Its been more than two weeks since the media began reporting on five Kentucky children hospitalized with E.coli O157:H7. The reporting was straightforward, with no mention of the possibility that raw milk might be the cause of the illnesses.
Since those initial reports, not a lot has clarified about the casein fact, the mystery appears to have deepened. What I have been able to determine is the following:
At least three of the children appear to have become very ill with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a complication of E.coli O157 infections that occurs in about 15% of cases, and more frequently in children;
All five of the hospitalized children apparently drank raw milk from a single dairy;
While it would seem as if raw milk is a logical culprit, state public health officials have held back from blaming raw milk, to the extent they havent ordered the farm in question to discontinue distributing milk. The Kentucky Public Health Department is expected to announce the status of its ongoing investigation early this week, and point out that the sickened children consumed raw milk.
I have been monitoring the situation for the last two weeks, holding off on reporting about it in hopes this difficult unfolding human drama would come together both happily (with the children all recovered) and in a way I could write coherently about, with a sense of completion. Instead, the mystery seems to have deepened as public health officials have apparently been unable to make a connection between the pathogens in the sick kids and the raw dairy farm, or any other source. It is understood that all tests of the dairy, its animals, and milk samples have come back negative.
I decided to write about the situation before it clarified because food safety lawyer Bill Marler made the first public connection in the case to raw milk on one of his thirty-plus blogs and web sites on food safety. While the actual article posted on the E.coli Blog seems to be the same as what was posted two weeks ago in the initial flurry of reports about the five illnesses, this revised post carries a new heading: Is Raw Milk Link in Kentucky E.coli Outbreak? The actual post makes no mention of raw milk, so it isn’t clear whether Marler made the connection because hes had an inquiry from a parent of one of the sick Kentucky children or because he had some inside information from the Kentucky Department of Public Health.
In addition, mothers of at least two of the sick children have been posting about their situations on Facebook, leading to comments from individuals active in opposing and favoring raw milk.
I made contact with a spokesperson from the Kentucky Department of Public Health on Friday, but that individual said she was unable to provide answers to my questions by late Friday evening. As I indicated above, the department is expected to issue a statement on the cases early next week.
Because this situation is still in flux, I have respected requests from food club organizers and others involved in providing information that they not be identified by name. The families of the five children obtained their milk via the Heartland Whole Life Buying Club of Elizabethtown, which uses MRM Dairy of Hodgenville, KY. (This food club is different than the one that in 2011 defied Kentucky public health officials who served it with a quarantine order, and had the quarantine lifted; the Heartland group does obtain its milk from the same dairy.)
Even though the dairy hasnt been shut down, the food club, upon learning of the illnesses in early September, immediately advised its members to dispose of milk from the dairy. For two weeks, it refrained from ordering milk. In recent days, it has resumed milk distribution at the request of members, who appear to be satisfied the milk is safe, based on extensive testing by the owner of both the dairy and its milk.
There has apparently been good cooperation between the Kentucky Department of Public Health and the dairy in question. One food club that buys from the same dairy but didnt have any illnesses, just reported to its members The KY HD, rather than pressing the dairy to cease operations, has been congenial and helpful overall.
Ironically, the Heartland Whole Life Buying Club, which has been in operation for seven years and has about 500 members, just two weeks before the illnesses started being reported, had worked with the Kentucky Department of Public Health to obtain a retail license for its first food store. They have been helpful, kind, and gracious, one of the managers of the food club said about the public health inspectors. It was very different from what I had heard. For years I have been on edge that the food police were going to come after us. The retail operation sells a variety of foods, including local meats, baked goods, seeds, and oilsbut it wasnt allowed to distribute raw milk at the facility. (Raw milk dairies in Kentucky sell only via herdshares directly to food clubs and such.)
Apparently, tests on the hospitalized children havent been clear cut. There have been unconfirmed reports that pathogen samples from the hospitalized children showed at least two genetic patterns.And the mother of at least one child with HUS reported on Facebook that investigators were unable to find any E.coli O157:H7 in her sons stools.
With no pathogens coming from the dairy, public health officials have been unable to close any loops and come to hard conclusions about the cause of the illnesses. Thus, they are understood to be exploring any other possible commonalities in what the five sickened children might have consumed.
At least one mother is convinced raw milk was the culprit in her sons illness and hospitalization from HUS. In a Facebook post, she said, It is true that we drank it for years with no problem. But that’s just it. You can drink uncontaminated milk for nine years with no problem. And then on year nine, day one – you get one jar of contaminated milk and one or two kiddos in your house can’t handle it. It WAS the raw milk. You won’t hear that from the local food clubs (or maybe even the local news sources) .Doesnt matter if the food club folks wanna say it wasn’t the milk because all the testing has come back negative.
Based on what I have heard about this case, it appears the Kentucky Department of Public Health has tried hard to be careful and fair in its investigation, and avoided the temptation to point fingers before the investigation is completed.
And based on discussions with several food club organizers, it appears that at least four of the five sickened children are improving. The youngest, an 18-month-old, was apparently most seriously sickened, and is still receiving kidney dialysis. One family has two children who became sick, a three-year-old and a five-year-old. The oldest appears to have been an eight-year-old boy, though I was unable to find information about the fifth child. Of the four children the food club knows about, all apparently received dialysis and blood transfusions, and two are still in the hospital.
In addition, at least three other children became sick early in September, and recovered quickly with the aid of healing herbs, food club officials told me.
Not surprisingly, the experience has shaken the Heartland food club badly. We are all very emotional, one organizer told me. Its organizers have tried hard to provide comfort to the parents of the sick children. I think our actions have been exemplary, another organizer who has been in frequent touch with several of the parents of sick children told me.
One organizer reported that she considered giving up raw milk entirely after learning about the hospitalized children. I went to the Kroger and stood in front of the dairy cooler, and I just couldnt buy the processed milk. I know what happens to produce that milk, and I just couldnt do it. She says she is back to serving raw milk to her family.
Organizers, as well as the dairy owner, have agonized about what specifically might have caused the outbreak. One of the organizers, who has training in food handling, wondered if the re-usable glass jars, which members wash themselves, might have been the culprit. Or the coolers, which often get stepped on by food club members. Or the ice water that was used to keep the milk cold. Or possibly strawberries that several families had consumed.
Already, the dairy owner has switched from using coolers to a refrigerated truck, and is in the process of switching to using sealed plastic jugs for bottling; he says this was in planning even before the outbreak. The dairy is in the process of setting up its own testing lab.
I decided only reluctantly to report the situation, because it appears as if it could be heading down an unfortunate path of emotional recriminations that are seeping into the public realm. The post from the mom I quoted earlier in this post elicited emotional responses from othersfor example, on one side, about raw milk being a highly risky food, and on the other side, how the mother was slandering the dairy by accusing it of producing tainted milk, without conclusive evidence.
Of course, the pattern is familiar. Once illnesses are potentially associated with raw milk, the refrain invariably starts up from opponents that raw milk is inherently unsafe and that food club and herdshare organizers are insensitive to the needs of parents of sickened children.
The Heartland organizers say they have been trying from the beginning to prevent an antagonistic situation from taking hold. There is talk of a fund-raising dinner being organized for one family with a sick child, without health insurance. As for the mother who complained on Facebook that the food club is denying that raw milk was the culprit, an organizer told me: It isnt us saying that the tests came back negative. Its the Health Department telling us that the tests came back negative.
This same organizer understands the Facebook moms upset. She is hurting. She is a mom who almost lost her child. I dont fault her. She was one of our strongest supporters. But we cannot say it was the milk. She says she does not believe the tests.
(Copyright 2014, The Complete Patient, all rights reserved)
http://www.wlky.com/news/sixth-ecoli-case-believed-to-be-related-to-others/28076218
http://www.whas11.com/news/Waterway-E-Coli-dangers-267548091.html <~~ several of their waterways have ecoli http://www.kentucky.com/2014/09/26/3448354_texas-beef-packer-recalling-meat.html?rh=1
http://www.wkyt.com/wymt/home/headlines/Belfry-High-School-students-claim-they-were-served-molded-maggot-infested-food-274830611.html
I just hate seeing the fear mongers ready to ponce on raw milk at a seconds notice regardless of the facts. Health officials have a huge number of tools to identify the potential source of this ecoli. Trust me they will find it. With PulseNet and the FDA resources….they will find it. The very good thing is that doctors have refined the art of effective treatment for ecoli STEC and children fair better and recover faster than ever before.
