CDC investigator Megin Nichols, who gathered information for the agency’s report accusing Miller’s Organic Farm of having produced raw milk that sickened individuals in California and Florida.
Those of you old enough may recall a television show of the late 1950s and early 1960s, “To Tell the Truth”. It featured a panel of celebrities charged with correctly picking out from among three anonymous individuals the one with an unusual occupation or experience, say a Hollywood stunt man. After the celebrities were done questioning the three, and making their selections, the three were dramatically commanded, “Will the real Hollywood stunt man please stand up.” In one show, the celebrity panel quizzed three men, to try to figure out which one was the real Dr. Seuss—it was fun entertainment.
The show is long gone, but I keep thinking how helpful it would be if we could use that format–especially the show’s final command–to solve a new CDC raw milk mystery and identify the real California listeriosis victim highlighted by the agency in its March 18 report accusing Miller’s Organic Farm of having sickened two individuals with bad raw milk, one in Florida (who died) and one in California. We learned about the Florida “victim” last week only when a relative went public with her recollections of the victim’s illness experience with advanced cancer prior to her death.
California has become a different situation. Though two weeks have passed since the CDC report was posted online, and it has received media exposure in hundreds of publications reaching millions of people, no one has come forward claiming to be a “victim” of bad raw milk from Miller’s Organic Farm. It is a new CDC raw milk mystery.
Amos Miller of Miller’s Organic Farm has inquired with California food club members, to no avail. One of the California food club organizers, who doesn’t want to be identified, says she is equally baffled: “If anyone here has had any (medical) problems, I am the first to hear about it. Not one person has said anything.” Leading her to conclude: “It’s either fake or someone with a compromised immune system.” She adds that if milk from Miller’s was tainted, “It would be impossible for one person to get sick…There would be a dozen people or more who were sick.”
So all we know about the California “victim” is one factoid from the CDC report—that the individual was 81 years old. We don’t know if it was a man or a woman. Or where in California the individual lives. Or how long he or she was hospitalized. Or more to the point, we don’t know if she or he had some other medical condition, like the woman in Florida who was diagnosed with advanced cancer, and may have contracted listeriosis as a result of having a weakened immune system, and perhaps not from raw milk.
Public health officials are tight-lipped, to wit:
*A CDC investigator in the case, Megin Nichols (pictured above), who conducted interviews of the deceased woman’s family in Florida, wouldn’t return my calls or respond to my emails concerning the situation in California.
*When I inquired further at CDC, a public information representative referred me to the California Department of Public Health for more information about the illness there.
*A CDPH official replied to my request with a single sentence: “The California Department of Public Health does not release information about individual cases to protect patient’s confidentiality.”
The mystery deepens when you try to understand the genetic “matching” that links Miller’s Organic Farm to the two supposed cases of listeriosis. It seems that the two cases of listeriosis, in California and Florida, were identified by state public health agencies based on laboratory tests of the sickened individuals. The findings become part of a national database known as PulseNet. (According to the CDC, “PulseNet performs DNA fingerprinting on Listeria bacteria isolated from ill people by using techniques called pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and whole genome sequencing (WGS). CDC PulseNet manages a national database of these DNA fingerprints to identify possible outbreaks.”)
From the genetic characteristics of the pathogen in the patients, a “match” was made to the genetic characteristics of the pathogen found in Miller’s Organic Dairy chocolate milk confiscated at the Weston A. Price Foundation national conference last November.
When I inquired with the CDC public information representative as to whether the listeria pathogen found in the California and Florida individuals might have matched up to listeria in any other foods, she responded: “FDA sequenced the isolates from the raw milk product and compared it to all sequenced isolates available to them. The patient isolates were the only ones that were very similar to the product isolate. CDC with its partners in the state and local public health departments and food regulatory agencies followed up on this lead. Their investigations indicate that raw milk produced by Miller’s Organic Farm in Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania is the likely source of this outbreak as described on the CDC website.”
