I’m still amazed about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s accusation that most raw milk drinkers welcome pathogens in their food (described in my previous post.
Aside from personal views we may have about the role of bacteria in our food and bodies, it’s important to appreciate that the FDA’s carefully considered comment was a political one, not a scientific one. As I said, it was a canard, a crude, vicious sort of accusation that must be understood in terms of its political message.
The message might simply be that the FDA is frustrated that ever more people ignore its warnings about the dangers of raw milk, and its officials were expressing their frustration.
More ominously, the FDA has determined that its fear mongering about the dangers of raw milk aren’t working, so it is moving to a different level of battle. If it was using rifles and hand grenades before, it might now be seen as resorting to chemical weapons.
As a Jew, maybe I’m more sensitive to canards that some others. Throughout history in the Middle East and Europe, canards about Jews have been used to foment deadly attacks. In Russia and Poland, a popular canard was that Jews had killed Jesus, and must be punished…again, and again. The Nazis used the canard that the Jews were robbing Germany of its wealth to justify attacks on Jews that escalated into mass murder.
In the U.S., canards were long used against blacks. A popular one was that black men lusted after white women, and fabricated accusations were used again and again to justify lynchings.
You see, a canard is a way to dehumanize one group, and set it up as a scapegoat for the majority.
Why would the FDA be switching tactics at this point in time? Maybe because it sees itself losing the battle over raw milk and food rights. Just look at what has been happening over the last few weeks:
- Supporters of Vernon Hershberger are planning a gathering at his next pre-trial event, March 18. in Baraboo, WI. Thats when a state judge will be hearing arguments on whether Hershberger should lose certain rights to call witnesses at his upcoming trial in May because he failed to initiate administrative proceedings with the state agriculture authorities after they shut his farm store down in 2010. Hershberger has argued that his religious convictions prevent him from initiating legal action against anyone.
- Simultaneously, raw milk supporters in Wisconsin are gearing up to push for new legislation allowing the sale of raw milk from dairy farms. The legislation hasnt been formally introduced, but that is expected shortly. Big Ag is already gearing up to oppose the legislation, in Americas Dairy State.
- A push for raw milk legalization in Iowa. The legislation would allow raw milk sales from permitted dairy farms. Hearings are in the process of being held, and among those testifying are Mary McGonigle Martin, the California mom whose son, Chris, was sickened by raw milk back in 2006 (and who has commented here frequently). Also on the agenda is Ted Beals, the Michigan retired pathologist who has developed data he contends shows fewer illnesses from raw milk than reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
- Raw milk proponents in Texas are pushing to extend permitted sales to farmers markets and for delivery. Raw milk is currently allowed only from permitted farms. Hearings were held this past week in the Texas House of Representatives.
- In two states that have long opposed raw milk under any circumstances–Maryland and Rhode Island–moves are afoot to gain legalization of herdshares and farm sales. Maryland is the home of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which helps explain its long opposition. But now legislation is pending, and according to Liz Reitzig of the Farm Food Freedom Coalition, hearings are being held that could lead to passage…if enough people get behind it. She is testifying next week in hearings at the Maryland House of Representatives for HB502, which would legalize herdshares. And a Rhode Island representative is pushing for hearings on legalizing raw milk as well.
- Finally, in Minnesota, supporters of raw dairy farmer Michael Hartmann, who was just charged with three new criminal charges for selling raw milk, are asking for messages of support, as well as donations to help him through these difficult times. His contact info: Michael Hartmann, General Delivery, Gibbon, MN 55335 lecheverte@earthlink.net.
These efforts may or may not succeed. But what I hear in each of these places is that people are worked up, and pushing hard. Even if they don’t succeed on behalf of particular legislation this year, they’ll be back, in those states and a growing number of others.
So here’s my theory about the FDA’s switch in tactics: The FDA sees the shift in momentum that is occurring, the growing upset of people over being told they can’t eat certain foods and can’t acquire them privately, directly from farmers. They are working for change. For the FDA, things are getting out of hand. Desperate times require desperate measures.
As Michael Schmidt of Canada often says, We havent seen the worst of what they are capable of. Fasten your seat belts.
http://www.jlucina.com/blog/study-reveals-breast-milk-contains-more-700-types-bacteria
Ken
http://www.inquisitr.com/549426/raw-milk-may-soon-be-legal-in-iowa/
Interesting idea…I’ll have to think about that one.
