Why do I get this feeling, as the saying goes, of déjà vu all over again?
This situation with new California legislation SB 201 to fix AB 1735’s obsession with coliforms feels too much like AB 1604 last January, which was supposed to fix the same problem. After a lot of initial hoopla, AB 1604 met an untimely death, pulled down by the combined efforts of the California Department of Food and Agriculture and strong dairy interests, it seems.
Now, granted, Sen. Dean Florez is more influential and better informed than Assemblywoman Nicole Parra. But any legislation that requires a two-thirds majority to get through is already bucking the odds, and when its goal is to make it easier for consumers to get hold of raw milk, well, it’s asking a lot.
I worry from the debate following my previous post that when this bill comes up for debate, it will encounter partisans locked into pre-conceived positions; a clear example is already available on the Marler blog. And I wonder if we’re all missing a key point: that Sen Florez has come up up with a creative way of answering the concerns on all sides of this issue. Those worried about the safety of raw milk get more extensive and documented testing for pathogens than ever took place before. Those worried about rights get less–after all, the regulators still retain wide authority–but still get a clear set of seemingly workable rules whereby raw milk remains widely available.
Isn’t that really what we want of our politicians—to listen and then come up with creative solutions that satisfy everyone’s key concerns? I must say that I am very impressed by the manner in which Sen. Florez has handled this entire matter.
Now it’s up to the constituents on all sides of this issue to decide how to respond. Unfortunately, the CDFA hasn’t up to now shown itself to be interested in real solutions. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have sneaked through AB 1735 in the first place, and it would have attended the hearings on SB 201, and provided some insights into its views on the ideas being bandied about.
The real test is approaching, for CDFA and all those who claim to be concerned about ensuring safe raw milk. Are they willing to seriously consider an enlightened new approach to safety? Are they willing to try a new path? Or will we find out that safety isn’t their real underlying concern, but rather that control is what they most covet?
California State Senator Florez Supports Raw Milk "From Ass to Glass" Bill
It sounds like my hero, food safety legislator, Dean Florez has drunk the raw milk Kool-Aid of his constituent, Organic Pastures and has forgot a few basics of where E. coli O157:H7 comes from…
http://www.marlerblog.com/2008/05/articles/legal-cases/california-state-senator-florez-supports-raw-milk-from-ass-to-glass-bill/
http://www.cookingboard.com/showthread/t-43026.html
H. SUPERBUGS:
Chicken Out of Urinary Tract Infections
"Urinary Tract Infections are the most common infectious
disease in women, affecting millions every year in the United States.
And they are getting harder and harder to treat as antibiotic resistance
among the chief pathogen, E. coli, becomes more and more common."
"When people think of E. coli infection, they typically
think of the Jack-in-the-Box E. coli 0157:H7 infection, which starts as
hemorrhagic colitis (profuse bloody diarrhea) and can then progress to
kidney failure, seizures, coma and death. While E. coli 0157:H7 remains
the leading cause of acute kidney failure of our children in this
country,[31] only about 50,000 people get infected every year and only
about 50 die. But literally millions of people get what’s called
"extraintestinal" E. coli infections–urinary tract infections (UTIs)
which can invade the bloodstream and cause an estimated 36,000 deaths
annually in the United States. That’s over 500 times as many deaths as
E. coli 0157:H7. We know where E. coli 0157:H7 comes from–fecal
contamination from the meat, dairy and egg industries[32]–but where do
these other E. coli come from?"
" Medical researchers at the University of Minnesota
published a clue to the mystery this April in the Journal of Infectious
Disease. Taking over a thousand food samples from multiple retail
markets, they were not surprised to find evidence of fecal contamination
in 69% of the pork and beef and 92% of the poultry samples as evidenced
by E. coli contamination. We know meat products are crawling with
intestinal bugs. In fact, animal manure has been found to be the source
of more than 100 pathogens, including bacteria, parasites and viruses
that could be transmitted from animals to humans.[33]"
"More surprising was that ">80% of their E. coli
isolates from beef, pork, and poultry exhibited resistance to >=1
antimicrobial agent, and >50% of isolates from poultry were resistant to
>5 drugs!"[34] One rarely finds exclamation points in the medical
literature.
But what was most surprising was that, for example,
half of the poultry samples were contaminated with the extraintestinal
E. coli bacteria. It seems that the UTI-type E. coli are food-borne
pathogens as well, "found in many retail foods," the researchers write,
"particularly poultry but also beef or pork…."
The researchers conclude: "The highest prevalences and
densities of resistant E. coli and ExPEC [Extraintestinal Pathogenic E.
Coli] were found in meat products. This is consistent with contamination
of animal carcasses with the host’s fecal flora during slaughter and
processing and with use of antimicrobial agents in food-animal
production." The researchers go so far as to say that the
extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli "may rival (or exceed) E. coli
O157:H7 as a foodborne pathogen."[35] Science News comments on a 2005
California study which found the same thing:[36] "According to new
research, this wave of multidrug-resistant UTIs may have a surprising
source: eating meat."[37]"
A couple of questions come to mind.These multidrug-resistant pathogens are new to our food supply.What has changed about the way meat is produced in the past 10 years that has brought this about?Would farms that never use antibiotics on their livestock also have these drug-resistant pathogens in their manure?
