Regulation of raw milk is nearly entirely a state matter. You have fifty states, and fifty different variations of laws and regulations; only when it is sold or shipped across state lines does the federal government have any jurisdiction.
Regardless of the specifics of state laws, conflict over raw milk seems to appear, and re-appear, nearly randomly around the country. We have seen the state of Maine turn raw milk into a national matter by going after a two-cow dairy. We have seen Wisconsin and Minnesota prosecute farmers criminally for making raw milk available privately. California threw a farmer and food club owner into jail for selling unlicensed raw milk.
The reason the issue keeps coming up is that the big dairy companies, led by Dean Foods and a handful of other processors, push the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to continually work to eliminate the availability of raw milk across the land, or at the least, drive it underground, outside of easy access by mass markets. That’s because they hate competition. These agencies work hand in hand with state and local regulators, and regularly foment crackdowns on dairies that sell raw milk, on an individual basis, if need be.
It is in that context that Foxboroughs campaign against Lawtons Family Farm must be viewed. It isnt an isolated local situation, but rather, part of a national mosaic of corporate-driven regulatory shame. Foxborough, home of the New England Patriots, is salivating to take over regulation of Lawton’s Family Farm, the last remaining dairy of any kind in the Boston area’s Norfolk County. The town has eased up on its original proposal put forth last month that would have required weekly milk testing, but it still clearly seeks authority over Lawton’s so it can slowly harass the dairy out of business, and put another failed dairy on the FDA and CDC scorecard. If its proposed regulations pass, Foxborough would become the first regulatory agency to be able to demand, at its whim, the names of a raw dairy’s customers. It would also be the first to require specific liability insurance coverage ($3 million) for a raw dairy.
People on both sides of the struggle are watching Foxborough, MA, very closely. I have heard from individuals with an axe to grind on both sides of the raw milk issue. One public health person has been in touch with me several times to contest my statement, made in previous posts, that Massachusetts hasnt had any illnesses from raw milk sold by permitted dairies since the state took over regulation of raw milk back in 1993. This individual, who asks not to be identified, points to CDC data showing that Massachusetts had two illnesses from campylobacter in raw milk back in 2010. But the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources is adamant that the state’s permitted dairies have a clean record going back to 1993. “We have no confirmed illnesses due to the consumption of raw milk,” a spokesperson tells me. So any illnesses presumably involved a non-permitted dairy. The larger message is that the anti-raw-milk crowd is on the lookout for any and all ammunition to discredit raw milk in Massachusetts as the current battleground.
On the other side, several raw milk advocates sent me a link to a 2009 article in a Foxborough newspaper questioning the qualifications of the towns chief health agent, Pauline Clifford. The article says she didnt have the required bachelors degree, among other educational gaps. The article also says her chief backer for the job, over a number of otherwise qualified candidates, was the Board of Health member currently pushing hardest for town regulation of raw milk, Eric Arvedon.
A Foxborough official told me today that Clifford now has the certifications she needs. But she admitted that Clifford never did obtain a bachelors degree. When I asked Clifford whether she had any training in inspecting dairies, she said she didnt. I have the food inspectors license,” which is geared toward inspection of retail establishments like restaurants.
What does it take to qualify as a state dairy inspector? Well, Terri Lawton, who worked for two years as a state dairy inspector, knows all about it–she grew up on a dairy farm and has a bachelors degree in dairy science from Perdue University.
So heres the crazy situation that has come down in Foxborough: if it puts itself into the dairy regulation business next Monday, the states two full-time dairy inspectors will hand over responsibility for regulating Lawtons to an individual who knows nothing about raw milk safety, and will be regulating a dairy run by an experienced dairy inspector. What is wrong with this picture?
Lots is wrong, and that’s why people who care about both food rights and food safety need to show up at 7:30 pm next Monday and let Foxborough officials know why they are misguided. The hearing has been moved from town offices, which couldn’t handle the crush of people who showed up a few weeks back, to a middle school auditorium; it is the Ahern School auditorium, 111 Mechanic St., Foxboro.