…
Hi Mike,
I appreciate your great comments on the blog, but I would very much appreciate if you would try to post fewer comments. One way to do that is to include two or three points in a single comment, rather than doing separate comments for each individual point or extra thought you might have. If you could help that way, it will make it easier for others to read your comments.
Thanks in advance.
David
…
Ok Dave. I guess it time to get back to work anyway. Thanks everyone. And thanks Dave.
The breast milk newborns drink regulates their development of bacterial flora. The biological role of the bacteria found in the milk is still not quite understood, yet it is crucial. A previous study published in the journal Current Nutrition & Food Science found that breast milk contains substantial amounts of friendly bacteria which helps babies absorb nutrients and develop the immune system.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/254758.php
Mike, just to clarify, this site is first and foremost a community. People of different views are welcome, even encouraged, so long as they show basic respect for each other. Free speech is fine, yet even free speech has its limits–you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, for example. Thanks.
” I’m still amazed about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s accusation that most raw milk drinkers welcome pathogens in their food ”
Why are you amazed that the FDA is trying to make the conversation all about pathogens? This is the reason for their statement .This has been the strategy for years. It has worked very well because as you say,even most raw milk drinkers believe the lie that pathogens are the cause of disease. They simply want everyone to endlessly discuss whether or not there are pathogens in raw milk. What are these microbes that they call pathogens? What are these microbes really doing in our microbiomes. If we truly would understand the role of these microbes in our health, maybe we could stop going in circles around the topic of pathogens.
“The permaculture principle of turning problems into solutions goes hand in hand with one of the main ideas at the core of permaculture: working with nature rather than against it.
Don’t waste your money, time and energy by trying to force something that nature never intended to happen. Look creatively at what you already have. Try to see the benefits and look at ways to use the situation to your advantage.
“What I like best about this permaculture principle is that it applies to the rest of our life as well. Next time you face a problem remember this principle and search for the good in the situation. It’s always there, all it takes is the willingness to see it”
http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/permaculture-principles-4.html
Using bioremediation to heal a polluted and diseased bioregion, Permaculture is an awesome strategy for taking care of our own backyard. A permaculturist is concerned with the health and stability of a system, and practices permaculture because the general abuse of our environment has led to a disintegration of many ecological systems. This disintegration has had dire consequences for the diversity of species, the cleanliness of air and water, the fertility of soil, and the general health of humanity and life forms altogether.
Permaculture can be considered another bioremediation technique. It restores the ecology of a system by designing in natural elements like microrryzal fungi and organic material to recreate complete soil, trees to remove CO2 depletion and generate oxygen, plants for human health and plants for habitats. Where the land has been degraded ruined by overgrazing, deforestation, dams, invasion of exotics, degradation of habitat, destruction of water quality, ad nauseum, permaculture addresses these sorry conditions with an integrated design, not an isolated mechanism for rectifying one condition.
Many of the permaculture strategies are based on reducing the impact on the land by reducing the need for extractive technologies and transportation. The axiom of Permaculture that the problem is the solution reveals the willingness of designers to work with what they have, not with what they can buy, extract, import, manufacture, or throw away. Our strategies will be low-impact and low-tech so that more problems are not created in the effort to solve one. A permaculture remediation project is as sophisticated as any environmental scientists solution, but the original source of knowledge deeply affects the process and the outcome.
There is a definite place is our excessively polluted world for technologies which can extract pollutants such as radioactive isotopes, PCBs, pesticides, and the like. But bioremediation does not remain the domain of ecological technology any more than your bodys health is administrated to by the modern medical system. Where natural systems prevail, natural designers must administrate. Its only natural.
http://egofelix.com/6746-bioregionalism-and-your-backyard
If we can see our bodies as ecosystems filled with microbes,then we can apply permaculture design principles to improve the health of our bodies.