It will be interesting to see if CDFA and their big-ag allies now decide that effective techniques of confirming cleanliness AT THE POINT OF PRODUCTION are for some reason not to be desired. Surely, they would not want the same cost and expense imposed on their milk which is intended for pasteurization, notwithstanding that pasteurization itself does not cure all ills (Johnes, for example, appears to survive pasteurization and may be a link to Crones in humans). The possibility that pasteurization might not fix everything would be something they would not want to face, so they may not want to raise the specter, simply by "letting" raw milk demonstrate its superiority twice a week, every week, 52 weeks a year.
Presumably, this simple solution is too expensive or too complicated for big-ag producers to implement, so buyer beware. Besides, most people cook their meat. Same logic as pasteurization – doesn’t matter how dirty (within outsized limits) it is when produced, since it gets cooked anyway to kill the germs.
Since making food clean (and, by the way, nourishing) to start with is so unpopular with big commercial interests, it stands to some kind of reason why they resist methods which, because of their inherent cleanliness, are superior. They don’t want to be shown up for what they are, namely low-cost high volume producers for whom cheap and easy fixes are preferred.
What is ironic about all this (admitted, speculation about the motivations of CDFA) is that the current mantra of none other than, the FDA Commissioner, is that quality should result from the inherent quality of production processes. This is the theory behind HACCP – indeed, it’s the theory behind all statistical quality control, taken to Japan after WWII by Deming, apparently forgotten by Americans and now being rediscovered. Do it right once, the first time. In this context, pasteurization or any similar end-step "fix" (such as, irradiating filthy meat in case someone doesn’t manage to cook it enough) is totally out of step with "modern" thinking. I should think for this reason alone, FDA and other regulators would applaud cutting-edge industries, such as raw milk, where due to market demand (what could be more American, or more capitalistic?) producers are developing methods to "do it right the first time."
Regulators, are you listening????
A discussion of farming practices and pathogen control is great. But it should be fact-based. Careful examination of the literature shows that feedlots may have increased levels of E. coli O157, but the bug is also found in cattle on pasture (grass or hay fed only), and there is no strong evidence that these differences are due to diet.
See this commentary published in 2006:
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
Below is one example (also older–1999) of results that contradict the Cornell study. Many more examples can be found with a little searching. Similarly, there are many examples of E. coli O157 isolation from grass and hay fed cattle on pasture.
Effect of Cattle Diet on Escherichia coli O157:H7 Acid Resistance
Appl Environ Microbiol. 1999 July; 65(7): 32333235.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=91480
-The hay-fed animals shed E. coli O157 longer than the grain-fed animals, and irrespective of diet, these bacteria were equally acid resistant.
-Perhaps grain-fed animals are in more heavily contaminated environments or in environments that promote transmission of infection so that differences in incidence are masked by more frequent reinfection.
Well, this might screw-up Darth’s original agenda. LOL. My point of view has changed through the discussions. I think there is a lot of dirty food out there and your desire to improve testing for pathogens and a HACCP approach has much merit. BUT, it must be based on the best available science…not cherry picking the literature and choosing the most convenient approach for the raw milk industry–that’s no different than "big ag." You know I’ve shared concerns about the type of private lab test that would be used for the pathogen screen…
I am still concerned about raw milk and children (especially under 5) even with a comprehensive cleanliness program. But, wouldn’t dare to call it an "adult beverage choice" in this forum. LOL.
C2
From usda website on raw milk:" It has not been shown to be feasible to perform routine bacteriological tests on raw milk itself to determine the presence or absence of all pathogens and thereby ensure that it is free of infection"
I accept that as a true statement of fact.
The fact that most meat is eaten cooked and that " literally millions of people get what’s called
"extraintestinal" E. coli infections–urinary tract infections (UTIs)
which can invade the bloodstream and cause an estimated 36,000 deaths
annually in the United States",leads me to the conclusion that cooking the meat can not protect people from contaminated meat.
Isn’t time to admit that the problem with food safety is a lot bigger than sterilizing the food before we eat it?
http://riley.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=16&tax_level=1/
The USDA admits that it can do little about food safety without having more power to influence agricultural practices on the farm.
What Agrabusiness has done to us is to create a crisis(contaminated food),wait for the reaction and then propose a solution that gives them even more control over the food production system.It will be an expensive Hi-tech solution that will be impossible to do on a small scale,just like the pasteurization of milk lead to concentration of the industry in the hands of a few.
When everything you have to choose from is produced in a factory,will you have any choice about what you feed your children?