Just to show how completely screwed up the situation is, the Foxborough Board of Health will vote first next Monday on whether to ban entirely the sale of raw milk in the town. It’s not clear if a vote for banning raw milk would have a grandfather clause that would allow Lawton’s to keep operating. But the fact that such a vote would even be tried in a town that has long allowed the sale of raw milk, without incident, shows how serious the anti-raw-milk forces are.
(For those who can’t attend the meeting, but want to make their views known, you can send emails detailing your concerns to the following town officials: kduquette@town.foxborough.ma.us; dpassafaro@town.foxborough.ma.us,;
pclifford@town.foxborough.ma.us; Eric.arvedon@state.ma.us. Send a cc to terri_lawton@yahoo.com.)
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If you are looking for additional evidence of a shift in eating habits, consider this: Sales of diet sodas are plunging. The Wall Street Journal reports sales of diet sodas dropped nearly 7 per cent in the 52 weeks ending in late November, and quotes the head of PepsiCo as saying, “We are seeing a fundamental shift in consumer habits and behaviors.”
You are hereby prohibited from turning over my real name.
Tell them to go, you know where.
If Foxborough is really keen on improving the safety of raw milk in their city, maybe they need to hire Ms. Lawton for the job down at city health department. And Ms. Clifford could broaden her education by learning to milk cows.
I can indeed relate to his experiences milking cows. Lol! However some of those described events were not that funny at the time.
I had an outlaw as well although I had a different name for her, which I dare not mention here. And yes I did turn her into hamburger.
I also had school kids on tour who used to line up in the alleyway as well so I could squirt milk into their mouths.
Gene Logsdon wrote an excellent book, which I read a few years ago entitled Holy Shit.
Ken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX9EAavxrus
NO ONE at my Thanksgiving dinner said “I can’t have this or that” and it’s a good thing because they’d have been out on their ear! And I agree with the lady in the vid – if they have “food restriction diets” why do they accept invitations to holiday dinners??
This is an excellent illustration of how when lead…the media lags and the FDA really drags far behind.
Mark
The only thing I agreed with was the statement about shunning soy oils and corn oils. The writer should have just said stay away from all corn and soy items, if possible.
And if an article is going to pretend to talk omega’s, they need to include all of them, 3-6-9.
http://greenshadowcabinet.us/member-profile/7521
The Gesundheit! Institute is a not-for-profit health care organization in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Its goal is to integrate a traditional hospital with alternative medicine.
It is organized around these principles:
Care is free.
Patients are treated as friends.
Ample time is given to the care interaction (e.g. initial interviews with patients are 3 hours long).
All complementary medicine is welcomed.
The health of the staff is as important as the health of the patients.
Care is infused with fun and play.
Can you guess what he and his wife named their sons?
Ken
Good that it recognizes differences in fat quality, but there’s no mention of the fact that most organic milk is subjected to ultra-high-temp pasteurization (to lengthen shelf life), which pretty much completes destruction of active enzymes, proteins.
The mom buyers club in Mammoth is growing rapidly. They absolutely love their raw milk…this is going to be real fun. No reefers needed….cold as heck at 13,000 feet and only 30 min.just keep the heaters off. Weather permitting of course. This is a first, but won’t last long. The weights will soon exceed the planes capacity. Then it will be back to trucks next summer and other ideas etc… Fun for now…maybe even get a chance to ski..have not done that in years!
Litigation lawyers and their clients do not appear to have any misgivings with regards to their focus on microbes and small farmers, whom they hold responsible and point the finger of blame. If they did one would think that they would change tactics and devote more of their time addressing the following destructive and invasive technologies. No doubt its easier for them to single out a microbe and small farmer who is merely struggling to survive. Indeed, they are burning bridges and biting off the hand that feeds them.
But some scientists, farmers and veterinarians are talking about another form of animal abuse: stuffing animals with feed grown from genetically engineered crops drenched in glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp.
“We’ve got a real mess,” says Dr. Art Dunham, an Iowa veterinarian who has treated farm animals for several decades. Dunham is a staunch believer that GMO crops are wreaking havoc with the health of animals and humans.