A perceived problem could be that some microbes are reproducing much faster relative to the other microbes in the system than they normally do. Doctors would call this a bacterial infection. If we consider the system as a whole , we may be able to understand why this is happening. One of a microbe’s functions in the system is that of “natures janitor”. Some types of microbes are more virulent ( virile —meaning strong or resistant to extreme situations). Most of our microbiome do best under normal conditions .These microbes dominate in sheer numbers.A small number of our microbes do better in extreme conditions.They are an important part of our microbiome even though under normal conditions they occur in very small numbers. These microbes are called extremophiles. They are important when some kind of toxic substance has contaminated our bodies.The most numerous types of microbes do not have the resistance or virulence required to detoxify these contaminants.Their reproduction rate falls. The extremophiles have less competition for resources and so increase rapidly in number at the site of the toxic contamination. This is called bioremediation if we are talking about the environment outside of our bodies. Inside our bodies it is called medical bioremediation. What the extremophiles are doing is using the toxin as one source of energy to grow. In the process the toxin is broken down until the level of atoms at which point the extremophile can encapsulate a toxic atom such as arsenic,aluminum, lead etc. so that it can be harmlessly eliminated from our system. These janitors are doing very important work and rather than being attacked with antibiotics the elimination process should be supported.At some point the symptoms of elimination may be too much and intervention to give the body a rest may need to be taken. After the toxins have been reduced to a level that does not suppress our usually dominant microbes they can help participate in further clean up and healing.The extremophiles will slow their reproduction rate and the system will return to it’s previous state EXCEPT that now it will function better than before because the toxic buildup has been reduced. Occasional bouts of bioremediation will keep our bodies functioning better.The buildup of toxins in our bodies requires the regular intervention by the extremophiles in our microbiome in order to decrease the rate at which we age.
For those who want more information here is a PHD dissertation on this topic.
http://gradworks.umi.com/3392127.pdf
miguel
I totally understand where you’re coming from! I get addicted to this kind of stuff, and then I feel like a negligent parent. That’s why I keep popping in and out of this blog, which is probably not good etiquette.
during the 3rd Reich in Germany, were Christians such as Dietrich Bonhoffer and the White Rose movement, right or wrong, as they put their lives on the line, informing/ warning the nation of the impending woe from both red fascists and black fascists? Jesus said “no man has greater love than this … that he lay down his life for his friends”
what wonderful irony that last week – during Freedom to Read Week – the Supreme Court of Canada came down with its absurd ruling in the case of Saskatchewan Human rights tribunal versus Wiliam Whatcott. According to which ; it’s a crime to tell the Truth. In fact and in law, as I and my friend Bill Whatcott handed out flyers on the campus of University of BC last month, we’re now certified purveyors of “hate speech” per section 319 of the Criminal Code. For what? = for warning and informing the nation of harms consequent from artificial abortion and also homosexual activity
Of course you-all in the US can hardly believe that. Which is precisely what the good Germans were saying of the Nazis, during the early 1930s … “that can’t happen here”. Wake up people!!, there’s fire in the hold : this is where it’s headed = the race traitors in high places of govt. employing arms to dictate the NWo version of ‘reality’, regardless of the topic.
Miguel,
I think it is safe to say that the holistic view you are describing isn’t something that appeals to the FDA operatives on many levels.
As a member of the CA NFU delegation I offered a pro raw milk amendment to the hundred page long NFU policy manual. It passed with huge support. Pennsylvania and the North East farmers stood in support of my raw milk policy amendment stating that raw milk is the only growing segment of the dairy industry. The NFU policy manual is used broadly as a national farmers political position reference document for legislatures at state level and in Washington DC for farm policy. It is voted on by all delegates from all states.
Having a profoundly pro raw milk statement for farmers….and access to raw milk for consumers is huge!!!
Last year, a very short sentence about raw milk was argued and shot down. After a five minute speech my me and after some friendly political education in the halls…by yours truly….it passed with huge support in 2013. Progress is being made. No Question.
I find it fascinating that I was invited by conventional dairymen in CA to join the CA NFU delegation. All those times going to their meetings and their rallies in Sacramento and all those times I supported them on their milk pool issues finally paid off!! It takes coalition of dairymen to get things done! Raw milk is at the table. I would say now that raw milk is sitting a the head of the table!!
At one of the break out sessions, the CDC and FDA sat on a panel to promote farm safety. They spoke if swine flu and ecoli….it was interesting. Interesting how the FDA spends millions on such irrelevant numbers of illnesses. Just one death and 16 hospitalizations and 300 total cases. Considering asthma and its 4000 deaths, it would seem that money could be better spent to build immune systems and do more important things. I stood and addressed the FDA during this session. I thanked the, for meeting with farmers but requested that they open the gates of communications about raw milk and bio active foods that build immunity. They said that was why they were at the NFU.