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/jbr3.htm
Overall Conclusions
"Given the observation that grain-based cattle diets can increase the acid resistance of E. coli in vivo, and promote E. coli O157:H7 shedding, there is still a need for dietary manipulation. Diet shifts (grain to hay for 5 days) have decreased E. coli resistance and E. coli O157:H7 shedding, but additional research is needed to see if other less drastic changes in diet can achieve the same effect. "
http://jds.fass.org/cgi/content/abstract/83/4/863
"Previous attempts to correlate the incidence of E. coli O157:H7 with specific diets or feeding management practices gave few statistically significant or consistent findings. However, recent work indicates that cattle diets may be changed to decrease fermentation acid accumulation in the colon."
http://orgprints.org/4346/
http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=10&sc=74&id=270
I thought everything from FDA was BS? LOL. Didn’t mean to suggest diet couldn’t be a factor ("but additional research is needed…"). The questions about E. coli O157 (or other pathogens) and diet are not answered yet, and to depend on a "grass only" diet as a major approach to food safety would be naive.
migel,
"From usda website on raw milk:" It has not been shown to be feasible to perform routine bacteriological tests on raw milk itself to determine the presence or absence of all pathogens and thereby ensure that it is free of infection"
I accept that as a true statement of fact."
I thought everything from USDA was BS. LOL. See above.
C2
Darth
The question remains,why are we trying to rely on a testing program when we all accept that there is no way that testing by itself can assure a safe product?Lets look at some real ways that scientific research has shown that milk can be produced safely.
The USDA does believe that our food production system is experiencing a crisis as far as safety is concerned.I never had said that I thought the USDA was all B.S.Their ideas about how to solve the safety issue fall in line with agrabusiness’s goals of ever greater control over food production.That is where I disagree with them.
"The question remains,why are we trying to rely on a testing program when we all accept that there is no way that testing by itself can assure a safe product?"
If you read my earlier posts, we agree on this point. Amanda gave an example of a dairy tht uses testing to assure that his/her product is safe, and that dairy has had 2 outbreaks in 2 years.
David said: "Those worried about the safety of raw milk get more extensive and documented testing for pathogens than ever took place before."
Looks good on paper, but those really worried about food safety will be equally concerned about the nature of those tests and whether they can be relied upon. Coliform counts are crude, but better than an unreliable test that could give a "false sense of security" to the producer. And, what are y’all going to do when the test comes up POSITIVE (say the negatives are real, but the positives are a mistake).
You hit the nail on the head about the limitations of the technology today in testing for foodborne pathogens in food (let alone raw milk, specifically).
C2
What are your exact reservations about rapid tests in general and those for raw milk in particular?
I’m interested.
http://www.sdix.com/PDF/Products/51447_ecoli_rev1_3.23.07.pdf
It’s a minimum 8-hour culture but it’s not approved for milk. I asked a food safety person if it really mattered that it hadn’t been approved for milk — it is used on cider, for instance. He did a literature search and found no instances of it used to test milk.
It would be good to know what kind of error we should expect and in what direction (false negative, positive), but that information simply is not available.
This 8-hour test for apple cider seems to be the most rapid test out there but it seems like even 8 hours is too long for a test-and-hold approach. Since the samples will be sent to a lab and likely a better (and longer) test will be used, the results will take even longer. Given this. I assume that pathogen tests will be performed just to check whether the HACCPs are effective, not really to guarantee that a particular gallon of milk is pathogen free.
That seems reasonable to me, though a coliform test would be a cheaper approach for small dairies wanting to enter the market. Perhaps the focus should have been on raising the coliform limit a wee bit rather than the twice weekly pathogen tests.
Amanda
Didn’t OP and Claravale request higher coliform limits at one of the hearings they attended? (The correct term may not be "hearings"). I had thought they did request the higher limits only to be shot down.
I agree with Amanda. She sums it up well, in particular, the statement:
"Given this. I assume that pathogen tests will be performed just to check whether the HACCPs are effective, not really to guarantee that a particular gallon of milk is pathogen free."
Except, I’d assume nothing with politics.
Kristen–either one of us can do a search in the literature on tests for detection of E. coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Listeria (the big 4)…I don’t think that is what you are really asking for, and suspect you understand the sensitivity/specificity/predictive positive-negative values, and comparison with a "gold standard."
Amanda is right that a practical and scientific approach is needed. I haven’t ruled-out coliform testing (a wee bit increased or not).
This all assumes that raw milk can be made safe through HACCP and associated regulations. Reading the Marler blog again (Sylvia made me curious): "sounds like my hero, food safety legislator, Dean Florez has drunk the raw milk Kool-Aid of his constituent, [Dairy A], and has forgot a few basics of where E. coli O157:H7 comes from cows butts. And, guess what are near cows butts cows teats. So, with raw milk it really is from ass to glass, without a kill-step in between."
There’s that silver bullet again…
C2
Some of the experts at the Apr 15 hearing did ask to raise the level but I am not sure what the OPDC lobbyist has campaigned for.
The fecal coliform idea does make sense.
It would be nice if small dairies had the possibility of entering the marketplace here. We’ll see what the proposed legislation says and what barriers it might create to entry. In the meantime, perhaps I’ll get a goat.