However, non-CDC health experts I have spoken with caution that “closely related genetically” (as stated in the CDC report) or “very similar” (as stated by the CDC representative) are not the same as an exact match. Indeed, the CDC’s reference to “DNA fingerprinting” is highly misleading, they say, since no match of the sort law enforcement gets with fingerprints happens in the CDC’s world. The genetic similarities are identified visually, and thus are judgment calls. Similarities are common in dozens or even hundreds of foods, one public health expert told me.
So we have this situation where the public health people are saying about the CDC report, essentially, “Trust us. We can’t give you any details at all about the illnesses, but we know we’ve got a match.” Yet we have the Florida case, where a woman apparently referred to by the CDC as having contracted listeriosis from raw milk produced by Miller’s Organic Farm, actually was being treated with chemotherapy for advanced cancer, and wasn’t known to have consumed raw milk. (A member of her family came forward after the CDC report was issued March 18.)
It doesn’t seem as if we are going to get the truth, like on the game show. The only party named has been Miller’s Organic Farm, which has been smeared by a CDC intent mainly on creating doubts about raw milk.
Thank you David,
If it weren’t for your astute ability to dig for the truth the Miller situation would have amounted to little more then a blame game, at least on this website, which is more then likely what tptb want. Unfortunately, the mainstream media parties are led around by the nose and are incapable of providing an objective analysis of the situation. This whole scenario appears to be more then just a “judgment call”…
When it comes to the ambiguous nature of DNA fingerprinting health officials can more or less say and do anything that they want and get away with it. Unfortunately, a good many people swallow the official story, hook line and sinker, especially if it means reinforcing their argument that “raw milk is inherently dangerous”
In rewording a previous statement that I made, “31.89 million people or more are potentially walking around with the Listeria bacterium in their guts. Considering these numbers and the ubiquitous nature of the Listeria microbe in the environment, what difference are a minute number of L. microbes in food going to make? Surely, there are other more important triggering factors at play here that the tptb are neglecting (or intentionally and deliberately refusing) to address because of their narrow focus on a microbe (and aversion to raw milk sales)?”
This brings to mind what prominent evolutionist Steve Jones reminded his audience of in the context of man versus chimp DNA-sharing: “We also share about 50% of our DNA with bananas and that doesn’t make us half bananas, either from the waist up or the waist down.” Indeed, the problem with interpreting genetic relationship including current DNA fingerprinting is that it tends to be very subjective especially among non-scientists and regulators.
Ken, I have listened to a couple of presentations by FDA scientists about Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), which in the last few years has become much easier and cheaper to carry out. These scientists emphasize that this technology is meant to be used only in conjunction with other evidence to identify sources of illness after outbreaks occur. No one mentioned using this technology to carry out witch hunts.
Can Millers take the CDC to court? Seems like the CDC’s evidence would not hold up.
Very difficult to sue the government. And expensive. The government has unlimited funds, and time, in the event you are even able to get a case heard.
@ David: That’s why all the gubmint agencies get away with stuff like this – because they can and they know they can.
And WE are the source of the unlimited funds!
I buy from Miller’s farm often and have never gotten sick. This is a set-up. It’s a total shame. These farmers do EVERYTHING they can to keep the milk safe. They wan to keep raw milk legal as much as we do.
It has been clear at least since the time CDC declared that HIV causes AIDS that they simply can’t be trusted to tell the truth. Microbes are so tiny, so ubiquitous, and so crucial to the functioning of all biological processes in plants and animals, that for any scientific body to make a claim like this is totally ludicrous. The understanding of the role that microbes play in disease and health is in its infancy. What I wish to make perfectly clear is that the CDC doesn’t what the hell it is talking about. Although Listeria is a bacterium, it is also clear that virology is a mess, with little agreement among scientists about anything. Koch’s postulates have long since gone the way of the dodo. Though elegant in formulation, they are meaningless as science. Bacteriology is pretty murky, too. Basically, they think they found something that looks like something they think they found, and that’s the best you can say about it. Those of us who have delved deeply into the CDC’s perfidy involving U.S. government vaccination policy know that these “scientists” lie repeatedly, use criminal fraudsters(such as Paul Thorsen) to conjure pseudoscience, and are welcomed into the medical industry with open arms once their terms of government “service” come to an end. A cesspool of corruption, as RFK, Jr. puts it, is an apt descriptor of this out-of-control agency. And Congress is doing nothing about it. Amos Miller is a good man who deserves our full support.
