It is painful to read some of the comments following my previous post, especially the back-and-forth accusations between Califarmer and Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. about herdshares in California. (Please note, you need to go to the bottom of the first comment page, and click on one of the little squares to go to the second comment page, to find these particular comments; a new page starts up after 100 comments.)
Clearly, the dissension that regularly comes up here has been allowed to interfere with sensitive discussions and negotiations going on with the California Department of Food and Agriculture over standards and possible regulations of the hundreds of raw milk herdshares in that state.
Michael Schmidt captures some of the frustration many of us feel when he concludes, in exasperation, “We have the freedom to take measures to prevent disasters and to prove that guidelines and standards are helping to distinguish those who do want to understand the complexity of food safety. Currently it appears that we do support Marler in his mission to prove that raw milk should be banned. Not because it is more dangerous, but because we are more divided on the philosophical approach to freedom than united on the issue o understanding the current climate of food safety.”
I would add that the frustration is compounded because I know that people like Califarmer and McAfee are serious well-meaning people. They desperately want to avoid a repeat of the Foundation Farm situation in Oregon, and its illnesses affecting children. They want to do what is right, for consumers and farmers alike.
Part of the problem certainly is that people have very strong opinions about where safety problems originate and what to do about them. But beyond differences of opinion, there seem to be difficulties getting organized, of working cooperatively in groups. We see that clearly in Califarmer’s chronology of events in presenting guideline proposals to CDFA. There’s a he-said-she-said quality between him and McAfee that is destructive in any number of ways, most immediately in the fact that it reduces the confidence of the regulators in the commitment of the people doing the negotiating.
It’s tempting to want to stomp my feet and demand, “Let’s get our act together!” I definitely think that Schmidt’s suggestion to form a task force of raw dairy experts, outside of any existing organizational situation like the Raw Milk Institute, is a constructive one. Surely there must be a band of raw milk brothers (and sisters) who are willing to organize themselves to pioneer here.
It’s not going to be easy. I get the sense that too many farmers and food providers have worked below the radar for so long, they are having trouble getting used to the fact that the bright lights of regulator. legal, and media attention are now focusing very directly on them. Many are accustomed to working informally, both in running their own operations and in their dealings with consumers. Beyond the sad situation in Oregon, it comes out in any number of other ways.
**
As for the heightened media and legal attention…
The New Yorker magazine, that intellectual bastion of culture, humor, and fiction, has just come out with a highly sympathetic profile of the Rawesome Food Club and its accused, the Rawesome Three (James Stewart, Sharon Palmer, and Victoria Bloch). Much of the focus is on Stewart, the likeable and committed manager of the private membership organization that was shut down last August in the aftermath of a mammoth nine-agency raid.
The profile should, in and of itself, be a breath of fresh air to the raw milk and food rights movement. The New Yorker has journalistic credibility from its nearly 90-year history, and it reaches more than 400,000 subscribers. (Unfortunately, The New Yorker is very protective of its content, and only makes most of its current issue available to subscribers, who must pay $60 annually, or individual articles can be accessed for $6, so I can’t post the piece. Here is a link to a summary of the article. In addition, the Out Loud section of The New Yorker did a podcast about raw milk that features interviews with me and a scientist from the University of California, Davis, Michele Jay-Russell.)
The article use the Rawesome situation to examine the controversy over raw milk’s history, benefits, and safety. It’s curious in that author Dana Goodyear is one of the first to examine closely the culinary aspects of raw milk, portraying it as a gourmet food, with one prominent chef commenting, “When you take milk or cream and pasteurize it or homogenize it, you’ve killed the originality.”
It praises the quality of Rawesome’s food, quoting a former member: “Rawesome was a gourmet club par excellence of the best food you could get from anywhere in the world.”
It traces the bizarre regulatory and legal history around Rawesome, which has been described in depth here. It points out that Rawesome members continue to quietly obtain and distribute raw milk and other good food, though much more secretly than they did at the old Rawesome site on Rose Street in Venice; Goodyear compares the new distribution of raw dairy and other nutrient-dense foods with that of marijuana. The Rawesome site has since been dismantled and leveled in the aftermath of the two multi-agency raids on the 2000-plus-member club in 2010 and 2011.
Amazingly, though, nearly simultaneously with this much-needed media boost, Stewart has been hit with yet a third set of criminal charges, and these could be the most serious of all : ten felony counts related to his alleged failure to file California income tax returns for five years between 2006 and 2010.