Amanda
"And the 0157:H7/grain/hay study is bad science, but wait, when hay minimizes e coli, it might be worth more study."
No, not bad science–never said that. It is all part of a process in science. You are a lawyer, right? The verdict isn’t in (is that how you say it?)
"I’m losing track, here, exactly, of just how your point of view has changed in these discussions, as you claim it has?"
Some of that is private and ongoing, but don’t give up on the communication.
"Oops – are we sliding back to coliform counts?? If so, would you stick with 10 cfu as before? Or would 50 be OK?"
Anonymous posting, right? I cannot see any difference between 10 and 50 or even 100 in a microbiological context.
"CDC statistics (as you have argued, both "pro" and "con" the safety of raw milk) are a mess, never mind profoundly prejudiced in the manner in which they are collected."
Agree totally with part 1 of the sentence, mixed opinion on part 2. It is a mess.
I am glad we are talking about food safety and raw milk. Previously, this blog dismissed it like a non-entity. Gotta give the politicians in California credit for bring food safety into the discussion.
.
I was just curious to know if you had any experience with the specific tests and their success or lack thereof.
The FDA has been interested in developing rapid testing for the "big four" since the 1980’s if not before, so it seems incredible that the AOAC hasn’t evaluated some good ones by now.
There are many large medical companies that develop sophisticated and specific diagnostic products and by now even the general public can do paternity and drug testing by mail with excellent accuracy.
Why would it be so hard to develop a rapid test for these 4 pathogens in food? I can’t think of any compelling reasons.
"Why would it be so hard to develop a rapid test for these 4 pathogens in food?"
We should take this offline (not sure how to do that). The details of the tests and their limitations can’t possibly be of interest to this blog. I do have experience with the failures of tests and know of some serious consequences following incorrect results (in other industries…). It does seem dumb that with all our technology, there isn’t somehting we can pull off the shelf for raw milk (or pasteurized milk, ice cream, ground beef, peanut butter, tomatoes, spinach, dog food, and so on).
In short, there is great variability in the quality of the tests for the big 4. The FDA tests in development are a long way from the public domain (err, could say more, but won’t).
On this blog, just wanted to send a message of "buyer beware." when shopping around for "raw milk" tests.
Sound okay?
C2
"In the meantime, perhaps I’ll get a goat."
What will you do with the babies after born–a reality of any milk production system is that the damn must become pregnant to provide humans milk. After birth, the males are not especially useful and the females might be raised for future milk production (in crates). The males are sent…where? Either way, the baby calf or kid is pulled from their parent in order to harvest the milk for people? This is health food?
Don’t the grain fed cows have watery stools where the grass fed stools make the traditional paddies? (I am sure the types of grass may also affect the stools) People on the prairies used the chips (dried paddies) for fuel, they cooked with it, etc. Todays factory cow poop makes that impossible.
I don’t recall anyone on this blog dismissing food safety with or without raw dairy. Common sense states it is expected, just as it is expected with any food processing, not just raw dairy.
By shutting down the raw dairy producers and/or making it unfeasable to produce milk to be sold is taking my choice away for consuming it. If the raw dairies are forced to "prove" the safety of their milk straight from the cow, then so should the factory farms be required.
http://www.allbusiness.com/services/business-services/4051778-1.html <~~Here’s a 20 minute test approved by the FDA.
Apparently many tests done today are not accurate: "False Positives From H.I.V. Test …In 2005, 9400 tests were done, and 250 were positive. Of those, 49 appeared to be false positives, …" http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/health/10aids.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1212412546-Lsj8nkFowc4sMLERjp7W8A
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/70/2/1242
http://www.usawaterquality.org/volunteer/EColi/RelatedResearch.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041206191533.htm
Amanda
Senator Dean Florez (who is introducing the legislation) has been to "Dairy A" and also lives in dairy country himself. He has seen the spectrum. Of course, "Dairy A" has purchased product from confinement systems and sold it as grass fed, so in this instance, I think it’s more difficult to make a big push for the value of grass. I’ve come to assume that the grass angle is just a marketing angle for "Dairy A."
Amanda
I agree with most of what you’re saying. I don’t think that "pseudoscience" is the problem, but just that real world data has complications for beyond the capacity of even the smartest research design.
Safety for us as individuals does not lie in any of these tests but in overall care of our own health.
Amanda
On the tests, that’s exactly the problem. We should have some idea of the error rate for milk. It’s important to know if we would have a bunch of false negatives for instance as opposed to false positives. If there is a high false positive rate, it would just be chaos with positives and then more senstive follow-up tests. If there is a high false negative rate, then the tests wouldn’t have a lot of value.
On the teats, I think Marler really wanted to use his title. The key issue is not so much that the teats are close to the ass. (The way I happen to be sitting right now finds my own teats close to my ass.) The key issue is that cows sleep in their manure and, when they sleep, they tend to sleep on their teats.
Amanda
P.S. I should turn off the satellite so that I get work done. I am finally getting energy in this pregnancy and have a long punch list. Ha! Easier said than done.
