Back in December 2008, Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. filed a citizens petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asking that the agency lift its prohibition on interstate shipments of raw milk on a very limited basis–for milk moving from one state that allows it to a neighboring state that also allows it.
For more than four years, the FDA ignored McAfees requests for a decision, despite the fact the FDA is legally obligated to respond within six months. Last year, McAfee filed a suit in U.S. District Court to compel the agency to answer the petition.Finally, just as its deadline for filing a response to the U.S. District court was approaching, four years after the initial petition request, the agency responded…surprise–it rejected the petition.
But the FDA didnt just reject the limited petition request. As if to say, You wanted our reaction, huh, you really wanted our reaction?….the FDA let loose.
In a 31-page assemblage of accusations, tabulations of illnesses from raw milk, and citations of studies, the FDA doesn’t give an inch on any suggestions that raw milk might be acceptable in any form. Indeed, early in the document, the FDA author (Michael Landa, director of the FDAs Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition) states to McAfee that many raw milk producers and advocates, including yourselves, consider the bacteria present in raw milk, including pathogens which might be present, to be beneficial bacteria.
If youve never heard such an accusation before, it is a classic example of a canard. That is “a false or baseless, usually derogatory story, report, or rumor,” but in reality it is worse than that–it is a particularly vicious accusation meant to foment hatred. Those harboring a particular prejudice might say, Those people love to (pick your descriptor) live in filth/cheat the poor/practice voodoo. Blacks and Jews in particular have been victims of canards by mobs and even those in power as a way to foment violence and hatred.
So even though just a small group of raw milk drinkers may consider pathogens to be beneficial, the FDA has painted everyone who drinks raw milk with the brush, as in, They all love pathogens. They are such wackos they dont care about safety, they dont care a whit about whether little kids get sick.
Oh yes, the FDAs attack does have some specifics. To McAfees petition argument that in California more than 110 million servings of its raw milk products have not found one pathogen in its raw milk… the FDA labels the assertion incorrect. In California there have been nine recalls (quarantines) involving raw milk products since 2006…Seven of them have involved Organic Pastures…
In response to McAfees argument that if raw milk is safe to sell in California then it should be safe to sell that same raw milk in Nevada or Arizona wherever it is also legal to drink raw milk, the FDA is similarly unrelenting. FDAs decision to regulate only the interstate distribution of raw milk was not based on a determination that intrastate distribution is safe, but rather…this decision was based on FDAs judgment about the appropriate exercise of federal authority vis-a-vis state authority. Translation: We would have loved to have banned raw milk nationally, but we didnt think we could get away with it in court challenges.
There is more, about how warning labels could never substitute for pasteurization, and that children are especially at risk for illness from raw milk (a child being defined as anyone under twenty).
This assertion really says it all, though: FDA is unaware of any scientific data which have been published since (the 1987 ban on interstate sales) that would cause it to change its opinion on this matter. In other words, there is nothing to discuss.
McAfee had this comment: “The FDA did not respond to my narrow request. They instead went on a forty-year-old anti-raw-milk rant and misstated facts, including the 1985 Jalisco Cheese incident and its 48 deaths. Those people died from poorly pasteurized cheese, not raw milk!”
Well, that is twisting words to suit their agenda. They just confirmed, again, they have no wish or desire to work with farmers or the public. Their words only serve to further divide people. that paintbrush goes more than one way. I’ll continue to point out their inadequacies, lies, etc.
Tripled in 30 yrs. All that money that goes to cancer research has lined someones pockets. Instead of finding out the cause of the increase, they’ll invent a “new” toxic drug. It’s just more proof the govt is nothing more than smoke&mirrors, full of lies and deceit.
http://thunderfeeds.com/reader/news/breast-cancer-on-rise-for-women-under-40-kobitv-nbc-5-kotitv-nbc-2
The Citizens Petition process begs this type of abuse. Now that the petition has been answered….we the people can sue them….straight up.