The first set of charges, filed last August, involved mostly offenses related to the distribution of raw milk, and involved potential penalties of five to ten years in jail. The second set of charges, earlier this year, related to Stewart’s alleged role in encouraging a few Rawesome members to loan money to farm owner Sharon Palmer; penalties there could be more than thirty years in jail. This third set of charges could result in possibly nine years in jail, according to a prosecutor with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office.
The only good news in the new charges is that the prosecutor’s office didn’t order Stewart arrested, as he had been in the previous two sets of charges, based on his having been cooperative in appearing for other court dates. He can now surrender himself at a May 17 arraignment on the new charges.
Stewart told me he considered the new charges “completely ridiculous, not true.” He said the statutes he is accused of violating “have to do with a corporation. I have nothing to do with any corporation.” He added that he had just received a copy of the complaint, and needed to study it further before providing more detail of his views.
The reason I say that this set of charges could be the most serious is that it is often difficult to refute charges associated with income tax violations. And the legal system tends not to be sympathetic to tax evaders. But given the circumstances of these charges, well, it’s hard to know what to take seriously.
Goodyear in closing her New Yorker article quotes Sharon Palmer’s lawyer about the second set of fraud-related charges: “The charges do not contend anything at all relative to the food produced at the farm. But it is my firm belief that the prosecution has everything to do with raw milk. There’s too consistent an approach to the prosecution not to see it as a coordinated effort.”
As I said, the light of media, legal, and regulatory attention is focusing ever brighter on farmers and food producers. It’s in everyone’s interests to get more organized.
Getting a legal education the hard way (via the (so-called ) Pro-Life movement in the 90s) I had the advantage of being an ‘early adapter” = seeing what was coming down, while the nation slept and John & Jane Q Citizen were happy to see us go off to gaol, for disturbing their slumbers
the good thing from this latest development is : the tyrant has over-stepped his-self, as always … now, all the pew-warmers who fault us extremists for our ‘wide-eyed conspiracy theories’ must admit the actual nature of the enemy has been revealed. It ain’t about milk
http://www.marlerblog.com/legal-cases/raw-milk-two-e-coli-o157h7-outbreaks-and-hemolytic-uremic-syndrome-hus-what-are-the-real-acute-and-l/
http://www.marlerblog.com/legal-cases/raw-milk-two-e-coli-o157h7-outbreaks-and-hemolytic-uremic-syndrome-hus-what-are-the-real-acute-and-l-1/
http://www.marlerblog.com/legal-cases/raw-milk-two-e-coli-o157h7-outbreaks-and-hemolytic-uremic-syndrome-hus-what-are-the-real-acute-and-l-2/
What is the criteria for being an expert? An MS, MD or PHD? Or a dairy farmer that has been a dairy farmer for X number of years? How diverse would this group be? (Hopefully very diverse) If there is no honesty, openness and transparency between all parties, it will fail.
When it is known what went wrong in Oregon will anyone be posting what happened? Shared knowledge prevents further problems.
same wit’ you .. Mary McGonnigle Martin, you’re no friend of the Campaign for REAL MILK … your schtick is, crying crockodile tears about the latest report of ‘sick kids’, as pretext for your eternal wail against OPD.
you seem not to want to know that raw milk most IS being produced in the safest way humanely possible, by those who are at it. Any day you post a photo of yourself actually muddying your boots, gathering information in an artisanal dairy, then you’ll have something worth hearing about REAL MILK.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/04/is-raw-milk-worth-it-the-case-of-the-single-udder-butter.html?mobify=0#commentAnchor_nyr_2000000001681622
The two guys acting like FDA agents ( New Yorker hired male models ) on a secret mission and the calf in this picture spent the morning with me getting those shots in our pastures at OPDC. That bull calf is now famous!!
I have left messages with the Salyers family at the Foundation Farm contact number. It took me a while but through a whole bunch of people working together including Bill Marler ( thank you Bill ), local press and digging arround, I was able to get a good number for the family. I have left messages. These messages are very thoughtful, gentle and kind. I know full well the emotional torment that this family is going through and respect them in this time of stress and illness.
I have tried to reach out to them and I have tried to get an invite for a RAWMI team to go visit them. There has been no response. The local health departments are looking for “who to blame in the liability link and the SMOKING GUN”. RAWMI would not search for the Smoking Gun but rather….why there was a gun in the first place and why it went off…..Rations, conditions, SCC counts, milker training, age of milking equip rubber liners, where equipment was kept, udder cleaning practices, cold and hot temperatures, etc….