I cant email him because I live in Southern California. Amanda, are you one of his constituents?
http://www.marlerblog.com/2008/05/articles/legal-cases/california-state-senator-fFlorez-supports-raw-milk-from-ass-to-glass-bill/
From the blog:
"My friend, Jane Genova at Law and More, sums up why it is nearly unlikely that a compromise on this issue is possible:
Those of us old enough to recall the 1st Counter Culture know the religious-like fervor surrounding the beliefs popular then. There was no reasoning with the zealots (link). Unfortunately, the same passions seem to propel the raw-milk movement. If it didn’t endanger children, encouraged to drink up what’s "good for them," this would just be another typical American fad. Who knows, it might even, like much of pop culture, become a big export. But this claim of medical magic can lead to children’s becoming sick or even dying."
"I would hazard a guess that most readers of this blog also understand these things, whether they keep their own animals or not. "
Mothership, I believe this is true.
"frequently drive by about 8 confinement dairies, the visual difference is unbelievable. Perhaps there are clean confinement dairies but I havent seen them."
Don, the stench by the confinment dairies is nauseating. They are up and down I-5 and I-99 from Sacramento south-ward. There are also many around the Sacto area and the aroma is no better. Summer is coming and the stench will worsen. I can’t see the confinment cows producing healthy milk nor the cows remaining healthy in that type of environment.
cp — I’m in his Senate district but haven’t contacted him.
In case Vegan returns, I thought he or she might be interested in my posts,
"I met my meat"
http://www.rebuild-from-depression.com/blog/2007/02/i_met_my_meat.html
"If you kill it, you eat it."
http://www.rebuild-from-depression.com/blog/2007/08/if_you_kill_it_you_eat_it.html
Both of those posts have a Part II.
Warning: dead animal photos.
Amanda
I agree with your observation that there is little microbiological difference between 10, 50 and 100 cfu of coliform, since that is my understanding as well. Which, of course, makes 10 an arbitrary number, designed to do nothing but put raw dairies out of business (I am convinced, as David suggests, that such is the continued goal of the CDFA). This is not to say there should be similar indifference to tens or hundreds of thousands of cfu’s, since there would be definite shelf-life issues with that milk, highly likely process issues (leaks in vacuum lines drawing in ambient air), and higher odds for fecal and/or pathogen contaminations. Hence, I agree with your earlier characterizations (I think you used the word "crude") of artificially low coliform testing.
At the same time, I’m concerned that raw milk not be held up to some kind of a gold standard pathogen testing that would be economically prohibitive. I know that Michael Payne suggested just this concern in the Florez hearings, although his general attitude (at least, in the past) toward raw milk belied his professed sympathies to the plight of raw milk producers. I’ll be interested in the details of the ongoing discussion about "which" test for 0157:H7 (and the other biggies, salmonella, listeria m., etc.) may be appropriate, since although it’s obvious that apple cider and milk are different, it is less clear how the 0157:H7 which may inhabit cider is different, or differently detected, than the 0157:H7 which may inhabit and be detected in milk. This is notwithstanding, the huge difference between cider which is more like a petrie accelerator for pathogens, as opposed to raw milk which is alive with competing beneficial microbes.
The whole issue of competing beneficial microbes gets to the question of what individual environments may exist in various human beings. Ongoing studies into the hugely complex system of the human digestive system, whether from the standpoint of clinical study of illness such as autism ("Gut and Psychology Syndrome" by Campbell-McBride, although seemingly without the benefit of an editor, nevertheless is a compelling read) or from the standpoint of cutting edge science (the Microbiome project as David earlier reported) make it clear that although we don’t understand much of what goes on, we do know that it’s incredibly important – 80% of the immune system resides in the gut.
Although I agree that there may be other effective sources of probiotics to reinforce the good microbes upon which we depend for health and life itself, I happen to believe that raw milk (particularly, since it is a food and not a pill) is way up near the top of the list. There may well be a state interest in making sure that a customer buying it off the shelf at retail, with nary a farmer in sight, should have more regulatory protection than I need. I don’t think the California producers are trying to avoid this – McAfee is sophisticated, posts test results regularly, and seems prepared to implement HACCP. Claravale is smaller, HACCP would probably be a hassle, but testing has been a routine for them for years. Given an exemplary track record, should there not be flexibility in dealing with their differences? There is yet another model, namely cow shares with closer contact between farmer and consumer (and, by the way, a much more secure acknowledgment by the consumer, in the cow share agreement, which goes a long way to ensuring that the consumer knows the risks which may exist). In my case, I see my farmer face to face every two weeks and I’ve visited the milk-house (and have even supplied some of the hay that the cows consumed last winter, but I acknowledge that’s a bit much for the average consumer). I believe these are qualitatively different production/distribution models, and I think there should be room for choice, to permit all (including, of course, conventionally processed for those who don’t work so hard at their food) to exist, and then let market forces sort things out.