FDA drugs are a leading cause of death in America. The arrogance of a government agency to deny the best scientists in the world is simply a travesty. When I know that the FDA emails to university researchers telling them to take down publications so that the general public can not see the hard core evidence of the value of raw milk. These emails are on a hidden hard drive…
The FDA has just affirmed their criminal affiliations…they are Food Inc. They have the blood of the immune depressed and the 4000 dead asthmatics thst die every year with FDA approved asthma inhalers in their hands
Can not wait to bring these FDA lies to court. I hope there is support for this. They may be able lie in their unresponsive response…but if you lie to a judge….you are screwed.
The FDA is trying every maneuver possible to avoid court. The truth will expose them in all of their corrupt fraud.
Bias anyone??? Extreme bias anyone???? Cantaloupe kills 34 people and it is freely shipped all over America. Oysters kill 13 people per year….they are shipped everywhere.
Raw milk has killed no one and it is stopped at all state line borders. Pasteurized milk kills 77 since 1972 and the FDA swears that pasteurization is a warranty and guarantee of safety.
This is blatant bias….clear and arrogant corruption. The big lie on steroids
On that subject, a recent study from the University of Leipzig found that ingested Roundup disproportionately suppresses beneficial gut bacteria while sparing potentially harmful strains, leaving them an open field.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14520:roundup-harms-beneficial-gut-bacteria-study
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-herbicide-linked-overgrowth-deadly-bacteria
As amended through April 2011
Article IV.
Legislative
Enactment of laws. Section 17. [As amended April 1977] (1) The style of all laws of the state
shall be The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do enact as
follows:.
As for consumer choice vs. full Food Freedom, the former is a paltry notion which is doomed to fail anyway. “You can choose any food you want as long as it’s processed from GMOs.” The only goal worthy of self-respecting human beings, and the only goal that can work, is full non-corporate direct retail prodcuer freedom, and beyond that completely abolishing the divide between “producer” and “consumer”. In the end we have to provide our own food, as integral food-producing local/regional communities. Nothing else can work: politically, since the corporate/government system is totalitarian in intent and goal; physically, since industrial ag is unsustainable and shall soon collapse.
Aajonus Vonderplanitz of Right to Choose Healthy has written and spoken frequently that we should welcome pathogens into foods like raw milk because they are beneficial. Some of his followers agree with his view, but my sense is they are a small minority of raw milk drinkers.
a. There is No Absolute Right to Consume or Feed Children Any
Particular Food. (p.25)
…plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish. (p. 26-7)
http://attempter.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/corporate-food-tyranny-2-of-2/
In response to questioning during the case, the FDA issued this opinion on individual eaters* crossing state lines to get milk.
“The regulation under challenge provides, in part, no person shall cause to be delivered into interstate commerce or shall sell, otherwise distribute, or hold for sale or other distribution after shipment in interstate commerce any milk or milk product in final package form for direct human consumption unless the product has been pasteurized or is made from dairy ingredients (milk or milk products) that have all been pasteurized .
In its March 16 response to the judges questions, FDA took the position that a person who purchases unpasteurized milk in one state with the intent to take it to another state (either for personal use or to distribute to others) is engaging in interstate commerce. As for consumers who cross state lines intending to take raw milk back home for personal use, FDA stated that it has never sought to bring an enforcement action against a person because he or she crossed a state boundary to purchase and return with raw milk solely for his or her own use, and FDA has no present intent to bring an action against such a person in the future. Nevertheless the hypothetical interstate traveler in this example would have caused raw milk to be delivered into interstate commerce in violation of 21 C.F.R. §1240.61.
What FDA is trying to accomplish with this answer is to let raw milk consumers know they are violating the law (by carrying raw milk across state lines for their personal consumption)”
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/fda-now-sees-raw-milk-consumers-as-criminals-when-they-transport-raw-milk-across-state-lines-pete-kennedy/
As today’s post here pointed out, the only reason the FDA hasn’t tried to extend a central ban to intrastate milk commerce is that they fear they’d provoke too much of a backlash. (But among the people, not in the courts. The system certainly doesn’t fear the courts, usually gets the decisions it wants, and defies the important contrary decisions, as in the USDA’s flouting of the 2010 court-ordered moratorium on GM sugarbeets.)
