Agriculture and public health regulators seem to be coming up with ever increasing numbers of false positives in their tests of raw milk, according to Ted Beals, in his comment on my August 4 posting about the split sample testing discrepancies experienced by Lori and Darren McGrath of Autumn Valley Farm in New York.

This is becoming a pattern, he says. Dairies are being forced/intimidated to stop distributing their milk because of a health risk, but there isn’t any illness.

Ted (pictured above) is a retired pathologist who had a long career as a professor at the University of Michigan and National Director of Pathology & Laboratory Services at the Department. of Veterans Affairs. He testified as an expert witness on behalf of Organic Pastures and Claravale Farm in their legal proceedings challenging the California Department of Food and Agricultures coliform testing, and also on behalf of the pending legislation, SB 201, to remove the states coliform testing requirements.

He offers two possible explanations as starters to explain what may be going on: 1) the amount of pathogen in the milk is inadequate to cause illness (remember most people who get raw milk don’t just drink one glass we all drink lots) 2) The ‘pathogen’ detected is present but it isn’t virulent. Lots of research showing that only SOME subtypes of the recognized pathogens account for the clinical cases.

The underlying issue here isnt Ted Beals speculation as to the possible causes of the disconnect between test results and illness. Its his question: So where is the public health concern?

Lori McGrath of Autumn Valley Farm, the latest victim of this disconnect, has similar concerns. If theyre so concerned about public safety, they should want to do this all right.

In other words, why isnt the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets, or the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, after numerous such disconnects over the last several years, not trying to figure out what the problem is? As protectors of our public health, wouldnt you think these people would launch some research of their own, or encourage some of their prestigious state universities to inquire as to why state labs are repeatedly finding pathogens, forcing dairies into expensive shutdowns, when no one is getting sick?

What makes this situation even more troublesome is that these protectors of our health are failing to head off large-scale illnesses from ordinary food items like spinach and ground beefwitness the latest spate of sickness from ground beef sold by none other than squeaky clean Whole Foods. We have example after example of contaminated food being sold and making people sick.

Of course, if these protectors of our health really were interested in protection, they would launch inquiries and try to fill the gaps in our knowledge and understanding of food-borne illness. But if they were primarily focused on issues having nothing to do with protectionthings like political maneuvering and witchhunts and budgets and scientific bullyingmaybe they wouldnt.