If you or others could help me understand something, or point me in the right direction
When we set-up experiments to test the survival of pathogens (different species, strains) in raw milk, ideally the milk used in the experiment should be from the same farm and even the same day/batch (bulk tank). This is because the matrix is dynamic and the microbial composition might vary widely from farm-to-farm or day-to-day on a given farm. [aside: Im still really curious what those bacteria areculturable and non-culturableand would love to see someone do a genomics study to characterize them]. As an analogyIm not an expert in viticulture, but heard a lecture that talked about the differences between 2 buck chuck and wine lists at a fine restaurant where if you have to ask the price, you cant afford that bottle. These differences partly relate to the bacterial and yeast communities that are manipulated by the wine maker and start with the same basic ingredients (grapes), but end up with a 2 very different products (at least from a sensory point of view).
Since we know there are differences when its a "live product (raw milk, juice, or wine)how do you know a raw milk producer is providing a consistently beneficial mix of bacteria? How do you test this (or has anyone) and then link it to health benefits (any studies)? In contrast, the bacterial composition (species and quantity) are controlled while making commercial probiotic products; is anyone doing research comparing the health benefits between the commericial versus raw milk probiotic approach? Thanks.
C2
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/03/salmonella.tomatoes.ap/index.html
The soil mineral content and soil bacteria types have an influence on the flavor in both cheese and wine.I heard a cheesemaker say that people that taste wines and cheeses as a proffession can taste a cheese or wine and tell which province it was produced in because the soil type has such a strong influence on the taste.
http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/pg/99.html
Excerpt on FARMSTEAD CHEESEMAKING from the forward by Patrick Rance in the book ‘Cheeses of the World’ 1993.
"In the New World, cheese makers introduced Old World cheeses and also established native originals. The traditional artisanal cheeses are a different class of food from modern industrial products. The later are tailored to mass-trade convenience, rather than to customers’ requirements. The difference, and the lessons learned, should be studied in those parts of the world where mistakes made in the West can still be avoided. They begin literally at the grass-roots level.
Industrial cheese makers (with some Fench exceptions) disregard healthy tradition in farming and dairy. New wave and surviving traditional cheese making farmers constantly repay the soil organically the goodness used up by grazing beasts and hay making. Their permanent grassland can harbour fifty or more native plant species, ensuring disease resistance, and a longer productivity as the various species follow each other throughout the season. As with vines and wine, the older the pastures, the richer the cheese in bouquet and flavor. Higher yield is stimulated by close grazing: not only by manure and the benefits of grazers’ feet to the tilth, but the growth stimulant in their saliva as the tackle the first three inches of plant shoots. This can raise yields by one seventh, and gives the animal the most nourishing part of the plant. There are two basic reasons for cheese makers to keep the tradition on the farm. First, multi-species permanent pastures yield milk for vintage cheese; their variety is good for the animals, and the animals love it. (One and two species is the bovine equivalent to junk food).
Second, the entire structure of local character, aroma, flavor, and healthy bacterial balance in milk and cheese is undermined by chemical fertilizers and sprays: "Soils have an enormous influence on pastures, but it has been largely obliterated by modern grassland management." Chemicals destroy much of the bacterial, insect and worm population that nourish and aerate the soil, which is thus affected. This discourages deep root penetration of legumes whose rhyzomes naturally entrap nitogen for themselves and plant neighbors.
Organic farming cherishes soil life, enriches the earth and perpetuates the healthy balance and variety of local species. Soil bacteria and minerals are transmitted via the plant oils into the body fat and mammary glands of the grazing animal along with the plant’s aromatic esters. They pass with the milk fat into the cheese, provided the milk is used raw, and the fat is not removed."
Yes, I happen to believe that OHIO cows are happier.
After reading this lengthy comment section, I have a simple question. If CDC statistics are so messy, and testing for food safety is extremely faulty, how can food UN-safety testing have any reliability at all? How do we even know it has any effect? We don’t.
The phrase,"Ass to glass," may attract a lot of readers, but it really deters people like me, because I’ve actually washed a few cow teets in my life. I didn’t make it past the first paragraph. It’s like washing your hands, which get dirty when wiping your own butt. You still eat french fries with them, don’t you? Do you pasteurize those fries after they come in contact with your hands? Catchy phrase, but irrelevant! Now if you were eating something that actually came off or out of the anus, it might be more convincing. Teets are not anuses.
And that brings up something not sitting well with what miguel posted regarding urinary tract infections. The e-coli comes from women’s own butts. Sorry to be graphic here. I’m sure a few women have politely stayed away from this one, but we teach our daughters to wipe front to back. Not all of them do that, as I can attest to when I take care of old ladies who…wow, get a lot of e-coli UTI’s. I don’t think those UTI’s came from chicken.
Now cows don’t wipe, but we wipe them. Food safety might be an issue here, but I maintain that just as we educate our daughters to wipe in one direction; just as we teach people to cook their eggs and meat, we can educate people to choose what milk to buy and to drink it safely, rather than running it all through a processor where we have no conclusive evidence (nobody has offered any up here, anyway) that this process enhances the safety of what we consume.
