) so that she continues to help build the reputation of fresh milk in our state.
I am not against testing the milk. One test everyone should do is a test for the presence of paratuberculosis in the milk. I do think the testing should be done by an independent lab that can be trusted not to falsify the results.We can’t trust the USDA to be without bias.
http://www.blackherbals.com/got_milk.htm
"The paratuberculosis problem in Ireland is minimal compared to that of the United States. According to the Chief Executive of the Food Safety Authority, of the 7.6 million cattle in Ireland, there are only 12 reported cases of Johne’s disease. Nineteen percent of Irish retail milk samples grew out live paraTB and researchers only found12 cases of Johne’s disease in the entire country. Obviously, as the Food Safety Authority concedes, this may be an underestimate, but in the United States the paratuberculosis problem is exponentially worse. The estimated prevalence in the US is some 20,000 times greater than that of Ireland.[391]
If any country should be preventing contamination of the human food supply it should be the United States, which has the highest prevalence of Johne’s disease in the world.[392] At their Fall 2000 meeting, however, the National Johne’s Working Group continued to propose only voluntary measures to protect cattle health and no measures to protect human health.[393] The removal of clinically infected animals from the human food supply alone has been modeled as having a highly significant impact.[394] This could evidently be accomplished with relative ease, but as yet there has been little effort to do so.[395] When asked how long it would take to clean up America’s herds if suddenly no milk from Johne’s-positive cows could be sold, one Johne’s Disease Committee member said "About six months."[396]
The consumer movement also needs to fight to make Crohn’s a reportable illness.[397] The official FDA stance that pasteurization eliminates MAP is no longer tenable and must be continuously confronted with the British retail milk studies which put an end to the pasteurization debate once and for all. An extensive Freedom of Information Act search must be initiated to unearth suppressed documents. For example, seven years ago Canada’s agriculture department produced a food safety risk assessment paper concluding that the paraTB-Crohn’s link was something about which to be concerned. The document, however, was stamped "Protected. Not for Distribution" and was as such buried.[398] These are the kinds of documents the consumer movement needs to get a hold of.
In Dr. Hermon-Taylor’s view, "There is overwhelming evidence that we are sitting on a public health disaster of tragic proportions."[399] Europe’s Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, however, concluded that the currently available evidence was insufficient to confirm or disprove the theory.[400] This uncertainly should not impede the government from taking concrete steps to prevent further potential human catastrophe. If the British government had acknowledged the precautionary principle, millions of lives may have been saved. A headline in The Times sums up an inquiry into the mishandling of the mad cow affair released last year in Britain: "Lack of Proof Led to Disaster."[401] "
Why doesn’t the USDA want to protect our health when it knows that every time someone drinks commercial pastuerized milk in the USA,they are exposing themselves to an extremely dangerous pathogen?
It could be that the 100% infection rate in the mega dairies has something to do with it.
In my opinion, even if a consumer did not care to drink raw milk, they would be in a much better position to buy from a local producer, take the milk home, and pasteurize it there. This way, they would be able to understand where the milk is coming form, the condition of the cows/goats, and how it is produced.
David obviously was satisfied by what he saw during his visit to the farm to decide to purchase their milk. If he saw something he did not like, he could discuss that with the farmer and see what compromise could be reached. I would say that any dairyman would be willing to accommodate any reasonable suggestion. If not, David could simply continue looking for a dairy that met his standards.
You should not look to the government to protect you. Look in the mirror; that is the only person who should be responsible for your health. The question is do you want to take the red pill or the blue.
E.Coli, general
E.Coli 157:H7
Listeria
Staph Aureus
Salmonella and
Camphylobacter
While we do not object to testing we want the methods and results to be non biased and accurate. We also use an independent lab in NY however, it has been suggested that we go out of state.
Its that last group, the ones who do not take a holistic view of their health, who ought to, need to really, keep a close eye on pathogen testing schedules and results. But those who live healthfully and naturally do not have the same needs as those who dont. And while certain diseases might warrant aggressive testing to match their aggressive virulence, those who do live healthfully should not be punished by having to endure limited access to certain foods, nor should they have to pay higher food costs for related inspections (and inspections inevitable result: expensive process controls).
Probiotics taken daily help to keep a person’s digestive system healthy by lining the digestive system with a protective lining of friendly bacteria so that the less friendly ones can attach themselves.Imagine the opposite.Take a tall glass of milk every day filled with m. paratuberculosis. What effect would it have on the digestive system?