Consumers know that CAFO cows are routinely fed preemptive antibiotics, which alter the animals’ gut bacteria. But what many people don’t realize, says Dunham, is that the animals are consuming far more antibiotics than just those intentionally administered at the feeding lots. In fact, many of the pesticides, including glyphosate patented under the number #7771736, act not only as broad-spectrum pesticides, but as broad-spectrum biocides. And these antibiotic chemicals are applied to millions of acres of plants that end up in animal feed, Dunham says. The result? Some of the animals’ gut bacteria and parasitic organisms are no longer able to carry out important metabolic processes, says Dunham.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_28062.cfm
Ken
It is then…not much of a stretch for any food liability law firm to take this state investigation study and attach it to the complaint to the insurance company. Wham Bam…sign the check!!
That is the current liability system. However…that is not the true origin of the liability or true cause. That is the design of how we superficially assign blame and further suppress the whole truth of what really drives pathogens and their virilence and most importantly…what creates a weakened immune depressed human host.
Welcome to reality and our system!!
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/817694
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/11/raw-milk-food-poisoning/3985549/
its prominence in USA Today is a measure of how desperate the opponents of REAL MILK are. The people who put together this piece of DIS-information do not deserve to be called “scientists”
http://americanlivewire.com/2013-12-12-dangers-of-raw-milk-1-in-6-get-sick-warns-minnesota-department-of-health-12122013/
Shelly, absolutely, supporters are organizing and planning to attend the Foxboro Board of Health meeting on Monday evening. Info here: https://www.facebook.com/marawmilk
– Is there a contingency plan if things go wrong? What can they do to ensure access to raw milk w/o the farm going out of business? As one example: Is a cowshare possible? “Retail sale” seems to be the target – well, what if “sales” were taken out of the picture?
– Are costumers meeting at some place, some other time, before the BoH meeting, to discuss strategy?
– Does someone, other than the Lawtons, have a list of consumer names so that they can organize separately on their own?
– Have they began a media campaign (other than this blog and the FB group) to put forth their POV?
– Are there other creative or tried-and-true ways for consumers to persuade/pressure the Health Board to make the right decision?
BTW, big media buzz about a CDC study supposedly showing that 1-in-6 MN raw milk consumers get sick from it (http://www.medicaldaily.com/raw-milk-health-risks-cdc-report-says-studies-analyzing-harmful-effects-raw-milk-are-just-tip-264893). Reading the study, it was never proven, it’s only an estimate, and based on conjecture, but as no group is rebutting it yet, the mass media and public health community are just lapping this up. Likely this disinformation will be raised at the meeting as “proof” that restrictions are required. 🙁
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nXPd9LFqVI
The poisonous dis-information insinuated by the Minnesota Dept. of Health is fast-acting. At the URL below, we see how its being spun + amplified so as to pretend
< Researchers from the Minnesota Department of Health said recent studies examining raw milks detrimental effect on our heath are only the tip of the iceberg after around one in six Minnesotans fell ill after trying unpasteurized milk over the span of a decade. >
Ah so, one-sixth the population of the state of Minnesota : first of all, did drink raw milk ; And, second, got sick after doing so. Mean to tell me that 860,000 people fell ill last year, out of a total of 5,379,000 in the Great State of Minnesota? Talk about an epidemic!! Geepers thats ‘way more than all the complaints against all the fast-food joints in Ham-merica Yet no-one noticed, til the guys in the white labcoats came along and pointed it out? Quick! Someone tell Marler & Co. about this the ambulance-chasers just hit the jackpot of insurance claims
But seriously, folks …. what utter balderdash. proving again that nothings too far-fetched when profitability of the corporate CAFOs hangs in the balance as it is now, with the Campaign for REAL MILK demonstrating daily why informed consumers reject the Milk Protein Concentrate + all the rest of the ersatz milk ingredients adulterating the stuff on retail shelves labeled homo milk.