I invite this dairy to call RAWMI and start their own RAMP plan. Testing is not the answer. Testing just validates that your plan works to reduce risk. With out plan to reduce risk….risk is still random.
Living in that glass house? That’s your claim to fame, not mine.
NORTH BAY Whatever tainted a batch of raw Spanish onions blamed for food poisoning that gave hundreds of northern Ontario residents agonizing cramps and bloody diarrhea last fall will likely remain a mystery.
Health officials on Monday blamed the popular hamburger topping as the most probable culprit of an extensive E. coli outbreak linked to a local Harvey’s fast-food restaurant. But they failed to pinpoint exactly how the onions became tainted.
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/2009/06/22/inconsistent_cleaning_likely_caused_north_bay_e_coli_outbreak_last_fall.html
The woman David referred to standing in front of the Kroger store shelves deciding on whether or not to return to pasteurized milk, is indicative of the quandary we have created for ourselves as a result of our faith/belief in the germ theory and the antagonistic attitude towards microorganisms that has ensued A battle of fears!
I have been trough 7, year nine – day one chapters with no illness and I think the woman made the right choice.
Ken
Mary, as I said in the post, I have been following this situation for a couple weeks. The bigger triggers for me to post were Bill Marler’s blog posting (the start of the typical “whisper campaign” that tends to happen when raw milk is a possible cause of illness) and the mother’s Facebook posting I quoted, as indications the question about raw milk involvement was going public. The Facebook comments from you and John Moody were yet a further indication the discussion was becoming public. But no, I would have posted about it even if you hadn’t commented.
It sounds like you are upset because I didn’t conclude for certain that raw milk was the culprit in the Kentucky outbreak. You seem to not want the kind of investigation that occurs when there are illnesses without a raw milk connection. The kind of investigation that is described in this analysis. The author points out errors from the past, when the seemingly obvious cause (like blaming tomatoes for a big outbreak in 2008, when the real culprit turned out to be peppers) turns out not to be true, and “how nuanced it can be to identify vehicles from epidemiological studies.” Bottom line, it’s important not to let your emotions guide the outcome of your epidemiological investigation.
I think you are the one heading down the predictable blame-game path. I think I allowed that raw milk could turn out to be the culprit in Kentucky. But let’s let that conclusion come from an objective investigation, not your kind of emotional shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach.
I’ve been following the raw milk illness outbreaks for 8 years now. There hasn’t been one outbreak where raw milk and sick children were involved and the milk wasn’t implicated as the source.
When you are the mother of a sick child with E.coli/HUS and while in the hospital you meet others with children who are suffering the same fate and the families all drink the same raw milk, its a no brainer what made your children ill.
I see Bill’s behavior bothers you, but not John Moody’s. Why didn’t you report how John did the typical tactic of beating up on the mom who is claiming raw milk made her child ill? Why doesn’t John Moody’s behavior bother you?
Your bitter accusations and basely attacks are at this point, very sad to see. Do you realize on the other side of this issue are families with children as well, whom, when baseless attacks are volleyed against them, suffer as well?
For those who profess to be Christians, the Bible doesn’t permit them to publicly slander others or accuse them of wrong doing. I showed her posting to multiple pastors before making my public statement, all who agreed her remarks were wrong. If she thinks the club leaders have been disingenuous in their handling of this matter, the Bible gives her one and only one starting point – going to them and talking with them directly. Then, if they cannot come to agreement, the Bible gives the next step, to involve other believers to mediate, and if that doesn’t work, to bring it before the church(es) involved.
To go to FB to make such comments without contacting the people first is sin. This may upset you, or her, or others, but the people close to her should have loved her enough to point her down the path the Bible lays out and requires of those who profess themselves to be Christians.
You may dislike this in your already have decided guilty until proven guilty in your world of raw milk, but for those of use who believe in small things like withholding judgment until the facts are in, weighing all the facts, and not publicly polluting the pot to get the outcome we desire by poisoning the well in our favor, well, you know, we have a problem with people’s dishonest and perhaps selfish behavior, especially when outside forces like yourself and BM may be stirring the pot for their own ends and gain.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots. Sick children in the hospital with HUS and all drank raw milk (a high risk food) from the same private food club. If it was another food, other children would be sick who did not drink the raw milk and have the same matching fingerprint.
What is already publicly known is our club had no sicknesses/illnesses. The KY HD knows who the dairy distributes to and how to contact them, and we know how to contact them if it was necessary, but again, we have no illnesses. Indeed, the HD probably has the names and phone numbers of a lot of our members still from a few years ago if readers around here remember that particular incident.
The illnesses have other possible linking factors besides raw milk, but rushing to blame raw milk is nice and neat, saves the hard work of real investigative work, and also cuts off other possible avenues of investigation and puts the event so far out in time as to render such investigating impossible and impractical.
Of course, we don’t want such even handed, impartial investigations and handling of a small farm family’s livelihood and future… we have already came to the truth (we knew it from the start anyway!), the raw milk is guilty, guilty, guilty! Test results be damned! Possibility of two genetic prints be damned! Anyone who points out that we shouldn’t be rushing to judgment because we have been terrible wrong before be damned!
I do love the lynch mob mentality and all, but my club members have appreciated that we have been 100% transparent, have been quick to share any actual factual information we have with them as soon as it becomes available, and that they have a trustworthy place to source good food for their family.
Supposedly she is or was a school counselor. I have no clue if she has any type of degree and really don’t care. If you google her name you get all kinds of anti raw milk garbage web sites.
http://www.iowapha.org/Resources/Documents/Mary%20McGonigle%20Martin%202014%20Iowa%20Testimony.pdf
“19 Fouradditional
20 cases of E. coli infection in children that had consumed the defendant’s milk or
21 colostrum were identified in the following three weeks. Each of the case patients’ E. coli
22 isolates were genetically indistinguishable. The genetic iingerprint of the E. coli
COMPLAINT FOR PERSONAL INJURIES
Page 4 of 10
5 store shelves to contain unusually high aerobic plate counts. Investigation of the defendant’s
6 dairy idenuiied cows that tested positive for E. coli although the strain di&`ered
7 ii?om the outbreak strain. CDHS concluded that the likely source of the E. coli
8 infections was the defendant’s dairy products.>”
https://archive.org/details/406253-martin-v-organic-pastures-complaint
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/406253/martin-v-organic-pastures-complaint.txt
While you have a lot of degrees, you don’t seem to read well, and you certainly don’t treat people charitably. Some of the members of the club plan to comment, so I will let them take it from here. Again, you are not the grand ole judge, jury and executioner of things raw milk related. What matters is that our members were fully informed and able to make their own decisions for their own families.
They are beyond happy with how this has been handled, and have expressed that to us in many ways (by phone, email, FB messages, etc). I doubt anything will make you happy with anyone in the raw milk movement, and as such, dialoguing with you is a waste of time for all parties, yourself included, who seems to enjoy fishing and casting aspersions at others.
I understand that there a 2 different food clubs that you are somehow involved with. They both purchase raw milk from the same dairy. I don’t know if both food clubs have children who have become ill and/or have been hospitalized, or if it is only one. I don’t know your role in all of this, but based on your FB posts you are some sort of leader.
I ask the question about the members identity and public health having access because I know you are anti-government and believe you have a right to privacy. I don’t really care if other members are happy or not. I am just hoping the health department has all information needed to do a thorough investigation and that all members have been informed of the possible contamination of the milk because their are sick kids and they are all food club members. The warning is to prevent more sick kids. It is quite simple.
If you don’t know, maybe you should ask, instead of getting into things in other states that don’t concern you and stirring up trouble where there is already important things to be dealt with?