Well….we will see.
It was our friends in Pennsylvania that stood and said that raw milk was the fastest growing sector of dairy. I do agree that cheese rocks!!! It is the ultimate expression of raw milk! Yum!!
It was a great feeling to have the support of nearly all of the US delegates on responsible raw milk policy. I felt all of the pain we have all endured….finally was for a purpose and progress. A manual with solid raw milk policy can now be carried in one hand,….voted by the farmers of America can be used as reference tool. All farmers as represented by their biggest organizations, stand behind raw milk as an emerging product!
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Lots of interest in farmers connecting directly to consumers and listening to consumers.
Mandatory GMO labeling for all foods sold in America got into the policy book. This is big!
Lots of interest in farmers connecting directly to consumers and listening to consumers.
Mandatory GMO labeling for all foods sold in America got into the policy book. This is big!
Showing up is done by those that have means and support. By description, that means that groups do better than individuals. Thoughts for those that believe in disengagement.
Too bad it didn’t pass the vote in California.
Until this year the Ontario branch of the NFU was one of three GFOS (General Farm Organizations) that received funding from the Ontario Government via the Farm Registration and Farm Organizations Funding program (FRFOF). The other two eligible organizations are the OFA (Ontario Federation of Agriculture and CFFO (Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario). To date they have proven to be little more then an elitist appendage of government with the remaining farm organizations having to fend for themselves.
The above program came to be as a result of lobbying efforts in the 1980s by the OFA, and I believe the CFFO was also involved, whereby the Ontario Government legislated into effect the above FRFOF. Of course they needed more bureaucracy to administer this program. It was baptized and is currently known as Agricorp.
In the beginning the NFU apposed the above program because the intent of the scheme was to cajole farmers into paying membership to a government approved GFO of their choice in exchange for a Provincial Sales Tax (PST) exemption as well as compensation on a property tax that was and still is unjust and inequitable. Unfortunately the NFU eventually capitulated to the scheme and decided to become part of the club from which they have been recently kicked out of. I think that is what they call an ironic twist of fate?
All I can say is beware of FDA and CDC involvement.
Ken
The winds have changed!!!
Calcitonin-salmon (Miacalcin, Fortical, Calcimar)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/05/risk-osteoporosis-drug/1965497/
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/257228.php
“Sleeping Pills Raise Hip Fracture Risk In Nursing Home Residents” “nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic drugs, a class of sleeping medications that includes Lunesta, Sonata, and Ambien.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-warns-of-rise-in-nightmare-bacteria/2013/03/05/5596b952-85cb-11e2-999e-5f8e0410cb9d_story.html
a retired electrician! I am at my daughter’s condo, we have been updating her kitchen (we completed) and master bath. I have learned more about plumbing and electricity than I ever cared to know. I do appreciate those who are professionals at their trades. My brother is an electrician in California, soon to retire. I’ll be on the phone with him regarding more electrical questions. (I have learned that builders do awful shortcuts).
There’s more information on *what’s in raw milk* here:
http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/what_is_in_raw_milk.html
I’d like to see pasteurized milk compete with that. There’s not a way – it could never even come close.
One of my best friends, who now lives in CT, discovered she had crohn’s about six years ago and I urged her to find raw milk (it’s legal in CT so she had no problem). She’s so much better after just one year on the milk she never went back to her regular doc, started seeing a ND. I’m slowly convincing her about the good fats/bad fats thing, too. She was fairly well brainwashed so it’s taking some time. She’s sold on raw milk though, and feels quite lucky to live where it’s readily available.
http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/nm/nightmare-bacteria-shrugging-off-antibiotics-on-rise-in-u-s
And then there is this Consumer Reports study which found lots of problems with pork in stores. Reminds me of their earlier report on chicken contamination at the store.
http://health.yahoo.net/articles/nutrition/whats-pork
But of course this is not a problem because you are going to cook these foods after you cut them up and contaminate every surface in your kitchen. I recall Mary Martin having no problem with these findings.