On the front lines of a hot war, they say ; sometimes, the best recognizance you can get is, getting shot at. All The Authorities did by puking-out this piece of transparent non-sense, is = reveal how desperate they are. As well as sullying the reputations of propaganda outfalls who disseminated it without a fact-check
Medical Daily
http://www.medicaldaily.com/raw-milk-health-risks-cdc-report-says-studies-analyzing-harmful-effects-raw-milk-are-just-tip-264893
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G17z9DjjEOA
It is crazy talk by desparate highly biased industry spokespeople. Absolute garbage. I posted a response to the article under the comments section of the article. After me…10 more raw milk consumers chimed in with their take on the authors bias. Again, the FDA shoots itself in their own foot. Intended suppression of raw milk interest has resulted in increased interest and demand. When will they learn?
Mark, it may seem like crazy talk, but they are deadly serious about pinning such big numbers on raw milk. They have RAWMI in their sights, as you’ll see from my latest post.
Shelly, there is a lot of organizing going on. I’d encourage you to promote the Monday evening meeting among your friends and fellow raw milk drinkers.
Here is an article about the upcoming hearing, and how it fits into the national struggle over raw milk, that I wrote for the Foxboro Reporter:
http://www.foxbororeporter.com/articles/2013/12/12/opinion/columns/14419930.txt
” . . . the thousands of legitimate studies on GMOs tell a reassuring story.”
[end quotes]
Really?? Reassuring, huh. Well, I’m not convinced OR reassured, but I do agree that most of the mommy bloggers are a waste of people’s reading time.
Read the whole story here – – -> http://www.nationalreview.com/article/365991/biotechs-mommy-issue-julie-gunlock#!
Scroll waaaaaay down and read the comment section. Entertaining, I must say.
[quote]
“Whole Foods Market challenged its Greek yogurt suppliers to create unique options for shoppers to enjoy including exclusive flavors, non-GMO options and organic choices, the statement continued. At this time, Chobani has chosen a different business model, so Whole Foods Market will be phasing Chobani Greek Yogurt out of its stores in early 2014 to make room for product choices that arent readily available on the market.
But, according to McGuinness, Whole Foods never gave Chobani an opportunity to come up with the kind of unique product offerings that the supermarket said it gave to all of its suppliers not that the yogurt company would have created a special product just for Whole Foods, anyway, he said, given that the retailer makes up only 0.5 percent of Chobanis sales.
We have a different business model: We are inclusive; they are exclusive. Were for the 99 percent and theyre for the 1 percent, he said.
The issue Chobani and other yogurt brands face in making their products organic or GMO-free is that finding cattle feed that isnt made from GMO ingredients is difficult and costly, they say.
Despite some skepticism over Whole Foods motives, advocates of GMO labeling say they are excited to see the retailer take a big step toward its Right to Know commitment, which vowed to label all products containing GMOs in its U.S. and Canadian stores by 2018.”
[end quote]
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/chobani-vs-whole-foods-over-gmos-101380.html
Meanwhile “Chobani”, which evidently has some pretensions to be a superior product, has simply outed itself as typically mass-produced industrially poisoned junk.
This has been a major criticism of WFM all along, from the OCA and others – that WFM runs a kind of scam, pretending to be based on organic and other high-quality food, when really most of its stock is composed of sham “natural” products which are made with the same toxic industrial ingredients as more familiar brands.
WFM had to be forced into proclaiming its labeling policy, and plenty of us have been skeptical. But if it’s really putting pressure on these non-organic vendors to improve their product, that’s good.
Meanwhile Chobani deserves nothing but contempt for its lies. It doesn’t get any more pro-1% than to carry Monsanto’s water. Where it comes to this kind of thing, you’re either with Monsanto or against it.
http://althealthworks.com/162/organic-farming-head-on-landmark-gmo-lawsuit/#comment-120
Around here there’s more and more good quality local meat available, including chicken. The farmers have attained varying degrees of healthfulness in their feed, but everyone wants to get away from GMOs completely, one way or another.
I may be involved in raising chickens myself this coming year. We’re going to do our best to not use anything GMO, though it’ll be tough.
http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/12/08/australian-farmers-gain-mass-consumer-support-gmo-pollution/
One word of advice: buy your chicks locally just as buying your veggies. The large email order hatcheries might be selling the offspring of GMO birds that may already have inherited pesticides, hormones etc. in their metabolism.