Mary, just so you know, RAWMI producers have literally reduced the chance of ecoli STEC to near zero if not zero. Here is why. When coliforms are at zero or less than3 ( which is the average of all RAWMI Listed producers tests ) it is not possible to have enough ecoli STEC in any cup of raw milk to trigger host illness. Ecoli is a small subfamily of the very large family of coliforms, and ecoli 0157h7 is a supersmall sub family of ecoli. This is a huge risk reduction!! Remember that it takes a load of virulent pathogens to trigger illness in a susceptible host. No load..no illness.
That’s the facts. Also a fact ….9 kids die every day in the USA from asthma when under care and treatment of western medicine. We all know that raw milk heals asthma….ie prevents deaths !!
I do not recall you becoming so angry when three died at Whittier Farms in 2007 or more died last year from Cravens cheese or Roos cheeses. All of those deaths were from pasteurized milk or cheese.
As a well trained and well educated socialogist, I ask you to consider the missing balance in your passion.
One last thing, the reports of illness in Kentucky reveal that not all sick kids have ecoli pathogens detected in their stool….just like your son in 2006. Lets wait to pass judgement until the investigation is complete. Yesterday I presented in front of a huge group of moms and others. At the end of the presentation several moms came to me and told me that raw milk had literally saved their kids.
EU QMRA’S show that raw milk is a low risk food. Lets all take a deep breathe.
Furthermore, your efforts to suppress raw milk are effectively an effort to make raw milk illegal. That is wrong minded. Consumers have experienced tremendous benefit from raw milk and it is not going away. Where ever we have seen suppression of raw milk we see black markets emerging. Black markets, by their own definition are untested and unregulated and god knows what kind of risk they present. A much better approach is to encourage and support raw milk progress with appropriate standards, testing and perhaps regulation. Although, I will say that Colorado has shown that legislated cow shares can work very well when standards and testing are supported.
It has been my experience that the media and regulators are not a good source of information regarding the condition of ill consumers. The ill kids could be far less ill or far more ill than reported. Lets just wait to see what the investigation brings.
Well Mark, the pasteurization of milk that you scream about all the time. You know those bottles of milk sitting on the grocery store shelf.
“Weaving down the American highway
THROUGH THE LITTER AND THE RECKAGE AND THE CULTURAL JUNK
Bloated with entitlement, LOADED ON PROPAGANDA
And now we’re driving dazed and drunk…
Behold the bitten apple – the power of the tools
BUT ALL THE KNOWLEDGE IN THE WORLD IS OF NO USE TO FOOLS
And it’s a long road out of eden….” The Eagles
Eight years following “raw milk outbreaks.” Thirty-four years raising a family on farm fresh milk and one family member being profoundly disabled…well, I guess it just depends on what side of the sand box one is sitting. I have to agree with Mark; it is wrong to rush to judgement until the investigation has concluded. JMHO
Mary, the part I don’t get here is why you are so intent on finding fault with the way John M. and others in the food clubs are handling the situation. From all accounts, everyone involved, from the food clubs to the dairy farmer to the KY Health Department, has been working like the dickens to be responsible, figure out what happened, and make it right.
I think there was a time, when Chris became sick in 2006, that the parents of sickened children weren’t treated as sensitively as they should have been. In fact, I think many people have learned from your experiences. Partly as a result, I’d say a number of things have changed in important ways , over the last seven years, for the positive.
But you seem to not want to acknowledge anything positive. It just seems to be attack, attack, and assume the worst about everyone involved. I’m sorry to say that.
Kentucky has had contaminated water with ecoli within the last few months. All 3 of those counties these kids are from, border the Ohio river. Bear Grass creek in Jefferson county and between Hardin and Oldham counties, had contaminated e coli water and that water shed is the largest in the county and drains into the Ohio river. Licking River which is also contaminated with e coli, drains into the Ohio just east of Boone county. The Kentucky river along with the river basin is a huge river and area it is also contaminated with ecoli.
Fish from the river may be contaminated also.
http://wkyufm.org/post/hardin-county-health-officials-looking-link-e-coli-infection-5-kentucky-children
In the above link, the health official does not mention raw milk, imagine that! Seems Kentucky has a yearly issue with e coli.
http://wfpl.org/post/be-advised-kentuckys-waterways-may-carry-ecoli
From what I have heard the HD will issue a press release soon and I am very interested to see what they say and don’t say when that happens.
There is no perfectly safe food nor will there ever be. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a charlatan and anyone who believes otherwise a fool. Its simply a question of relative risks.
Raw milk or any food produced long enough and broad enough will make someone sick, its an inevitability. If you’re not willing to take responsibility for your own decision to consume it then don’t drink it.
Vilsack has been quoted saying These types of local food systems are the cornerstones of our plans to revitalize the rural economy,I totally agree!!
Regardless of how we all might feel about our USDA or Vilsack, this is serious progress and this is not chump change.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/business/usda-to-start-program-to-support-local-and-organic-farming.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=1
You know, I suspect you are right, Mary, but if you look at the article, it says there were five recent HUS cases, and then it goes on to say there are 10-25 cases in one county, and 80-100 per year statewide. It doesn’t distinguish between E.coli and HUS.
I am pretty sure that the figure sighted is referring to only infections that result in HUS, given the larger pool of numbers given as the starting point.
Somewhere between 5% to 10% of people (mostly children) who develop a severe E.coli infection will go on to develop HUS. It is considered a rare childhood disorder. As the E.coli bacteria are dying a toxin called a Shiga toxin is released. This toxin attacks the Gb3 cells in the kidneys, pancreas and the brain.
one third of 265000 equals 88333 e coli 0157:h7 CASES IN THE US PER YEAR. Imagine that.
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/ecoli/understanding/pages/overview.aspx
Yes well think about this! All wild mammals, birds and aquatic life defecate in the water, and if they do not deposit their untreated waste directly into the water, they do so indirectly visa vie the watershed they reside on.
At this time of year I have over 1000 Canada and snow geese that take up residence on my land for two to three months and thats over and above the ones that hang around all summer nesting and raising their young. Then there are couple hundred sandhill cranes, herons, ducks, turkey vultures, sea gulls, crows, ravens, pigeons etc. The list goes on and on and on. Thats a lot of raw bird poop. Think of all the potential sources of wild poop and then do the math.
Human sewage is a problem, not because of the organic waste and the bacteria therein, but rather because of all the drugs, chemicals and heavy metals that humans are hell-bent on using and consuming.
Ken
I do think for organic farmers/food people, the problem isn’t the bacteria, but that the micro-organisms are ramping up because of antibiotic overuse, animal over crowding, etc.
So we are creating a perfect recipe for disaster. We ourselves are genetically and health wise getting weaker, and the very things that make us weaker make pathogens stronger and more dangerous.
Not wise, and wow, imagine if people who got so fired up over raw milk instead took that energy and directed at the real problems causing the creation of super virulent and dangerous strains and the declining health of people because of poor nutrition and drug overuse.
The USDA is NOT our friend and all government handouts are at their core, Machiavellian. Remember, this is the same government agency that intentionally drove out of business millions of small and medium scale farmers.
Let me ask you a question: did you contact Bill Marler or did he contact you first?
Also, it is my understanding that raw milk was never, ever claimed as the culprit in your son’s case. It was stated to be a possibility but never the EXACT cause, and yet you condemn unpasteurized raw milk and ask people to pasteurize it at home by boiling it. That sounds like a true statement from the CDC if ever I’ve heard one.
This is a quote from you that makes me very suspicious of the surrounding circumstances regarding your son.
[quote]: “Labor Day Weekend of 2006 changed our lives forever. Little did we know the raw milk our son consumed was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. While we innocently swam in our backyard swimming pool and enjoyed the holiday, this killer bacterium slowly invaded Chris’ intestinal track.” [end quote]
Are they sure it wasn’t the swimming pool water? BTW, it’s not intestinal “track”. A deliberate mistake perhaps. Antibiotics while hospitalized could very well have worsened your son’s condition but never a word from you about that – and I know you’re aware of that possibility because it’s been discussed here on this forum/blog. It’s also readable information at any medical web site if you want to frequent them.
Nevertheless I do believe that Big Dairy and the CDC are holding hands. You can say whatever you want but you won’t convince me of your position to deny payment for making your “talks” or interviews or whatever YOU want to call them. Not that what I think matters in the least to anyone but me.