I work in enforcement in California and manage a complaint line and every defendant has the right to know who is accusing them of wrongdoing. We release this information to defendants all the time except when we don’t know the identity of the claimant. I’ve been drinking raw milk consistently since 2008 and have not gotten any ill effect. In fact I don’t know anyone who has suffered ill effect from drinking it. CA has a lot of problems with it’s government agencies, the prisons are under federal receivership for prisoner abuse. Other agencies are being investigated by legislatures and internal auditors. Maybe CDC is one of these agencies that has gone rogue.
David I implore you to continue to report on this story and attempt to unearth the truth. There are so many things about this cdc report and story which raise suspicions. How did the CDC link these two supposed cases of listeria which both supposedly took place in the year 2014 in two persons who lived on opposite sides of the country with a supposed genetically similar strain of listeria supposedly found in a sample of millers milk in November of 2015? If both of these two supposed cases of listeria (the California person has yet to be identified and has not come forth) were reported to public health authorities in 2014 in two states on opposite coasts of the USA how could the CDC identify only two cases in far off states as being a part of an outbreak? And only being linked together to form an outbreak only after supposedly being linked to a strain of listeria supposedly found I’m millers milk at least one year later as the millers milk tested wasn’t tested until the end of the year 2015 in the month of November? This seems like unprecedented detective work by the CDC that they could link only two cases of listeria on opposite sides of the country as part of an out break two years later and a year or more after sampling millers milk in November of 2015. How did they make the connection between these two cases, one of which is still a mystery? I also noticed in the CDC report that they specifically mention the person in Florida as having drunk millers milk which we know is possibly false but in regards to the mystery woman in California they only say about her that she drank raw milk prior to becoming ill, they do NOT say that she drank Milk from Millers Organic Farm. This to me is a telling omission. Did she drink raw milk from another source? There is suspicion that a California raw milk competitor of Millers unhappy with the Millers selling their milk in California may have notified the CDC about Millers. The millers milk that they tested from the November 2015 trade show which this competitor was also supposedly marketing their products at as well, who procured the millers raw milk at this trade show for the CDC to test? Perhaps a competitor may have procured it for the CDC and presented them with the millers samples? Was the milk tested even from Millers farm it makes me wonder? Was their milk tampered with by someone with an ulterior motive before testing? I know this suggestion sounds like unreasonable conspiracy theory but this story stinks to high heaven so badly that I think theories such as the one I proposed are worthy of being on the table.
Steve, good catch on the CDC wording about the California “victim” not even having been associated with Miller raw milk. Here’s what the CDC report says: “Interviews were conducted with the ill person from California and family members for both ill people. It was reported that both ill people drank raw milk before they got sick. The family of the deceased person in Florida reported purchasing raw milk from Miller’s Organic Farm.” So the CDC has two individuals it says got sick from raw milk, and by the CDC’s own admission, they may well have consumed raw milk from two different sources. We have come to learn that the one that was associated with Miller’s milk, in Florida, was diagnosed with advanced cancer, and in chemotherapy, and never observed drinking raw milk.
Amazing. This case has about as much foundation as a kid’s sand castle during high tide.
We will probably never get the truth. They don’t have to tell the truth and there is no accountability. The CDC is a private organization. Perhaps they can be sued? The Millers certainly have standing.
This is typical Stasi “secret police” tactics that harken to the cold war days . . . except it is our own government who has become the secret police. In typical fashion, they hire goose stepping idiots like Megan Nichols to do their dirty work. On top of everything else, she likely does not have a clue about most of the science behind this. She is just doing what she is told. I am sure she has gone to seminars where John Sheehan or Bill Marler were the keynote speakers. Remember Ronald Reagan’s famous line from his inaugural address from January 1981, “. . . government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Time for an FOI request or three (one to each of the CDC, California, and Florida governments) in order to try to uncover the truth?