The basic point in all this is the totalitarian (using that term as simple, common sense denotation: the FDA, like any government or corporate bureaucracy, sees literally no limits to its potential power and domination) vector of the food police. I defy anyone to name the failsafe which would cause the FDA to take a “different” attitude toward intrastate commerce, or buying for personal consumption, or milking one’s own cow and drinking the milk, than it takes toward interstate commerce. (Meanwhile it pressures and cajoles state governments to be as condemnatory as possible within the state.) On the contrary, by its very nature it regards all these as within its potential purview, recognizing only the limits of where the people might finally stop retreating, turn around, and fight.
* I reject the term “consumer” in our movement context, but it’s hard to find a substitute. Petrini’s “co-producer” isn’t bad, but we need something simpler. Maybe “eater”, or just “citizen”, is fine.
FDA’s judgment?
I wonder what makes anyone think the FDA doesn’t have the authority to completely ban raw milk nationally? They do.
Someone be kind enough to tell me why they don’t completely ban raw milk in the USA.
miguel
Which agency has the authority to actually ban all sales of raw milk?
So, according to this article, it IS up to each individual state to decide. The fda does not *regulate* raw milk.
The circular thinking here is just comical. The USGov, through the offices of the fda “does not permit the sale of raw milk”. It “forbids” this and it “allows” that – – – even after its statement about not permitting the sale of raw milk.
My question seems to be answered that the states are in charge, but the states aren’t in charge and it would appear NO ONE is really in charge. What a nightmare. No wonder we have food and drug safety issues – the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing. If it wasn’t so scary it would be funny.
Bacteria of all types are beneficial and necessary. They continually evolve in order to adapt to their environment. Any attempt by us to control and eradicate them will be countered in kind.
My belief is that if we encourage exposure we will be much better off. The implications are grim if we continue with our belligerent manipulation and alienation of these minute life forms.
The inescapable reality of this world is that there is suffering and death our disdain for these microscopic creatures will only acerbate the complexity of disease and chronic suffering.
Ken
Aajonus Vonderplanitz said in the June 2000 issue of The Latest magazine:
1. Pigs and monkeys can be kept too clean.
2. Bacteria and virus are naturally present in the company of degenerative tissue but are not the cause of degenerative tissue. They are the cleanup-crew for degenerative tissue.
3. As part of her doctoral studies in Toronto, Canada, Dr. Sara Arab injected verotoxin (bacterial byproduct) from E.coli directly into human astrocytoma (malignant tumors of the brain) that had been grown in mice.After a single injection, within 7-15 days both the tumors and their blood-vessels completely dissolved.
4. Joel Weinstock, a gastroenterologist who heads a research team at University of Iowa, asked six patients with intractable inflammatory bowel-disease to quaff worm-eggs in a liquid solution, specifically the eggs of Trichurissuis, a whipworm (parasite that looks like a whip) normally found in pigs. Within about two weeks, five of the six patients went into remission – for up to five months.
5. Jon Monroe, Director, New Science, tried in a project to avoid diseases caused by viruses. The assumption was that viruses were pathogens and should be avoided. But each of the subjects became depressed. With the reintroduction of virus, the depression-symptoms disappeared along with the return of colds and flu.
6. Monroe learned that viruses can carry information from one individual to another and from one species to another. They are in reality, pathways within the environment for all living things to share critical information.
Do you think he’s nuts?
I repeat that the only real thing restraining the FDA, or any other government or corporate bureaucracy, is that their strategy is to move carefully and not provoke too much alarm at once. Why do you think the system still holds (fake) elections? It’s sure not out of any belief in “democracy”.