We know that it would take advantage of any opening in the friendly bacteria lining the intestine and cause inflamation to the cells of the intestine This inflamation sets the stage for another bacteria such as E.coli 0157H7,listeria etc. to move into the lining and do its damage.
Am I jumping to an unreasonable conclusion by saying that the presence of m. paratuberculosis in most of the dairy products people consume in this country is a contrbuting factor in the rapidly increasing incidence of food poisoning that we are experiencing?
Of course if,as was done in Ireland, milk was tested for paratb and dumped if positive,farms that couldn’t adapt would go out of business.There would be a shortage of dairy products because 80% or so of the dairy in the store comes from mega farms.Some of these mega farms produce organic milk which is also likely infected.
The mega farms couldn’t possibly produce milk free of paratb because it is a problem that comes from stress and crowding along with unnatural feed. Also once the soil where the cows are kept reaches a certain level of contamination it would almost impossible to clean the site up so that reinfection would not affect the replacement cows.
Smaller farms that pasture their cows would have little problem adjusting to the new circumstances.
Michigan State ,in their survey found that 100% of the bulk tank samples from farms with more than 200 cows tested positive for paratb. That doesn’t mean that 100% of the cows would test positive.
Here is what the report had to say about other dairy products.
On a Personal Level
On a personal level, the Crohn’s advocacy group Action Research recommends that people who want to reduce their risk of infection or reinfection–especially those with Crohn’s disease, or their close relatives (who might be genetically pre-disposed)–should stop eating dairy products unless they are effectively boiled first.[404] PARA recommends that cheese should be heated to the temperature of boiling water, 100o C (212o F), to reduce the threat. Thus, grilling cheese under direct heat for a few minutes (so that it "bubbles"), or cooking it in oven-baked meals, such as oven-baked lasagna, should effectively sterilize the cheese. The same applies to other dairy products, such as milk, yogurt or butter.[405]
The reason the industry doesn’t pasteurize all milk at that temperature to be safe, is because it could affect the taste of the milk. As the Irish Food Safety Authority put it, "there is an upper temperature beyond which unacceptable changes to the taste of milk start to occur."[406] Steve Merkel of PARA would have governments mandate raising the minimum pasteurization temperature to levels that ensured safety regardless, "even if it means that milk doesn’t taste the same as it did. Human health must take precedence over taste."[407]
Stricter pasteurization may not be the answer, though. Although there is recent evidence that living MAP bacteria cause Crohn’s,[408] even dead MAP may be able to trigger disease.[409] For example, one of the reasons that the vaccine for Johne’s is so seldom used is because it is so dangerous to handle.[410] Even though the vaccine is made out of killed MAP bacteria, the human immune system can react so violently just to the presence of MAP proteins, that accidentally injected into humans (or purposefully into other primates), the MAP vaccine causes a chronic progressive inflammation which can last for years[411] or may even necessitate amputation of the injection site.[412] Closely related bugs like leprosy can have similar effects.[4133] So even if MAP is pasteurized to death, drinking the remnants of the bacteria may still cause a problem.
With this in mind, it may be more prudent to avoid dairy altogether. Although ingesting relatively few organisms may be able to cause infection, the human infective dose is not known.[414] It is also not known how heavily the milk supply is contaminated in this country. The most esteemed pediatrician of all time, Dr. Benjamin Spock, advised that children be raised vegan, with zero exposure to dairy products for a variety of reasons.[415] Especially considering the risk of paratuberculosis in milk, this would seem sensible advice, particularly for children and adolescents.[416] There is a wide variety of dairy product substitutes–soy and rice milks, cheeses, ice cream, yogurt, etc.–making animal derived dairy products unnecessary.
Conclusion
The epidemic of Johne’s disease, like that of mad cow disease, is an indictment of factory farming.[417] Intensive confinement systems in animal agriculture have been accused of not only threatening the global environment, but public health as well.[418] The unnatural concentration of animals raised for slaughter, for example, has led to other human tragedies including the single worst epidemic in recorded world history, the 1918 influenza pandemic.[419] In that case, the unnatural density and proximity of pigs and ducks raised for slaughter led to the deaths of upwards of 40 million people.[420]
This potential crisis is also an indictment of an industry that continues to risk public safety and a government that seems to protect business interests over those of the consumer. As Karen Meyer recently told the LA Times, "There comes a point in time where consumer health takes precedence over commercial concerns."[421]
Every few hours, another child in this country is diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and may be condemned to a life of chronic suffering.[422] The balance of evidence strongly suggests a causative link between Mycobacterium paratuberculosis and Crohn’s disease.423 This public health issue has been at the periphery of the dairy industry’s agenda for years, a nagging concern on the back burner.[424] The consumer movement needs to move it to the front burner and needs to turn up the heat
For the bovine TB test they inject the cow with something and check a couple of days later to see if there is a reaction. For the para tuberculosis they actually look for the DNA of the bacteria in the cow’s milk.
