Here’s a prediction: the price of raw milk from reliable sources is going to be rising sharply over coming years. In fact, the prices of many nutrient-dense foods obtained from known safe farms are going to be heading sharply upward.
That’s because the dangers associated with conventional foods are rising nearly by the day. The latest danger documented by scientists in the United Kingdom is of MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria being transmitted to people by cattle. Yes, pasteurization takes care of the super bugs in the milk, but apparently the transmission occurs in other ways besides via milk…such as via manure on vegetable crops, and more than 60 people in Britain have been found with the super bug.
This is on top of the unsettling spread of a rare E.coli pathogen in Europe, which has sickened more than 2,000 and killed possibly 20 people. The pathogen seems highly resistant to antibiotics as well.
None of this should be surprising, since something on the order of 70 per cent or more of all antibiotics are given to animals routinely in the U.S., to prevent mass infection outbreaks because of the close and unsanitary conditions in which most live.
As the Soil Association, a British organization that encourages organic farming, put it in an analysis of the British study showing MRSA moving from cattle to people: “Studies in human medicine have shown that the use of antibiotics to which MRSA is resistant have the potential to help the spread of the superbug. All MRSA is resistant, by definition, to the beta-lactam class of antibiotics, the class containing penicillin, methicillin, flucloxacillin (an antibiotic often prescribed by GPs to treat skin infections) and cloxacillin (an antibiotic mostly used in dairy farming) and the cephalosporin antibiotics. The beta lactams are the most widely used antibiotics in the dairy industry for the treatment, or prevention, of mastitis. Their use undoubtedly is the reason why MRSA has emerged in dairy cows…There is particularly strong evidence that the use of the most modern cephalosporins (third or fourth generation), antibiotics classified by the World Health Organisation as critically important in human medicine, is associated with the spread of MRSA. The Health Protection Agency, the European Medicines Agency, numerous independent scientists and even a prominent British pig vet have drawn attention to the link between the use of modern cephalosporins and the incidence of MRSA. The excessive use of modern cephalosporins, has also been linked to the emergence in farm animals of high levels of resistance in a range of other bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella.”
And, of course, we know from studies in the U.S. that up to 80% of our chicken, conventional and organic, is contaminated with campylobacter…and allowed to be regularly sold. And we know that much of the beef, pork, and chicken consumed in the U.S. contains some amount of antibiotics, which increases the resistance in the general population.
I’ve been thinking more about the FDA’s condescending assertion that there’s no “plausible” argument that can be made on behalf of a constitutional protection of food rights.
Maybe we need to reformulate the issue here. Does the government have the right to force people to eat poisoned food? By eliminating access to healthy food, the FDA and its henchmen are, in effect, limiting the choices to those increasingly known to cause not only long-term health problems from chronic disease, but immediate death from pathogens that can’t be treated by modern medicine.
I’d say that qualifies as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s preamble, which says in part:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare (italics added) and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
I’ll leave it to the legal eagles to find something in the Constitution that seems to prohibit the government from effectively forcing Americans to eat poisonous food. I’d also suggest that government efforts to eliminate safe nutrient-dense foods like raw milk and raw cheese, for example, as a way to effectifvely force people to buy the tainted corporate-factory varieties, are not conducive to promoting the general welfare.” Quite the opposite.
Perhaps more significant, the word is getting out to larger segments of the general public that much of our food is tainted, and that the best food is available from known local farmers. Expect a sharp run-up in demand, and prices, for good food. And expect growing unhappiness from people who find they can’t afford, or can’t even find, the good food.
***
Latest word from Kentucky is that public health officials are backing off from the quarantine of raw milk at a Louisville buying club. It seems the public outcry has been heard by local bureaucrats.
Slightly off-topic here — There was a pro-raw-milk letter to the editor in the Wisconsin State Journal yesterday:
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/opinion/mailbag/article_7b68aba6-8d82-11e0-a1ea-001cc4c03286.html
Be sure to check out the discussion/comments section of the page.
Not surprising at all. Disease spreads among humans who are cramped closed together too. The answer appears simple– get rid of the pathogen infested confined animal lots, they pollute the animals, environment and those who consume them. Farming practice on such large scales needs to change.
I wish I saved the story on the GMO and various health issues with local wildlife, insects, Bees, and probability on what it can do to humans.
Cheering for those in kentucky
We can hope, of course, that the latest monoculturists in charge of everything will this time begin to see the light, but I wouldn't bet on it. More likely we will only see a push for more of the same, only bigger.
Now, apologies in advance for repeating myself and miguel, but if we are to live well, we must accept the following realities:
No system can guarantee life without the possibility of disease. Every single element in a biologic chainfrom the soil to the consumeris a potential disease vector. Optimal health results from optimal diversity and balance, in every link in the biologic chain.
Why? As miguel said:
All elements of a system interact with each other. And every element fulfills multiple functions and every function is performed by multiple elements.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110331104014.htm
Exactly, David! The government sanctions toxic, coporate food by deregulation while simultatneously using every means possible (regulation, intimidation, raids) to prevent our access to the clean, healthy alternative.
I remember when you didnt have to sanitize the counter, the cutting board, the cutting utensils, and your hands every time you made chicken. Somehow, powers that be decided it was better (easier, cheaper) to make millions of consumers perform all of those steps rather than raise chickens in a healthy manner. While I can get them, it's not that easy getting a fresh chicken from a small farm these days either. You need to know someone and be in the right place at the right time.
We should have stopped the insanity then.
One of my favorite scientists:
http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ecoli_bioengineering.html
Evidence that this ecoli was bioengineered?????????????????????????????????
Wow…wonderful…NOT
I have felt all along that people need to stand up against these goons and take their property! All the milk dumps where they just stood by makes me think WIMPS! Collectively – ALL need to REBEL!!!!!