Ok, so it is Federally ILLEGAL to ship raw milk across state lines. HOW did someone in Florida purchase raw milk produced in Pennsylvania? How did someone in California purchase raw milk produced in Pennsylvania? Miller’s is NOT shipping milk there, it is not available in either state! Did they travel to Pennsylvania just to pick up a gallon of milk?
Folks, all we ave in a case like this is Prayer- I ask everyone here, pray thanks for this situation, pray for the salvation of anyone committing lies, and pray for God’s will in their lives and the best for them and their families. The Bible says to praise God for ALL things and when Paul and Silas were in jail, in stockades, chained, beaten and bleeding, they sang Hymns and praised God and their chains fell off and the doors were opened- AND the jailor got saved. So keep that in mind, and praise, it’s powerful. God WILL fix their wagons.
re sage advice ||||| no doubt Paul and his adjutant were keeping the food laws, [ as set out in the Septuagent, which they used to prove their arguments to their kinsmen, about the Messiah of Israel having come in the flesh ] so they had a bit more going for them in the righteousness dept. than the juda-ized church, today.
… Point being = urging us to follow their model as to peace-making, are you keeping the laws they did?
And now back to your regularly scheduled food freedom news time and again:
http://www.naturalnews.com/053511_raw_milk_pasteurization_allergies.html
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/04/01/consumers-deserve-know-what-their-food/EjcqE7jqpYlqViEaFKQNTJ/story.html
Thanks David.
Is there ANY evidence that the two “victims” had anything in common? They seem pretty far apart to have the same issue – and when you first mentioned the DNA testing – similarity is NOT the same. There have been cases in which courts have REFUSED DNA TESTIMONY because the inaccuracy of it. The DNA tests take a sample of a section of genetics – and replicate that section multiple times to get their measurable sample. Family shared genetics and more can prove disruptive to real proof at times.
Brad, the main commonality I can determine is that the two “victims” were elderly. The CDC says frequently that the elderly are among those especially vulnerable to listeriosis, because their immune systems can be depressed, especially when they are being treated for other diseases, like cancer (in the case of the Florida “victim”). That’s partly why I was curious to determine what was going on medically with the California “victim”–to see if there was another medical condition at work.
But their age seems the only commonality we can come up with from the CDC report. Even the report indicates that if the two actually drank raw milk (which is very much in doubt), they may very well have consumed raw milk from different sources (since the CDC could make a connection with the Pennsylvania dairy for only the Florida individual).
The more we assess the CDC report, the more likely it seems to be a case of guilt by association, and very dubious association at that.
David – it really sounds like they are reaching so far they’re going to fall on their face.
This looks like another desperate attempt by those running things – DESPERATE to retain control – losing their grip over people, who no longer just believe “authority” any longer because they are turning out to be FAR more crooked and biased, liars and fools, than the average person seems to be.
i think they are desperate to convince people that another good thing (in this case raw milk) is bad. Their story is so unconvincing, that they are chasing weak straws. It really makes them look pretty stupid in my eyes.
There is ZERO PROOF – this is just hearsay, slander, and perhaps libel. These CDC people are just bad.
Oh – another thing that a lot of people don’t know, is that the CDC is a private corporation – for profit. That’s why they push the flu-shots so much that iron is in their fire. They have a Dun and Bradstreet listing at their Atlanta HQ address…
The plot thickens…
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2016/04/2-million-base-pairs-later-cdc-stands-by-dna-evidence/
A more detailed explanation of the CDC’s findings.
This is really more quotes and explanation from the CDC about how wonderful the genetic technology is. But there is still no information about the California “victim” beyond what is in the CDC report, which isn’t very much. There is no cause of death for the Florida “victim”–the Florida Dept of Public Health refuses to confirm listeriosis as the cause of death.
FSN assumes the California “victim” reported drinking raw milk, but if you re-read the CDC report, it isn’t clear whether the “victim” reported drinking raw milk or family members did (the CDC said the individual was 81 years old). The CDC report couldn’t even confirm that milk from Miller’s Organic Farm was the cause of the California illness.