Bringing WAPF into your argument about “myths” doesn’t strengthen your position either. They are long established and well regarded by the public regardless of your statements.
Come on now….Bill is kinda handsome and Mary and the FDA love him so much. What could be wrong with that kind of beloved guy, he is even rich to boot!!
I really do think that Mary may need to do some serious apologizing very soon. If the Kentucky Health Department seriously thought that raw milk was the culprit they would have shut down that dairy immediately. They have tested every cows butt, swabbed every surface, tested every product and water source. It has been more than a week since those tests. Rapid testing comes back quick. Confirming cultures take some time. I have spoken with the producer. He tests frequently and the coliforms are rock solid low. The risks are simply just not present. It is critical to not jump to conclusions until the data is in. Hatred of raw milk is associated with very bad karma.
Raw milk is the first food of mammals. It is like saying love is bad.
It also serves no purpose to dissect Chris illness on this blog. No one wants to read this stuff. No HUS illness has been more dissected than Chris’ because it was one of the first, a lawsuit was involved and I’ve had the courage to speak out. If you would like to have a personal conversation with me on the phone I would be more than willing to talk to you and answer all of your question.
As for how people find me, look at the working group on the Real Raw Milk Facts website. I’ve lost track of how many interviews I have done for the media. Over the years I’m guessing somewhere between 10 to 15. Public health and environmental health associations are very interested in what I have to say. I’ve presented at different conferences.
As for WAPF, you’ve drank the cool-aid. It is like a cult. Heaven forbid you speak out against them. They are responsible for the 3 myths everyone believes: If you know your farmer the milk is safe, if the cows are fed grass they won’t harbor pathogens and raw milk contains properties that kills pathogens. This is what convinces people the milk is safe to feed children. That is my biggest concern about the raw milk movement. Just tell the truth to parents about the dangers so that they can make an informed choice. It that so difficult to understand? My God, it is their children. The bottom line is raw milk is great until it is contaminated with a pathogen.
The bottom line is E.coli 0157:H7 is in cows and goats. How it got there is a moot point. It is now there. The raw milk our ancestors drank did not have to contend with this pathogen. Our innocent, sick children with HUS are the canaries in the coalmine telling us this milk can be dangerous. You can choose to learn everything you can about this pathogen or you can put your head in the sand and ignore all the E.coli 0157:H7 raw milk outbreaks that have occurred since 2005. I’m not the enemy, this pathogen is. Figuring how to keep it out of raw milk, if that is possible, is the issue.
If you would like to talk to me, email David and he can connect us.
It was reported that they shut down production for a few weeks and then started back up when tests showed everything was good. You should know how it works. You have been shut down a few times and then reopened.
Well hell, they gave millions of us contaminated polio vaccines, killed and maimed many for the swine flu shot, increased the incidence of polio with vaccinations, the list is long and exhausting. I would never trust any of them. They have proved they are not worthy.
I bet many don’t know that one of the many side effects of the hepatitis vaccine (series of 3 shots) is Rheumatoid arthritis. Nice isn’t it. I was never told this when they came at me with the needles.
The gov allows foods that have a history of being so much more susceptible to contamination than raw milk and yet they allow it with a smile on their face.
Mary, my understanding is that the food club discontinued orders for a couple weeks, but that the dairy’s production wasn’t shut down.
This antagonistic attitude towards the microbial world is what has gotten us into this mess and if we continue to hold onto it, we are merely going to get ourselves deeper and deeper into this disease/illness quagmire.
Ken
As for the buyer’s club, I suppose if its response is being set up as a sort of a model, it would be useful to see the communication to the club members. Any regular readers here know well how difficult all of these testing issues are. Just saying that the results are negative doesn’t provide the depth of information these situations require.
Amanda
Thanks Pete, I will pay attention to you on these two.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
BTW Dr. Stanley Monteith of radioliberty.com passed away today at age 85.
“yel·low jour·nal·ism
noun: yellow journalism; plural noun: yellow journalisms
journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration.:
I would put the following in that category as it appears to be based on sensationalism and crude exaggeration:
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/09/children-in-ky-e-coli-outbreak-all-linked-to-same-raw-milk-dairy/#.VCqkLFcmXbM
I’m not jaded any more than you are. I grew up on raw milk and if that makes me jaded in your eyes, so be it. In all the years my whole family drank our own raw milk and ate our own fresh meats, veggies and eggs, there wasn’t an illness. We rarely got sick during that period in history and I don’t remember ever missing a day of school unless it was weather or farm-work related. So if that makes me wish for real unprocessed foods now, then I guess your word jaded is gonna work for you because the food system today doesn’t compare and there are many people working behind the scenes to make sure it doesn’t.
How do you know what I believe about WAPF? Actually, it’s the raw milk part of their site which deals with milk issues, not so much the actual WAPF site. http://www.realmilk.com/ But I do believe non-homogenized milk is good for people (which is why I love goat milk) and we’ve already covered the ground a zillion times regarding pasteurization and ultra-pasteurization, pathogens, bacteria, yada yada. Yet you still manage to confound the subject to an alarming degree.
Drank the Kool-Aid? WAPF helps people to understand fermentation and many other subjects which interest me. I’m not a fan of soy either, and they deal with all that kind of stuff, including the difference between good and bad fats. If you were a reader there you’d know the things which are covered and would see it isn’t all about milk, certainly not at the regular WAPF site. I think you’re the one who has been drinking the Kool-aid from Bill’s fridge. If you don’t even understand what’s at their site how can you possibly continue to bash their work? I don’t understand people like you. Tunnel vision is your problem.
You’ve been at this for 8 years now. You are an enemy to raw milk. You don’t even want to acknowledge facts from the CDC, where you think they always tell the truth, I guess. Lots of examples show that’s not so. The sooner other readers realize this, the better. I don’t belong to facebook and never want to, but someone from here who does should try to rebutt your info there as you are apparently continuing to spread your disinformation. You only seem to care about one side of the issue, and there are two sides to everything. Lots of other things besides raw milk can cause massive illnesses, and do just that, unrecognized or unaddressed or unchallenged. Swimming pools are one of those things, antibiotics given after an illness like HUS are another but you didn’t address those. We need to be fair here regarding possible causes or the entire topic is off-kilter from the start. Miguel and a few others have tried hard to make you understand but you and yours have no intention of “understanding” pathogens and other microbia. Talk about putting your head in the sand.
And now I’m done with this.
September is also when school starts again in many parts of the country. But no connection there, of course. Blame it on raw milk or petting animals. It must be farm related, right? Couldn’t be vax related or something, heavens no. Rather than wait for a final word from the HD in KY people jump right on raw milk with no proof whatsoever. Amazing. It’s too bad the medical industry doesn’t have to withstand this type of srutiny.
One thing is clear, crystal clear. Food Safety News is definitely a yellow journalism rag. No question about that. The bias screams.
The CDC Data itself reports more than 422,000 illnesses and 77 deaths from pasteurized milk or dairy products since 1972 ( after review and adding in missing and unreported incidents like Jalisco in 1985 ) . CDC data through FOIA report no deaths from American raw milk and about 29 illnesses per year. If this is true then how can Food Safety News report that raw milk sickens 13 times more consumers than pasteurized dairy products. This is a made up lie!!!!!
When news turns into lies…that is when we know we have won this fight. What ridiculous desperation. What an unethical and profoundly libel & immoral media group. If I was Bill, I would print a retraction and an apology for fear of legal action exposing this terribly misleading story. His headline does not match the content.
I would be embarrassed. Seriously, Bill…..this really reaches new lows.
Sounds like FTCLDF needs to file a libel suit against Food Safety News for printing lies and made up garbage. Maybe that will provide a sobriety check and a realization that freedom of speech has limits. The truth actually matters. I know that when Food Safety News created false video of events back in 2006, I threatened a law suit…that video came down and Food Safety News immediately ran for the hills for fear that they had gone to far! There are no ethics police officers in this country anymore. We must sue to enforce common truth.
The anti raw milk bashers are no different than those awful anti abortion people, attacking people who they know nothing about.