It hasn’t been tested afterwards, and the tests currently available beforehand are faulty. Right?
Gwen
I don’t know if it’s a matter of "we can educate people to choose what milk to buy and drink it safely" in this context, it’s more an issue of teaching dairy hands how to wipe. Consumers should know what they are getting, but the process of producing it should be conscious of the hygiene issue. One of the samples in the 2006 e coli outbreak in California had a fecal coliform count of over one million. Talk about wiping from back to front. This was a case of eating the french fries without washing the hands, except that those fries were packaged for someone else to consume. Yum.
The issue of test reliability will be more relevant when we know what tests are required in legislation and when the experts hash out their reliability. There are reliable tests for 0157:H7 but they are expensive and require long culturing. My concern is that the reliable tests could run small start-ups out of the market.
Amanda
I don’t know if it’s a matter of "we can educate people to choose what milk to buy and drink it safely" in this context, it’s more an issue of teaching dairy hands how to wipe. Consumers should know what they are getting, but the process of producing it should be conscious of the hygiene issue. One of the samples in the 2006 e coli outbreak in California had a fecal coliform count of over one million. Talk about wiping from back to front. This was a case of eating the french fries without washing the hands, except that those fries were packaged for someone else to consume. Yum.
The issue of test reliability will be more relevant when we know what tests are required in legislation and when the experts hash out their reliability. There are reliable tests for 0157:H7 but they are expensive and require long culturing. My concern is that the reliable tests could run small start-ups out of the market.
Amanda
Great point about the soil. I think the winemaker mentioned soil components too with respect to "flavors" (but, don’t quote me on that–vague memory). And, the cheese example fits right in. Sounds tasty, but the ass wiping discussion has ruined my appetite. Nasty.
C2
What 2006 outbreak and which milk’s coliform are you speaking about, specifically?
The safety and testing of pasteurized milk is not being questioned here, and I think it needs to be, before it can be established that raw milk is a "problem." This issue needs to be brought out of the closet and left for all to see a little longer in these discussions.
Yes, wiping front to back needs to be taught – on factory farms, in processing plants, in bottling facilities – not just on raw milk farms.
And while the choice is in the hands of the buyer, maybe some of those factory farms, processing plants and bottling facilities could do with some HEALTHY competition.
Gwen
The state report is here:
http://www.marlerblog.com/rawmilk(1).pdf
See the top of page 6 for the coliform and fecal coliform information. The high fecal coliform counts were in the colostrum products which the dairy claims were outsourced. I say "claimed" only because increasingly I wonder how they know which cartons came from another source. Maybe with the heat their own new moms were not producing enough product to bottle.
Amanda
Gary C. and I were discussing the Campylobacter report in another section. Similar to Amanda’s comment, it is notable that the aerobic plate counts spiked during the monthly testing before the illnesses (from <2500 CFU/ml in Sept and Oct to >250,000 in November raw milk samples).
http://www.marlerblog.com/Cluster%20of%20Campylobacter%20infections(1).pdf
It seems like these facts were glossed over and others were focused on. Why is that?
Thanks you Amanda for pointing out the obvious connection to why E.coli 0157:H7 could have been in the OP products consumed by the children in September of 2006.
Regarding this:
Since we know there are differences when its a "live product (raw milk, juice, or wine)how do you know a raw milk producer is providing a consistently beneficial mix of bacteria?
And this, from Mays Drug Topics:
When Kelly Karpa’s two-year-old son was diagnosed with Clostridium difficile diarrhea in 2001, and his symptoms didn’t disappear after antibiotic therapy, Karpa took him to Johns Hopkins University. There he was treated by a physician who had experience with probiotics. For 10 days Karpa’s son was given six grams of bacteria as well as vancomycin, one of the prescriptions he had already been taking.
For the first time in 10 months, when we stopped the vancomycin, the symptoms did not return. That was my wake-up call. As a healthcare professional, I had until then gone by the mantra of ‘Stay away from these natural products because they are not good,’ said Karpa, Ph.D., R.Ph., assistant professor, department of pharmacology, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and author of Bacteria for Breakfast: Probiotics for Good Health.
Watching scientists and medical care providers stumble slowly along discovering the intricacies of digestion and its impact on human biology is absolutely frustrating as hell. In the world of healthcare, of course, there is nothing worth doing that isnt proven in a western-style, double-blind, controlled-variable study. But human history is dense with traditional methods of food growing and production that have successfully nurtured mankind since the dawn of time. I, for one, am very content to rest in the land of milk and honey, and be satisfied, without understanding the details of how it all works at an atomic-particle level.
The Drug Topics article later went on to quote Dr. Karpa as saying that clinical studies show that probiotics are not only helpful in reducing and maintaining remission of inflammatory bowel conditions, they are also beneficial in treating food allergies in children and recurrent vaginal infections. That may be true, but the comments narrowness is stunning. Probiotics value is as a treatment? It exposes a complete lack of understanding of health. Unfortunately, according to the powers that be, we must wait for Dr. Ks understanding to change and expand before we may drink raw milk.