I’m sorry FSN didn’t interview Peggy Stevenson, the Florida family member I interviewed, who was hosting the woman who died in Florida. I spoke with Peggy about a week ago, and she told me she was planning to speak with other members of the media. It sounds to me as if there was some miscommunication that prevented her from speaking with the FSN reporter.
an excellent interview with Mark McAffee = worth watching to get the facts about what the man says, versus what is said about him “Cheap Raw milk is dangerous raw milk” ….
I think this is the interview, on this page:
http://www.3cowmarketing.com/charlotte-smith-mark-mcafee-cheap-raw-milk-is-dangerous-raw-milk/
Thanks for posting 🙂 We got really great feedback on this post from producers all over the US and Canada, thankful for some help and guidance for small producers.
–Charlotte Smith
Thanks Gordon,
Mark is indeed passionate about his reasons for producing raw milk and I completely agree with his comment in the interview for the need to “approach people holistically”. Unfortunately, his dismissive statement that his critics are mere “background noise” does little to reinforce his holistic viewpoint.
I respect Mark and all that he is doing and I would hope that any criticism I leveled at him, his methods or RAWMI was not construed as anything less then offering a constructive and well-reasoned opinion about his work and that of RAWMI. I think we owe ourselves that much if we truly care.
good, short uplifting video atop the website of TheBovine.wordpress.com today = showing the gathering of raw milk fans, in Newmarket Ontario, a few weeks ago. Nice looking cow, in excellent condition for this time of year, too
Mary,
In the FSN article you referenced, the term “DNA fingerprint” as it pertains to bacteria is a misnomer in my view that has wormed its way into scientific literature in order to give the impression that the process of genome sequencing of a microbe is as reliable as a print of the unchanging patterns on the end of a person’s finger. Even if genome sequencing is indeed that accurate, this does not mean that the identified microbe isolated from the individual is likely responsible for the illness in question let alone any complications. To quote the late Dr. Daniel H Duffy Sr. Geneva, Ohio, We “are victims of the germ theory propaganda that has about 85% of the world’s “educated” population under its control… To say that bacteria cause disease is like saying that the flies cause the manure pile and firemen cause house fires because each of the latter are found on the scene. Bacteria are EFFECTS…. not CAUSES.
Perhaps you could answer this question. In what way does identifying a specific microbe enable humans to control it in a practical sense; in other words, without undermining the “natural” integrity of the entire microbial ecosystem and its symbiotic relationship to humans, animals, plants and the environment?
And these are the people that are telling us that raw milk is a health hazard and that “their” pathogen-focused approach to health care is both scientific and rational?
http://www.examiner.com/article/pediatrics-journal-says-to-stop-calling-breastfeeding-natural
“A new article in the journal Pediatrics is calling on health professionals to stop saying that breastfeeding is natural, arguing that doing so gives the impression that natural parenting practices are healthier. The authors have started a public campaign to end the positive use of the word natural, claiming that it is associated with such “problematic” practices as home birth, homeschooling and the rejection of GMO foods, and that natural parenting movements are interfering with vaccination efforts.”
Thanks again Gordon,
The coverage of the food rally at the Newmarket Courthouse was great.
Unfortunately the TVO documentary left a great deal unsaid.
As far as drawing conclusions from the genetic matching of the samples, it makes more sense to say that one of these people somehow spread listeriosis, which got back to Miller’s farm, rather than the other way around. The idea that these few test samples show that Miller’s milk made these people sick (one year earlier, no less!) is ridiculous. The link drawn is so flimsy it’s cringeworthy. And that’s IF the genetic matching is to believed as clear connection.
I still think that the source of the chocolate syrup or whatever additives were used needs to be investigated. Listeria flourishes in factory conditions, not on farms. Let’s see if there are genetic matches with pasteurized chocolate milk which used ingredients from the same source. Let’s see the factory inspected – what other foodstuffs were produced using the same equipment?
In Nov 2014, there were also two hospitalizations in WA state from listeriosis caused by milkshakes (served in a hospital, of all places!). In Aug 2014, 10 people got ill from some unknown bug in chocolate bars. In May 2014, 32 people got sick from some unknown bug in pasteurized chocolate milk. How about we see if there is some common origin for that chocolate?