Unless you ask your questions to each individual club member, your questions can’t be answered. I don’t know any other way of finding out just what they do know. And even so, would that be open to subjective interpretation?
The Kentucky Department of Public Health has just issued a statement saying it “has not yet definitively identified the source of the recent illnesses” associated with a food club, while warning of the dangers of unpasteurized milk. The department says the release is preliminary, pending a “a broader release.” Here is its statement:
The Kentucky Department for Public Health is warning consumers about the dangers of consuming unpasteurized milk as well as other products that could lead to disease-producing E. coli infection, following a recent outbreak in North Central Kentucky and the hospitalization of four children. Confirming a direct link to a given source of food or milk that causes an outbreak can be difficult, especially in situations where exposures occurred over a brief window of time. Laboratory testing has not yet definitively identified the source of the recent illnesses. However, DPH is stressing the dangers of unpasteurized milk after learning all the affected children had consumed it and because it is a known source of E. coli bacteria, as well as numerous other pathogens that can lead to illness.
DPH has been working with local health departments, hospitals, and the provider community to investigate the outbreak. Four of the five children associated with the cluster developed Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), a disease caused by the most severe E. coli infections which may result in life-threatening kidney failure.
The sale of raw, unpasteurized milk is illegal in the state of Kentucky. However, individuals sometimes gain access to unpasteurized milk and consume the product despite the associated health risks. The pasteurization process, which uses heat to treat raw milk and kill pathogens, has been used since 1908 to assure the health and safety of the milk supply. All milk sold in Kentucky must be pasteurized, which is noted on the product label. If individuals are unsure if milk is pasteurized, they are advised to check the product labeling, ask their clerk or grocer, or to throw it out if pasteurization cannot be verified.
I have had a variety of patients tell me, while signing the consent for surgery forms that they had no clue what was going to happen or knowledge about what could happen. My signature on the form is only there stating that I watched the patient sign the form, it is in no way implying that I am assuring the patient is educated in what is going on. I did chart what the patient said and also informed the docs. Most of the time, the doc would screech over the phone that they spent an hour going over whatever with the patient. I didn’t take the screeching personally as I’ve no doubt the doc felt frustration. The doc would again come in either that night or early in the am or talk to the patient in the holding area. Usually they went forth with the surgery, a few times the doc refused as the patient just kept their head in the sand.
Some people are not impressed by tests results, some may have no clue what they really mean,some may have no clue what or how variables can affect the tests, etc. Others are so fixated on tests results, they make themselves ill. Examples: your cholesterol levels may all be within normal limits, yet your coronary arteries may be over 90% occluded. Your renal panel may all be within normal limits, yet you may have renal cell carcinoma. Even x-rays for fractures, some take days to show up.
Seems contamination of produce and meats/poultry happen more so than with raw milk. Yet I don’t hear of anyone screaming to ban it. Why is that?
Amanda, I still think that list you had written long ago is the best I’ve seen for people to ask when seeking raw milk and it could be also used when seeking about produce from a farmer.
I’m all for educating, it is when those who are attempting to push their agenda on others that I find distasteful and they loose whatever credibility there was. When someone is plugging their agenda on various blogs,and/or pushing their agenda at various states that are attempting to pass raw milk laws. I have no respect for them or what they have to say. They are pushing their beliefs and NOT educating. There is a huge difference between the two.
Bet those bottom feeders are circling.
So, why aren’t we doing that here? Oh wait … Big Ag and the FDA have trained us to be passive little non-thinking mouths, manipulated by their advertising schemes and big brother “We’ll take care of you” attitudes.
I credit Mark for making me aware of this – his talk of testing – so here’s a thought: before it gets to the point of the health department swooping in and testing when a child gets sick, why aren’t we all now asking our farmers “Do you test? How often do you test? Please show me your test results” whenever we choose a raw milk farm? Why do we so blindly trust, and then get upset after the fact when things go pear-shaped? Why aren’t farmers offering up their test results to all potential consumers? And yes, if you have a big consumer base, then post them on your website.
And, if you belong to a food club or consumer co-op, how about you get your club to sit down and decide what tests they want and how often, and then ensures that the farmer(s) they choose do that testing. Make it a condition of contracting with the farmer. And no, I’m not suggesting “RAWMI-listing for all” – anyone can test and get the necessary education to banish bad bugs w/o being RAWMI-listed – they do it all over Europe.
We here think of ourselves as so intelligent, capable, and independent, but we then act like mindless cattle when it comes to what we eat – put in in the trough and we’ll chow it down. How about we start taking a bit more responsibility? Third-world grandmas have us beat hands’-down on this. They ask questions of their food provides – we sheeple don’t even exercise one braincell.
“Do you test?”
“How often do you test?”
“Please show me the results”
Maybe the one who didn’t test positive for e coli got HUS from salmonella, or maybe nongastrointestinal infections? We’ll never know the truth. It’s easier to point to raw milk then search out facts.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000510.htm
Gee, Mrs McGonnigle, you do well as Devil’s advocate [ rather than your usual part on this forum … Hand-maiden from Hell.] I look forward to you applying that same logic = above = to ascertain fault when next we get a report of sick kids whose families MAY OR MAY NOT! have had raw milk in the household
It is interesting that the HD has been mum on other concurrent cases of E. Coli/HUS, and I am still eagerly awaiting to hear if the kids do indeed have competing genetic prints for their E. Coli, which is something I have been told by a credible source and have other reasons to assume is accurate (especially based on the HD’s behavior in this case).
but as you said, doing this kind of harder work and looking at the broader picture is work, much easier to just say we don’t have any evidence, but we think it is the raw milk anyway…
The book is Harpers Science in Everyday Language written in the mid 80’s. It read: Early in development of genetic engineering there were fears that changed organisms might be dangerous: for example E.coli, our usually harmless colonic tenants, could accidentally be made pathogenic (disease producing) with epidemic results. Such fears lead to unprecedented discussions by hundreds of scientist, with public and government participation. (1970’s) Guidelines were designed for safety in research and the use of recombinant DNA technology. to date (before outbreaks) no serious problems have arisen.
From web bham.ac.uk: Year 2000
Pinpointing human infection from animals. The routes of transmission of E.coli 0157 infection between animals and humans, whether direct or indirect, have not been clearly defined. Possession of an identical phage type for both animal and human isolates was deemed sufficient as a direct infective link. Since 1994, 24% of all E.coli 0157 isolates received by the Scottish Reference Library have been isolated from animals including cattle, sheep, goats, and a horse. 16 incidents were identified where both the human case and the implicated animal shared the same phage type. In eleven of the 16 incidents the human and animal isolates shared identical PFGE restriction fragment profiles. These isolates were also indistinguishable by molecular methods. End
In 2000 I started time lines for this disease I was stunned to find so many incidents of E.coli 0157 in Scotland years earlier. I then looked into the practices at the Roslin Institute which was very busy cloning for science in agriculture. They brought to the world “Dolly” the first cloned sheep. Most of these animals did not survive the cloning technique, although many agricultural animals have experienced the same fate with condemning results. Infection rates are as geographical as they are concurrent to countries adopting the use of genetic engineering to foster world food demand while creating intellectual property on food supplies globally. So far there is NO success to this agricultural practice.
In the past…it has been my observation that all this abuse does is to sharpen the skills of raw milk producers and some become RAWMI LISTED. The ultimate revenge is RAWMI LISTING and the achievement of excellence! That is what happened to Marcy McBee in Tennesee. She is not LISTED yet but her application is in and she operates her own lab and tests intensively. So proud of her. Excellence is the only way forward!!
9 kids die every day from asthma and tens of thousands are treated by paramedics and ER’s…raw milk saves lives!!!
As for the WAPF, I am quite familiar with all of their work. I actually think the cookbook Nourishing Traditions Sally Fallon and Mary Enig wrote is excellent. Every household should have one. Just ignore the high risk suggestions of raw milk, raw eggs and raw liver. Most people do not live on the farms where the animals are raised. It is too dangerous.
As for the Real Milk website. It is WAPF, but just all about the milk.
So sad you don’t have the courage to talk to me.
As you have put it Sylvia, some people just have axes to grind and could care less about the people they harm along the way or being pawns in other people’s money making games.