They are different diseases. Para just means that the outward symptoms of the paratuberculosis resemble those of tuberculosis– meaning weight loss and diarreah.
from
http://www.blackherbals.com/got_milk.htm
" About two decades earlier in 1895, German doctor H. A. Johne was the first to describe the cause of a disease in cattle characterized by chronic or intermittent profuse intractable diarrhea.[30] Clinically, the disease in cattle was virtually identical to that which we now know as human Crohn’s disease.[31] The gross pathology of the infected cow’s intestines likewise had the same cobblestone appearance and microscopically, the Crohn’s diseased intestines and the diseased cattle intestines were dead ringers.[32] Dalziel wrote that the tissue characteristics were "so similar as to justify a proposition that the diseases may be the same."[33] He theorized that the disease in cattle and the disease in people were the same entity.
Mycobacterium paratuberculosis
The cattle disease, which became known as Johne’s disease (pronounced yo-neez), is known to be caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, also known as Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis, or MAP.[34] MAP belongs to an infamous class of microbes called mycobacteria which cause diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy. In fact, before Johne properly distinguished MAP from other mycobacteria, the disease in cattle was thought to be caused by intestinal bovine tuberculosis, hence the name paratuberculosis or "tuberculosis-like."
Mycobacterium paratuberculosis is one of the most enigmatic bacteria known.[35] It lives inside the hosts’ cells, but has no known toxins and doesn’t seem to damage the cells.[36] The damage, much like in diseases like hepatitis, comes from the hosts’ reaction to it. MAP triggers a massive immune reaction against the body’s own tissues in which MAP is hiding, in this case the gut.[37] It is known that M. paratuberculosis–MAP–causes Johne’s disease in cattle, but does it cause Crohn’s disease in people? "
Notice that they say that the two disease are both caused by different species in the mycobacterium family,so they are related.
The authors of the study at the Blackherbals site
believe that the bacteria is excreted in the milk and is not necessarily from contamination with manure. I think you should read the whole paper and investigate the footnotes where it isn’t clear enough.
"Chiodini fed chickens pure cultures of the paratuberculosis bacteria he recovered from the surgically removed intestines of children with Crohn’s disease. The chickens then developed an intestinal disease resembling Crohn’s.[92] In 1986, a different lab fed infant goats a human strain of paratuberculosis and also found that the bacteria induced a Crohn’s-like intestinal disease in the goats. The same strain was then recovered back from all of them.[93] When asked why there continues to be so much resistance against the idea of MAP as a cause of Crohn’s disease, Chiodini replied "What you have to realize is that there is a lot of politics in medicine. It’s not whether you have the proof of something, but whether or not the medical community wants to accept it."[94]"
My comment– You may not agree that this proves that paraTB causes crohn’s disease,but these are the criteria used by the medical community as proof of cause and effect.
"Drinking milk from cows infected with Johne’s disease is how people are exposed to paratuberculosis. Based on DNA fingerprinting techniques, there are two strains of MAP: one that affects cattle, and one that affects goats and sheep. All human isolates so far have been of bovine origin,[180] implicating milk.[181] Milk is the "logical" focus of exposure[182] because cows with Johne’s disease secrete paraTB abundantly in their milk.[183] Even sub-clinical cows–those that are infected but appear perfectly normal–shed paraTB bacteria into their milk"
I agree with milkfarmer that we should take a positive approach, but in the atmosphere of lies and misinformation about milk fresh from the cow I think educating the public about the very real risks of consuming commercial dairy products would bring some balance to the discussion.If this scares people they need to understand that it is not a choice between government certified "safe" food and something risky. "living is dangerous to life". Learn as much as possible about your food,make your choice about what you believe is the least risk,and accept responsibility for your own health.
This is a great statement, Miguel! I appreciate all the wonderful educational information that various people post here.