You think it’s an accident that they’re focusing on destroying small farmers but try to avoid too much direct targeting of customers? A coincidence that in the face of the political defiance of the Raw Milk Freedom Riders, they reiterated their (false) assurance that they wouldn’t target customers? No, it’s because they think they can quash raw milk by driving out the producers, and in that way cause the consumers to cease to exist. They think if they just continue indirectly subjugating the citizenry by systematically removing their real choices (as opposed to their fake “consumerist” ones), the citizenry will remain passive until it’s too late. As Monsanto said of its own strategy, they wanted to remove options until “you wake up one day and it’s everywhere, and you just sort of surrender.” The FDA and Big Ag have been trying that out with raw milk as the template for the far more difficult, far more important goal of quashing the local produce movement.
That’s why the FDA doesn’t directly ban it. Strategy and tactics, and nothing else. As for why the FDA’s taking the lead here at all, as opposed to the USDA, I don’t know the answer to that offhand. I just added it to my research list. But certainly both the USDA and the FDA are gearing up for the general assault on Community Food.
The powers that be, obviously and it is continuously reinforced, have no care in regards to peoples health, nor the environment. We all know the fda is in bed with big corps, et al.
The 2nd link you can leave your thoughts for the govt…
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/artificial-sweeteners-milk
http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;rpp=100;so=DESC;sb=docId;po=0;D=FDA-2009-P-0147
The Irish potato famine is just the most famous example of the phenomenon which becomes more likely with every passing year, inherent to monoculture itself. Soil exhaustion, and that it’s often GMO monocropping, increases the likelihood.
I wonder why posters on this blog and other blogs as well as posting to responses to news stories; why some feel the need to call other liberals, republicans,democrats, etc. Is it because they cannot come up with something worth-while to discuss, or that others are NOT in agreement with them and they feel the need to try to belittle others? I guess I just don’t understand the purpose of that. I don’t see where the political beliefs of a person has anything to do with wanting healthy foods, etc. What do they call those who agree on only some of the positions from each party?
http://www.theihs.org/what-libertarian
http://www.csus.edu/org/democrat/beliefs/index.html
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/republicanism/
It doesn’t matter if we remain passive or not, we’re just not going to win against the tyrannical gubment agencies. That’s my opinion. It’s gone way past that because all of these agencies have been given too much power. And you know what they say about power. I’ll keep fighting in my own way, but in the long run, it’s a dismal situation. There are not enough people in the citizenry who are interested in real food because they’re so brainwashed by the processed food industry. I mean, really – they actually believe Cheerios are good for them. We can convert a few here and a few there, but in comparison to the devil we’re fighting there’s just not enough who really give two tweets.
Our rights are eroding so fast it will be a miracle if we aren’t all in chains by the end of the year. The monsanto doods are right – they sneaked up on us in the middle of the night and now it’s a bit late to change things. But for those of us who want real food products, the nightmare is only beginning.
RAWMI has already begun to establish a track record of raw milk that is distinctly differentiated from all other raw milk. The bacteria counts are quantified and the food safety plans are audited and written and published with standards. Now follow me here….lets say that UC Davis publishes that raw milk has been show to be life saving with Crohns or some other disease….( they are doing this study right now ). At some future time a consumer in a state that does not allow raw milk and follows the PMO, a patient suffering that disease could in fact sue the FDA for denial of access to raw milk.
Damages could be shown
Safety could be shown
A track record could be shown
Side effects including death from FDA drugs used to treat tge disease could be shown
No side effects and a cure could be shown for raw milk
Technology could be shown to verify pathogen free raw milk
This reality is quickly coming our way…..if the FDA objected….then We the People give them the finger and all at once….all producers take raw milk over state lines and sell like crazy. The FDA will capitulate, just like they did with the Freedom Riders.
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/02/jury-nullification-activist-jailed-145.html
What’s “self-fulfilling” about it?? This doesn’t concern just me, you know, and the problem you seem to be missing is that there aren’t “so many”.