“The overall incidence of D+ HUS is estimated to be approximately 2.1 cases per 100,000 persons per year, with a peak incidence in children who are younger than 5 years (6.1 cases per 100,000 per year). ” “incidence of D- HUS in children is approximately 2 cases per year per 100,000 total population.”
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/779218-overview#showall
To gain an insight into the mind and standards of RAWMI please look at the nearly 200 question application that all RAWMI Listing applicants fill out. It is available for all to view at http://www.rawmilkinstitute.org. This application serves as the foundation for the individual RAMP plans completed by each farmer. It starts with the basics: what is the water source? where do the cows come from? what are the conditions at the farm? ( a hugely loaded question ) who milks the cows and what is their training? Who does the relief milking? How hot is the hot water? How long does it take for the milk to get cold? How cold? How is the equip maintained? how are calves raised? ( they are huge ecoli carriers ) are there chickrns running all over the place? These are just for starters.
When the RAMP plan is formed, what do the tests look like?
Remember this: the science and standards for low risk raw milk are in constant evolution. The standards we use today will probably change as we learn and begin to appreciate even better standards of measure. Today we use coliforms and SPC. In the EU “enterobacter bacteria counts” are used. Testing does not assure safe milk….it is the RAMP plan when followed that lowers risk. The tests simply confirm plan compliance !! At OPDC we test nearly 200 times per month and that does not include super sensitive milk filter testing for pathogens. A track record points directly to the future results.
If coliforms are very low ( less than 10 or even less than 1 routinely ) this indicates many things including: low SCC, very clean milking systems, clean and dry udders, no biofilms, and rapid chilling if SPC is also low. As a consumer it is very hard to know if a biofilm is lurking inside of a milk hose or pipeline!! How can you know? At RAWMI our systems will sort out this challenge and make sense of it for the farmer and their consumers as well. What gets measured gets done.
Your best bet….get your farmer RAWMI Listed. All of these questions get transparently answered and so much more. We are not the raw milk police….rather, we are a growing community of raw milk producers that mentor one another and deeply care about our consumers and never ever want to see a sick child ever!!! In fact, it drives RAWMI Listed dairy farmers absolutely crazy when we see any sick children being associated with raw milk. We know that this simply does not need to happen.
Lastly….the best revenge and defense against raw milk oppression and being accused of illness…is raw milk excellence and happy healthy consumers!!
I assure you that there is deep compassion here at TCP. The compassion is perhaps differently expressed than what you are familiar with. Speaking for myself….I never want to see another death from pasteurized milk or asthma. That is why we care deeply about raw milk and care deeply about building powerful immunity in our children. No greater gift can be given to our next generations than the gift of immune strength and health. We all know and believe through our experiences and now science and studies from EU, that raw milk brings those gifts to our families and our children. Clean safe raw milk is compassion in one if its deepest forms.
I find the comments about testing a bit baffling. Maybe Mark M will comment, but while the E. Cli 0157 test may be “sensitive” (prone to false negatives I believe is what they are implying?), the general coliform test I believe is quite trustworthy. If someone has different evidence to that statement, I would love to be better informed.
Given the dairy had well over half a dozen 0 coliform count tests and the state tried very hard to find presence of E coli 0157 or any pathogenic bacteria and could not, I am unsure what else people think members of the club need to know.
Per the cooler comment, unsure what you are trying to imply Amanda. Most farms use coolers for transporting not just real milk but all sorts of things. I believe Joel Salatin’s operation in Virginia uses exclusively coolers to serve their drop points. With proper handling, the coolers are a fine option.
Now, for the past year, we have been getting ready to transition to a walk in refrigeration unit, thereby eliminating the need for ice and coolers altogether for the milk’s delivery and on site storage, and the dairy last year upgraded to a refrigerated truck. But such upgrades take time, money, and resources, which requires a larger dairy to defray such expenses and a larger buying club on the other side.
If the milk has been cooled down appropriately, a cooler is just fine.
In the days that my dad and his siblings lived on the farm they had no refrigerated coolers and the cows were milked by hand into an open bucket (no stainless steel milking equipment), much as it is today in many parts of the world. The milk from the evening milking was placed in a well or icebox in order to cool it down, which represents a much higher temperature then the current recommended 4-6 degrees Celsius, and there was no agitator or precooling plates to speed up the cooling process. This milk is what they and the people who purchased and picked it up at the farm drank. The extra milk was picked up by a truck in the morning or taken to the railway station and transported to town.
It wasnt until the 1950s that the convenience of refrigerated water bank coolers came onto the scene. Up until this point however they manage just fine without it.
There were no electric or gas/oil hot water heaters. The hot water they had was heated on the cook stove and they used it sparingly let me tell you. There were 11 children in the family and they all shared the same tub of water with a little added hot water occasionally to keep it warm. They had two sets of clothing, one for church and one for day-to-day activities. They walked 4 miles to school and if they had to go through any wet areas they took their shoes off and went in bare feet in order to make that one pair of shoes last.
Refrigeration requires a great deal of energy and is an expensive privilege that people in resource rich countries wastefully and arrogantly take advantage of.
Indeed our phobic obsession with microbes as John pointed out is creating a perfect recipe for disaster. We ourselves are genetically and health wise getting weaker, and the very things that make us weaker make pathogens stronger and more dangerous.
Ken
I will say, I like the direction RAWMI is now on and things I have heard from some producers working with it.
A good question, or perhaps opportunity, is to talk about not just the dairy side, but also the handling and distribution side. It appears RAWMI currently focuses on the former (farm), maybe we can work together to address the latter?
As for the coolers, the devil is in the details on that one. If you know, John, that they maintained the temperature in those coolers, then so be it. From California, I certainly can’t say for sure. Someone already mentioned “ice water.” The good news on that is that the water was at least cold. The bad news is that the ice began to melt. Here, we have had an occasion or two to carry raw milk in coolers and it travels one hour. There is no ice water in the coolers after that hour because the temperature was maintained in the milk and in the cooler environment.
Ken — I understand small farm procedures. It doesn’t sound like this is a small situation, with 500 buyers club members. Those buyers count on people like John to provide leadership and I suppose if he knows that handling was all OK, that’s his business.
Rather then trying to find out what the problem is, they merely through antibiotics in the patients direction and send him home based on a so-called educated guess.
Where is the so-called science behind such an approach This is dangerous medicine and one of the reasons why there are so many complications such as Hus, kidney failure and antibiotic resistance infections.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11132475/First-Ebola-victim-in-America-was-sent-home-with-antibiotics.html
Maybe the fact that he was given the antibiotics is one of the reasons why his condition deteriorated so badly?
Ken
“Stanley Gaye, president of the Liberian Community Association of Dallas-Fort Worth, said: “People have been calling, trying to find out if anybody knows the family. We’ve been telling people to try to stay away from social gatherings.”
Stay away from social gatherings? We all know how well people wash their hands. When people talk, many spray spit.
Also, once the milk leaves the producer, doesn’t it become the liability of the purchaser?
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t use ice/water for chilling things. When economically feasible we use dry ice (like for chickens) or other methods for transporting stuff, because water is a good medium for contamination and transmission.
For milk, the ideal circumstances for moderate scale raw milk in my view is refrigerated truck and then walk in cooler at distribution point, since the newer generation of coolers and ice do do very well, but also have drawbacks and limitations.
Even more, we plan to only have staff hand out milk from the cooler, instead of allowing people (and thus kids) inside, who tend to touch everything they can (my own very young ones included).
Oh my NO, you can sue not only the farmer but also the store you bought it from. Even if the store does maintain correct temperatures of storage, you can sue the crap out of them. Even if the purchaser does something wrong, it isn’t their fault, it’s always someone else’s fault.
As to the hot water and killing bacteria, (from NatGeo) “hot” water for hand washing is generally within 104°F to 131°F (40°C to 55°C.) At the high end of that range, heat could kill some pathogens, but the sustained contact that would be required would scald the skin.” “boiling water, 212°F (99.98°C), is sometimes used to kill germs-for example, to disinfect drinking water that might be contaminated with pathogens.”