Well, let the scientists and doctors and bureaucrats work on reversing their dismally high hospital re-admission rates for C-difficile (which they created in the first place anyway!). Fine. But leave me alone in the meantime to drink my milk.
when raw milk is inoculated with L. mono the L. mono becomes dead after anywhere from 48 to 56 hours later. dead, completely. kaput. a thing of the past. many people don’t accept this, i.e., that raw milk is actually a threat to pathogens. i think that’s why in the 80 year history of claravale there has NEVER been a pathogen causing human illness detected in ANY of their products. (i know, i know, skeptics are going to rant and rave "aha, he didn’t say it was true of organic pastures!" well, there’s reasons for that also. give me a call sometime. i’m easy to find).
amanda rose,
which is why we can take charge of our own personal health by consuming fresh, unprocessed, wholesome raw milk. it improves our immune system and inhibits illness. after all, people have been doing this for thousands of years on this planet and we as a species have survived.
or we can drink dead, lifeless pasteurized milk and hope upon hope that all of the pathogens living in confined feeding operations have been successfully killed, or take our chances that the post-pasteurization process did not produce pathogens due to contaminated water, sick employees or contaminated containers.
for me, it’s a no brainer. never been sick in close to two years.
I think the large number at OP is an issue. What are they up to, over 400 cows?
what’s the difference? are you saying that one cow at a farm does not shed e. coli yet 100s of cows at a farm have a propensity to shed e. coli? does shedding e. coli (or any other pathogen that causes human illness for that matter) depend on the number of cows that are present in a herd? what is it that causes cows to shed e. coli or any other pathogen? what’s the difference?
by the way, claravale has over 100 cows in its herd. and no, opdc does not have over 400 cows.
again, what’s the difference? is it the number of cows present in a herd, or the way in which the herd is managed? or are there other factors?
As he has pointed out in the past, no direct link was ever made. Even if the infectious e-coli came from the OP farm products, there is still a small possibility that it didn’t. Some think it did; some think it didn’t.
There are a lot of pasteurized milk outbreaks too, and I still don’t see what difference this all makes. I think the responsibility for the health of our food needs to be with ourselves. The responsibility of a producer has only to do with their labeling. You can inflict whatever tests you like onto a producer, and they can put that on their labels if they do them. And that should be the end of it.
Do you go to an MD, a DO,an accupuncturist, a homeopath, or a massage therapist? It should be the same for milk. It’s my choice.
Gwen
Gwen,
I’ve found that many don’t want to take responsibility for their own personal health or much else. They just plod along and allow others to make all or most decisions for them. Being pro-active is foreign to many.
I do drink raw milk. You don’t have to convince me of its value.
Gwen — I agree.
In the 2006 case, what’s apparently not in question is the coliform counts in the products the state tested during the time of the outbreak. Some of those were in the sky.
Sylvia — I’m guessing it will liven up again with lawsuits. š
Amanda
I tend to agree with Gary that it’s the management that is key. We don’t know about the acreage, so it’s hard to make any assessment.
Amanda
http://www.marlerblog.com/2008/06/articles/lawyer-oped/raw-milk-pros-review-of-the-peerreviewed-literature/
I’ve said here before and on my own blog that my love for raw milk is more of a "passionate love" because there is really no food science basis for it. It’s my own experience and *feeling* the difference between raw milk and pasteurized milk that made me a believer. That is to say, I don’t have an issue with Marler’s argument.
I made my husband try "the milk diet" to help with his asthma. It didn’t help at all. He just ended up skinny. I wish it had that "skinny" effect on me. š It obviously doesn’t benefit everyone apparently which is why not everyone shares our passionate love.
It’s also not clear that it’s the "rawness" in the classic milk diets that was the key. Dr Porter used pasteurized milk on occasion and even tried canned milk.
Amanda
"I’m way over my 25 word limit for the week,"
LOL. Took a break too from posting (and needed to focus on another project).
Question: How do you personally define a "probiotic" versus Sanders in the link above?
C2
One research project says one thing, another says the opposite. I believe this is where being an informed consumer comes in; you read everything you can and then make your choice.
"Yet, the article points out, "after all the recalls and all the press releases, an estimated 200,000 people a day still drink raw milk in California."
The above statement could say the same for beef, poultry, eggs,pasturized dairy,and produce; people still consume them after the recalls and contamination. Raw dairy is such a small sliver of the contamination chain.
As stated many times here, sanitation is the key, the health and welfare of the cows, etc. Just as prostitution will always be around, so will raw dairy. In Germany it is legal and they pay the tax man part of their earnings.
My concern is; if they outlaw raw dairy, what will be next? Will someone decide that my religion is wrong? Or maybe another food that I like, is "bad" for me? Will they force processed "foods" on everyone? Soilent Green? Who are these people who feel they should dictate what others consume? What gives them the right to do that?