Heck, I couldn’t even get anyone here to answer my question about who really has the authority to entirely ban the sale of raw milk. Have you actually taken the time to look at how many levels of bureaucratic huckumpuckey one would need to deal with in order to try to get some of these things changed? Why, just the “committee” branches alone are enough to make one’s head swirl. I’ve tried skipping all that and talking directly to my CONgresspeople. You know what happens? After initial contact with their offices (never get to actually speak to these people in the flesh) about six weeks goes by and I get a “form” letter telling me that raw milk is dangerous and how pasteurization has saved the world. Seriously. Other than a few good souls, the people up on the Hill are so far from reality it would be impossible to get them to listen to anything. And even then, you get maybe one or two of them to listen (apparently Rand Paul and a couple of others are in support of legalizing raw milk in all states) and they introduce a bill that gets immediately tabled or defeated and no one hears another word for years, if at all, and the whole thing moves to another dimension in the twilight zone of the fda filing system. Most of it ends up in file 13.
I’ll take my raw milk as long as I can get it, but I have no false hopes that any progress will be made in regard to its legality. When we can buy it anywhere, anytime – then I’ll believe it.
I believe in organizing and acting to take our rights, our sovereignty, and our freedom directly. (Ironically, this is the one and only thing which has ever caused the system to “legally” grant reforms, under duress.)
…
WISCONSIN CONSTITUTION
As amended through April 2011
Article IV.
Legislative
Enactment of laws. Section 17. [As amended April 1977] (1) The style of all laws of the state
shall be The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do enact as
follows:.
I can sympathize with your feelings of being in a hopeless no-win situation. I’ve felt tempted to give in sometimes, especially since my spouse is pretty much uninterested in this problem (AND he insists on doing the major grocery shopping!). But I know I can’t give up, because I have 5 youngsters trusting me.
Every generation has had its demons. Corporatism, and Industrial Ag in particular, are ours. The dirty secrets are leaking out, and I’m doing whatever I can locally to help them leak.
I believe the major problem is this: Real Food needs to be easily accessible, and affordable to your average
citizen. If we can achieve this, I’ve no doubt the battle is won.
My mission is to try to help make this possible in my area, and to show others that if I can feed my family healthfully, they can too. If the tyrants come for me with their chains for doing that, if they try to turn me into a criminal for that, so be it. Let them attempt that enough times. The sedated populace really will begin to wake, as they are already beginning to do. Look at the popularity of “Omnivore’s Dilemma”, and “Food, Inc.”, just to name a few.
The Monsanto dudes reckoned without Nature, BTW. They forget they aren’t God, they just think they are.
One way or another, THEY WILL LOSE!
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 microbes 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.
miguel
I’ve read in several spots here where people quote articles which say “the FDA says it won’t challenge the drinking and use of raw milk . . . ” yada yada. What?? Did they not say they’ll make it “illegal” to transport raw milk and if that’s true, how do those people in states where it’s already illegal actually procure raw milk?
I think it’s called fuzzy reasoning, which is why any attempts of grassroots organizations to “do something” about “legalizing” raw milk are going to go nowhere. Nothing about the current *rules and regs* makes any sense so there’s nothing for the grassroots people to get their teeth into. I read something somewhere that says “this is what’s actually in the written law or on the books” only to do a little more looking and find something which totally contradicts it. The fda is slippery for a reason. You can’t skin what you can’t catch.
Now I just read an article recently about how these mutated crop seeds (i.e., GMO or GE) are not only effecting honeybees, it’s affecting all pollinating bees and insects. I think the article was at The Bovine.
But does our gubment go after monsanto or bayer or any of the other chemical companies over this? Our idiotic rulemakers/lawmakers have to know the stuff produced by those companies is toxic to absolutely everything living. Nah. Apparently these geniuses think pollination isn’t important in the scheme of things. What are they trying to tell us? They are telling us that the success of companies like monsanto and bayer et al are more important than we the people.
…
I believe any interpretation and implementation of a U.S. State or federal law or regulation that interferes with a consumer getting a food of there choice goes against the spirit an intent of that law or regulation and can be easily challenged in court.
…
I believe it’s these interpretations we must fight. What do you think?
Now is it more clear why one isn’t “all over” the other, and why the government doesn’t go after any corporation?