It is my understanding that freezing does not kill all bacteria/yeasts or molds present in food, it slows down their multiplication if the food is held at 0°F or less. When thawed, the surviving organisms can multiply again. So I would assume that the colder you keep something, close to freezing, you would slow the growth down.
You are correct. Low temperatures slow down, but do not stop, microbial activity/multiplication. And freezing may merely suspend their activity to be resumed later when conditions improve.
Hence why with raw milk or any raw food, proper temperature holding is very important. I know this first hand from years of Kombucha brewing. A few degrees difference is a world of difference to microbes… 36 degrees versus 38 versus 40, the rate of reproduction sky rockets from the studies I have seen.
Hence why with members, we constantly emphasis good handling. In Summer, you must get other frozen items to pack around their dairy for their drive home, etc.
And, re bacteria on the outside of the bottle, I certainly hope you’re sterilizing your bottles first. If not, then why not? All it takes is baking them for 20 minutes in a 104 degree C (220 degree F) oven. First, rinse out all film or food residue with warm soapy water (don’t ever let a biofilm grow, and don’t use hot water as it will “cook on” the milk proteins and you’ll have a heck of a time removing them). Wash next with fresh, clean, soapy HOT water. Sterilize. At home. In your kitchen. You’re done. I’d never use plastic – you can’t sterilize it so it’s single-use only.
Sterilization has to be handled at the farm is using glass. This is why plastic has some real benefits for raw milk handling, and is probably environmentally superior to glass.
Mark,
Turning pasture into milk is a complex,constantly changing ,self regulating system. Trying to control such a system can be very challenging.It is very helpful to study the relationships in the system. How does a change in one part of the system affect the other parts? I have found some guidelines for system thinking that might be very helpful in understanding how such a complex system functions.
http://www.donellameadows.org/archives/dancing-with-systems/
“People who are raised in the industrial world and who get enthused about systems thinking are likely to make a terrible mistake. They are likely to assume that here, in systems analysis, in interconnection and complication, in the power of the computer, here at last, is the key to prediction and control. This mistake is likely because the mindset of the industrial world assumes that there is a key to prediction and control.
I assumed that at first too. We all assumed it, as eager systems students at the great institution called MIT. More or less innocently, enchanted by what we could see through our new lens, we did what many discoverers do. We exaggerated our own ability to change the world. We did so not with any intent to deceive others, but in the expression of our own expectations and hopes. Systems thinking for us was more than subtle, complicated mindplay. It was going to Make Systems Work.
But self-organizing, nonlinear, feedback systems are inherently unpredictable. They are not controllable. They are understandable only in the most general way. The goal of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable. The idea of making a complex system do just what you want it to do can be achieved only temporarily, at best. We can never fully understand our world, not in the way our reductionistic science has led us to expect. Our science itself, from quantum theory to the mathematics of chaos, leads us into irreducible uncertainty. For any objective other than the most trivial, we cant optimize; we dont even know what to optimize. We cant keep track of everything. We cant find a proper, sustainable relationship to nature, each other, or the institutions we create, if we try to do it from the role of omniscient conqueror.
For those who stake their identity on the role of omniscient conqueror, the uncertainty exposed by systems thinking is hard to take. If you cant understand, predict, and control, what is there to do?
Systems thinking leads to another conclusionhowever, waiting, shining, obvious as soon as we stop being blinded by the illusion of control. It says that there is plenty to do, of a different sort of doing. The future cant be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems cant be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned. We cant surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We cant impose our will upon a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.
We cant control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!”
Washing the milk bottles in soapy water is more then adequate.
Ken
Under optimal conditions (86-98°F, 30-37°C) the milk plate loop count will double approximately every 20 minutes. Acids are produced and the milk goes sour. Hence the self-preserving process of milk has begun and if you take some of this sour milk and put it into a saucepan and heat it up, it will curdle, et voila fresh cheese.
In the dairy industry keeping milk cool has nothing to do with safety. Its all about maintaining milks sweet flavor. Pasteurization as well, is more about increasing milks shelf life then with safety. Processors shoot themselves in the foot with their pasteurization process since it alters milks palatability for the worse. I suppose that is why the dairy industry petitioned the FDA to allow them to add artificial sweeteners such as aspartame to their pasteurized milk.
Ken
Talk about a bunch of phobic people!!
I use Sal-Suds to clean my dishes. That includes the jugs from the crappy pasteurized (but not homogenized at least) milk we are stuck with from the food co-op. They have two suppliers of pasteurized stuff, one from Nebraska (the southernmost tip of the panhandle) and one from Boulder, Colorado. I have no idea what kind of transportation is used to get that milk here. I rarely buy it, we just do without milk these days. Most of the time the “expiration date or last use date” is almost up by the time the co-op even gets the milk.
Our co-op used to get vat pasteurized milk from Iowa (Mennonite farms provided it along with butter, cottage cheese, sour cream and cream cheese) but I think our regulators put the kibosh on them because it was a top seller in the State. Can’t have that kind of competition for the big dairy doods who cannot tolerate a loss of $$.
I just wanted to know what people had to say about the outside of the bottles and if transporting them in coolers is such a bad idea (according to Amanda Rose) how does she suggest we do it and at what temperature? What kind of thermometer would register the exactly right temperature and when would be the right time to read it? While the lid is off and a person is putting milk and other products into the cooler? As soon as the lid goes back on the temp will cool down again, right? I use dry ice inside my cooler even to transport veggies and things from the co-op to my home because it’s some distance, but I don’t use a thermometer so I have no idea what the “inside the cooler” temp really is. We no longer have raw milk available in this area because the producer decided to throw in the towel, thanks to our State regulators. It was cost prohibitive for them to continue. But for those of you who are lucky enough to buy raw milk in the area where you live, it sounds to me like investing in a good cooler and lots of dry ice is the way to go, in order to get the milk from the store to your home. If it were me, I’d not stick jugs of milk into ice water in a cooler, but that’s just me.
I rinse everything food related in cold water before I do anything else. My grampa taught me that years and years ago but it wasn’t because they were *worried about bacteria* (who knew back then?) but because he knew from experience that hot water made things harder to clean if not rinsed off first in cool/cold water.
Today all people seem to completely spastic germophobes.
What more would you like to talk about? We are on opposite sides of the issue. Period.
You repeated what I’d already said about WAPF, I have the cookbook but please stop telling lies about things like raw milk and raw eggs. If YOU don’t want to use those things, fine, but don’t try to tell other people how they should operate.
I don’t live on a farm now, I didn’t even grow up living on a farm, but I grew up spending almost ALL of my time on my grandparents’ farm, and when they passed my Dad purchased the farm from the other siblings, so it was always like home to me. We got about 99% of our food from the farm and it might still be that way for lots of people today if bigPHOODS had stayed out of sight. We certainly don’t need them to “feed the world”.
I agree where people are getting their own bottles back. When you have a bottle pool, and longer chains of handling, I don’t think such a system works well or safely.
Since the HD knows who the dairy distributes to and also how to contact them, then if the HD wants to talk to the club members, it is up to the HD to do so. They have the means.
What makes you think the HD can’t talk to the club members? They can, it is their choice to talk to them or not.
Oh I get it, the HD is too lazy to seek out facts and it is just too easy to point the finger at raw milk, even though they found nothing at the dairy. Just reinforces what people think about gov workers.
Hell the water systems are so contaminated in Ky, it could easily have been from the water or anything else.
Your questions imply that the HD does not know how to run an investigation. Do you not think that the HD asked whatever questions they thought was pertinent?
They did their investigation and didn’t find the kids e coli on the dairy, yet pointed the finger at them. Too lazy to really investigate. Typical gov BS.
http://news.yahoo.com/traveler-liberia-first-ebola-patient-diagnosed-u-003007621–finance.html
Did you also see kids are starting to die from the enterovirus (my son had it, it was a rough go, he ended up in the PICU), which also some think is because of, again, gov’t incompetence with people entering the country, perhaps the porous Texas border.
But who cares if thousands are sickened and the entire nation’s populace imperiled, we have tiny little buying club’s to raid and raw milk farmers to throw in jail!
More than once I’ve posted in this blog information about the government’s long ugly history of devious tactics to derail movements they don’t like. Reading the comments in the last article here, I see most remain clueless about what they are really dealing with with raw milk.