I will pay the higher fees for pastured meats/poultry or do without.
http://zoologysncn.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/sowmya-et-al-halophilic-metal-tolerant-bacteria-from-vembanad-lake-as-possible-means-of-bioremediation-of-lead-and-cadmium/
” Man, being at the top of the food chain, is at greater risk of suffering from health hazards associated with toxic metals because of bioaccumulation/ biomagnification. Sediment is the ultimate depository of many chemical compounds including heavy metals from natural and anthropogenic sources. Because of their highly diverse metabolic and physiological capabilities, microorganisms are capable of resisting high concentrations of toxic heavy metals/ xenobiotics in their environment and are often considered as effective tools of bioremediation of polluted environments”
” In the present study sediment samples from Vembanad Lake the largest lagoon backwater system on the southwest coast of India were screened for the presence of halophilic bacteria that are tolerant to heavy metals. A total of 35 bacterial strains belonging to different genera such as Alcaligenes, Vibrio, Kurthia, Staphylococcus and members of the family Enterobacteriaceae were isolated from 21 sediment samples”
” The Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations (MICs) against cadmium and lead for each isolate were determined. The isolates showed higher MIC against lead than cadmium. Based on the resistance limit concentration most of them were more tolerant to lead than cadmium at all the three salt concentrations tested. Metal reduction efficiency of selected isolates was also carried out. Isolates showed a maximum reduction efficiency of 37% and 99% against cadmium and lead respectively. The study reveals the future prospects of halophilic microorganisms in the field of bioremediation. The findings also disclose the vast treasure of unexplored microbial diversity of this Ramsar site.”
The growth of these bacteria are in response to the toxic environment inside the human body. Remove the toxic environment and the bacteria are deprived of their source of energy and in a healthy organ they cannot compete with the normal bacterial community. The problem comes when the toxic situation is so big that the symptoms of elimination are life threatening. In this case the support needed is to slow down the process of elimination . Killing the bacteria only prevents the elimination of the toxins and results in a bigger problem sometime in the future.On a small scale toxic buildup the bacteria have to be appreciated for eliminating the toxins with little damage to the body.
“The elements that, heretofore, biologists have regarded as basic to all life are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. Arsenic is normally a deadly poison, because arsenic, belonging as it does to the same group as phosphorus (though one row down in the periodic table of the elements). Before today, biologists had known of microbes (“small lives”) that could “breathe” arsenic. But today, astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon announced the discovery of a microbe that not only ingests arsenic but incorporates it into some of the most basic molecules that all life forms contain and use. These molecules include DNA (the genome), adenosine triphosphate (the “battery acid” of all cells), and acetyl-coenzyme A (a key facilitator of cellular metabolism), among others. (In fact, instead of adenosine triphosphate, this bacterium uses adenosine triarsenate.)”
“The discovery of GFAJ-1 now places such elemental substitutionary life forms within the realm of confirmed reality, rather than fantasy. The discovery of an arsenic-for-phosphorus life form suggests the existence of others, and might suggest the existence of silicon-based life.
This does not make it an extraterrestrial life form. It shows only that life can take a wider variety of forms than has been heretofore supposed. That this new form should depend on a simple substitution of one element by another is a predictable consequence of the periodicity of the properties of chemical elements, the very thing that makes the periodic table of the elements so valuable.
The obvious question arises: why would God create such a thing? The answer follows from the function that bacteria normally perform in any ecosystem: they are the janitors and garbage collectors of all ecosystems that include plants and animals. Strain GFAJ-1 is thus the equivalent of a “Haz-Mat” disposal specialist.”
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-arsenic-germ-and-what-it-really-means
http://www.cornucopia.org/2013/03/heres-a-way-to-eliminate-the-regulators-and-lawyers-and-build-community-at-the-same-time-organize-and-declare-food-sovereignty-like-sedgwick-maine/#more-7685
Anyone know how this is going today?
http://www.sedgwickmaine.org/images/stories/local-food-ordinance.pdf
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Local_Food_and_Self-Governance_Ordinance
http://lewrockwell.com/orig14/reitzig1.1.1.html
All of the talk about licensing in that article brings to mind the guy from India (?) who had fresh veggies in a basket on a bicycle (to sell in a busy part of town) and the police told him he couldn’t sell them without a license of some sort, which he could not afford to buy, so he set himself on fire in front of his two children and the police doods. I guess no other term but desperation would fit. Sometimes neither side has a good outcome from all this governance.
Lynn M.