Who created Monsanto? Who created the EPA? Concentrated power, generally called “the government”. But if we call it that, then these bureaucracies are parts of this government, and power simply distributes itself in the way which suits itself best. That’s why “the government”, which according to the good civics textbooks is “accountable” and responsible to the public interest, has vested almost all its executive power in explicitly unaccountable “corporations”. It’s power’s quest to render itself less accountable and therefore to increase itself vastly more. (Meanwhile “government” remains as functional military thug, police thug, tax-extortion thug, corporate welfare bagman, and to present the neoliberal facade of “representative democracy” and hold phony “elections”. Thus the FDA remains to carry out the directives of other, more powerful bureaucracies like Monsanto and Dean.) See it as an accounting and stock manipulation trick, the way an entity will shift all its assets to one part of itself, and spin that off, leaving the shell of the original holding only the liabilities.
I think plenty have tried to challenge these in court, and they haven’t done very well. And we’re about to see how badly Vernon Bowman will be routed by Monsanto’s supremely corporatist court.
BTW, the spirit and intent of laws, just as much as the wording, is always intentionally vague, precisely so that administration and the police have as much discretionary power as possible. That’s also why the courts have generally refused to speculate on the “intent” of legislatures.
California, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania have not adopted the PMO, but have their enacted their own strict milk safety laws.
(the word their)
…
States oversee all milk products produced and sold in their state Milk products sold over state lines are subject to federal oversight, which will accept state PMO certification.
(no period after state and sentence fragment after comma)
…
The federal government, through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, does not permit the sale of raw milk for human consumption, and advises states not to permit the sale of raw milk.
(Is it not permitted or is not advised?)
Since the FDA does not regulate raw milk, it can be sold only in the state where it was purchased and cannot be sold across state lines or internationally.
(non sequitur)
It also forbids states from permitting the sale of products made from raw milk, such as yogurt, cottage cheese, butter and ice cream.
(Is it forbidden or is not advised?)
…
Even though the federal government allows only Grade A pasteurized milk to be sold to consumers, 30 states allow for consumers to purchase raw milk directly.
(contradiction)
…
(I think the last line explains the confusion.)
States legalizing raw milk sales or distribution have done so through:
3. Policy. This would include cow share programs in states where, even though there is a prohibition on the sale of raw milk, state regulatory agencies have made a policy decision not to shut down cow share programs they know of that comply with state guidelines. State policy sometimes does conflict with and override state statutes, administrative rules or other written guidelines in the regulation of milk and milk products.
…
WIruling-Craig-Zinniker.pdf page 21
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/02/fda-issues-final-rule-to-give-agency-more-authority-to-detain-adulterated-food/
[quote from article]: “Now instead of needing hard evidence that food could present a health threat, the agency can detain food if it believes the product is adulterated or misbranded.” [end quote]
It sounds like all they really have to do is change the meaning of the word adulterated. : ->) That should be simple enough for them, they’ve been setting up the stage props for some time now.
If giving us poisonous food and drugs is something they intend to do without letting the people decide for themselves whether we want to consume that stuff or not, that’s already a totalitarian existence, is it not? Have we arrived?? Their lack of reasoning and logic almost makes Nero and Caligula sound like good guys. History repeats?
Looks like.
WIth the new Obozocareless act giving the insurance companies overt authority and the electronic record keeping apparatus in place for the medical industry, we will soon be monitored from all angles. While we slept, Nero fiddled.
Well, if no one does, what’s the fight about?
I think your comment makes a lot of sense. I remember contemplating during my milk pickup one day, that technically I was committing a “crime”, as I crossed that invisible line where my farm fresh milk suddenly mutated into a toxic substance.
The more I educate myself on this stuff, the clearer it becomes that the government is part and parcel of the corporate state. So it follows that if we’re waiting for them to protect us from the destruction of filthy, corrupt industrial ag, we’re as foolish as someone still believing in Harold Camping’s religion.
I’ve been reading your blog, BTW, and it’s really interesting :).
I don’t think anyone, at any level, has ANY idea who’s in control of milk and milk products, especially when it comes to raw milk and raw milk products. The buck is constantly passed, and those of us who want raw milk have to continue to jump through hoops to get it and we don’t even know who the hoops belong to, for sure. What a crock.