We know the government does not want us to have access to raw milk. (For example university professors have posted in this very blog more than once, that they risk being fired or having their grant money cut off if they publish pro-raw milk findings. Farmers have posted being fined 8000 dollars for posting mothers’ testimonies of their children being healed of life threatening asthma with raw milk…)
Common sense tells us the government is going to use all the tools in their toolbox. It’s really sad, reading comments here, how so many assume that the government and media cartel and posters here are legitimate, and begin there discussions based on this premise. I hate to say it but it looks like raw milk is doomed as long as 99 percent of the populace walks around in a dreamland like this. As I’ve said before, if you want to know about raw milk, go out in the real world and talk to real raw milk drinkers about there experiences.
And it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to understand why government agents and the media cartel and academia are so intent on removing this ancient superfood from our diets. If raw milk were to go from 10 million drinkers to 20, 50, 100 … million, this would absolutely WREAK HAVOC with the revenues of the pharmaceutical cartel and others arms of the Sickness Industry (the biggest industry today). So many diseases would be healed and prevented.
Here’s an interesting line from David’s last article:
“And the mother of at least one child with HUS reported on Facebook that investigators were unable to find any E.coli O157:H7 in her sons stools…”
Is there anything you people wouldn’t believe if the government tells you it’s so? As I recall from the posts of Aajonus (before his “freak accident” death), there were never any allegations of HUS being related to raw milk until heavy antibiotic use entered the picture in “treating” illness).
I will continue drinking my “untested” raw milk, continue to let it sit out for days, full of the microbes that live in our world, keeping my system enriched and acquainted with them, preventing not only “food borne illness”, but other things like cancer, ms, arthritis, asthma, tooth decay, joint degeneration, diabetes, …
For those of you that think raw milk increases rather than decreases the risk of serious illness, I’ve got some ocean front land up for sale in Kansas.
I’m tempted to repost here some simple ways you all can prove that the government and media cartel are run by organized crime, by simply checking things out directly in the real world. But I’m tired of doing that. I guess people wake up when they are ready to wake up.
Ken
Face it : people always have – and will continue to- get sick from drinking raw milk when it’s done in appalling conditions. Not forgetting human error in the best systems. What’s your answer then? do you go ’round to their hospital bed and comfort them?
If you prefer to live in the dark ages, go right ahead. .. I bet you have at least a 33 rpm record player on which you can listen to Bob Dylan sing “the man who lives outside the law, must be honest”. I bet you don’t go down to the drainage ditch out front of your house and draw drinking water for your household. No, you;re on the receiving end of the best water system the City can put together.
don’t get me started about the criminal enterprise run by the Dairy cartel. I am very close to proving the conspiracy to frame us up … In the last round here in BC, I got a bill for $150,000 in “costs” after a charade of a trial in which 300 pages ( govt. records) of crucial evidence was withheld from me
Gordon, the healthiest peoples on the planet drank raw milk. There’s no reason to reinvent natural farming. Testing raw milk for “pathogens” when no one tests cantaloupes or apples or bananas… serves to promote the government fiction that raw milk is dangerous, and the fiction that when “janitorial microbes”, as Miguel the soil scientist calls them, proliferate in your body to clean up a toxic system, that they are the cause of the disease when in fact they are a symptom.
People who have gotten sick from food from “appalling conditions” may have legal recourse, but of course it’s better to find out where your food is coming from before eating it. I have twice tried to form a community of 25 so that we can have our own food supply, but people aren’t ready. So I buy from small farmers, and have visited them.
We have clear and present dangers at every turn with the food supply, and all this slandering of raw milk is distracting people from the real issues. If you guys want to test test test, then test for mercury and other heavy metals in the water, herbicides and pesticides and other poisons, gmo contamination in the feed, antibiotics and other toxins in the animals…
I just drove up from Florida and all I saw across the entire state of Illinois is field after gigantic field of one variety of corn, and I assume it’s Monsanto gmo feed corn. Oceans and oceans of this stuff, going now into the animals bodies, and contaminating everything, while you guys are scaring people away from real milk.
Research reported in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal Science indicates that grain-based cattle diets promote the growth of E. coli that can survive the acidity of the human stomach and cause intestinal illness. E. coli contamination is responsible for more than 20,000 infections and 200 deaths each year in the United States.
Fortunately there is a workable solution to the food-safety problem, the scientists say. By feeding hay to cattle for about five days before slaughter, the number of acid-resistant E. coli can be dramatically reduced.
“Most bacteria are killed by the acid of stomach juice, but E. coli from grain-fed cattle are resistant to strong acids,” explains James B. Russell, a USDA microbiologist and faculty member of the Cornell Section of Microbiology. “When people eat foods contaminated with acid-resistant E. coli — including pathogenic strains like O157:H7 — the chance of getting sick increases.”
End
So whether the Sec of Agriculture wants to irradiate all beef products or studies prove grass feeding flushes the bacteria from grains that have been genetically engineered is very relevant when you state that all foods can be sickening. Especially those with bacterial or viral components as in genetic engineering.
This country land of the free that watched their children go to fight corporate wars for oil companies better get on track with the fact that we are the ONLY industrialized nation NOT allowing labeling of GMO’s. Some of US have been organizing, demonstrating, and visiting our reps offices regularly for over 30 years. Yet multinational corporations poised to take over Iraqs agricultural sector as stated in ORDER 81 of the Coalition Provisional Authority giving US multinational corporations exclusive rights over other nations land, seed, and indigenous practice go unchecked. The same intention is already on paper for Ukraine. Here is a map to give some insight into why the GMO’s need to STOP and the great people of this country need to get it right.
http://www.relatetoautism.com/world_autism_views
http://althealthworks.com/2494/mit-researchers-new-warning-at-todays-rate-1-in-2-children-will-be-autistic-by-2025/
GMO’s have been granted CBI (confidential business information) so there is no telling what foods contain them. However most foods in the US DO.
in fact : we, whom you accuse of “slandering raw milk”, are the ones not only promoting but delivering REAL MILK. Best example : Mark McAffee and his wonderful crew, putting 80,000 portions per week in the hands of grateful people. as well as thousands of free samples … In the food biz, nothing beats person-to-person sampling. When I do a raw milk information night, I always warn that people can and do get sick from drinking raw milk if it comes from un-healthy cows, and/or, it’s mis-handled.
days after we heard about the little iPhone impengo app. for testing the milk on-site, in real time, we were using it. Believe me : if you were on the floor of the milking parlor and knew consumers are trusting you to do it right, you’d do everything possible to ensure you’ll never regret not doing it to the best of our ability. $2000 ( for the device ) being just the cost of doing business at this level.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Mark McAffee was here in BC. last month. No doubt someone from the Min. of Health was in the audience at UVic. It’s a small world, especially in this government town. Already, on the back-channel, we hear noises that the provincial govt. is composing legislation so as to legitimize raw milk for human consumption. They are a’listening to our pitch because we have one-upped the opponents with technology
as miserable as the pricks are ( and the bloody female lawyers are the WORST!) I predict they’ll continue going through the facade of opposing Alice Jongerden’s constitutional challenge to the law against raw milk, right to the week before it’s set to be heard : Jan 05 2015. Then they’ll come out with some face-saving media release about “studying the issue”
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/usda-approves-toxic-herbicide-amidst-great-public-outcry/
Even Dr. Oz is up-in-arms. It won’t matter because these huge chemical companies have no one in charge with a conscience and they have all the money they need to get what they want from any gubmint agency on the map.
Tomm, those fields and fields of corn you saw on your trip? I’d love to be able to see the Soil Conservation Service reports on the condition of the soil in those fields after harvesting or before the spring plant. Yipes. I’ll bet some shocking stuff would appear, just not shocking enough to remove the $$ dollar signs from their eyeballs. One of these days the S will HTF even for those big companies but it will be of their own doing, not anything us little guys can do. We can make noise but that’s as far as it ever goes because dollars speak.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/demand-president-step-oppose-epa%E2%80%99s-approval-new-24-d-resistant-genetically-engineered-crops/sy38Vm0s
Ken