I am not an expert…there are literally no experts in this area. There are only tenacious students that have experience with investigations, safety plans, safety data and prevention of illness. When investigating the Oregon situation…all you need to do is apply the RAMP plan in mirror reverse order of checklist. What prevents illness….when missing… is exactly what causes it. Then add in the human element.
I guarantee you that the health departments do not approach an outbreak in this fashion. They are looking for liability….the search for the link. “Who dun it!!!”
RAWMI would not care so much about the link…but the cause behind the link. I know that the health departments do not look for the cause. When ever OPDC has been investigated…..the investigators never look for the cause or the origin…they are done when they find the link. The link tells us little. The underlying cause is what will prevent the next crash.
I hope that the family calls me back. I pray for the health of their children and those that are ill. I also pray that we all can learn from this event and evolve to a better place from the information collected.
Not sure this will happen soon.
All the best,
Mark McAfee
I can see someday in the near future her and I standing on the same side together advocating for RAWMI and sensible food safety plans for raw milk! Hell…Bill Marler might even be standing someplace nearby.
Mark, I will not stand by you until you stop saying as you did in the New Yorker: Manure is the carrier of the beneficial bacteria found in raw milk. Really? Cow shit should not be in raw milk.
As for the kids in Oregon my understanding is that four are still hospitalized with HUS and two are having severe neurological symptoms. It is a sad day for the Sayler family, the parents and the kids.
On a positive note, when kids are regaining the use of their kidneys, blood pressure is erratic and can be very high. This can cause seizures. Both Chris and Lauren experienced this. It is horrible to watch your child have a seizure, but unfortunately it is common during the kidney recovery process.
On a very negative note, Gb3 cells are located in the kidneys, pancreas and brain. The Shiga toxins are a moth to flame to Gb3 cells. This is why the damage is done to these organs with HUS. If these kids are having neurological issues due to HUS going to the brain, this is tragic. This is when strokes and the bad type of seizures not related to blood pressure occur. The end result is brain damage or death. It is theorized that the younger the child, the more Gb3 cells they have in their body. This is why there is a high death rate for children under 2 that get HUS.
Chris took serious hits to his kidneys and pancreas, but thank goodness his brain was spared.
Ken
If milk in the udder is sterile then where do you believe it acquires healthful bacteria such as lactobacillus brevis an organism commonly found in the environment especially in bovine feces?
L brevis is a recognized probiotic bacteria that improves the human immune system.
Ken
(page 475) Backs up Ken’s statement.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_milk_sterile_when_in_the_udder
http://www.uoguelph.ca/foodsafetynetwork/raw-milk
I have had this discussion before with Bill Anderson and others with respect to the bacterial environment of milk in the udder. I believe that milk although sterile when secreted into the udder is gradually inoculated with bacteria while in the udder and is therefore not sterile. The source for all bacteria in milk good and presumed bad is basically cow manure, soil or water and represents a natural process that nurtures good health.
For anyone who hasnt seen a calf being born it is not unusual to see a cow push out a turd and deposit it on the calfs nose. This is natural exposure at its best, and is how immunity is nurtured. It is no different in any other animal including humans and drinking raw milk is part of the same process.
The safety of our food supply has everything to do with extent to which we adulterate both our internal and external environments; it has little to do with the exclusion or manipulation of a microorganism. In fact the process by which we use to exclude and manipulate such organisms is causing more harm then good and the reason for all these dreaded illnesses people are desperately trying to avoid.
Bill Marlers comment to Mark is a reflection of a narrow focus that inhibits his ability to truly understand natural process.
Ken
The recent increases in C-Diff therapy successes tell the story very effectively about how fecal transplants save lives. It is the manure that imparts some of the benefits of raw milk. The manure bacterial sources colonize the teat canals….that is one of the reasons that evolution has positioned the birth canal right next to the anus and udders near both of them. This is the major means of transfer of the immune system. It is also one of the major reasons that with C-Sections, and lack of breast feeding and use of antibiotics….that we humans and especially the young ones are in real immune trouble.
The death rates from C-Diff infections are raging and exceed 30%. But…with fecal transplant the cure rate is 90% plus. The gifting of Feces are critical care miracles!!!!
Yes….healthy fecal matter (a reflection of the colonies in the GUT or Rumen ) is the basis of the majority of immunity for cows and humans both. It is not a sweet comfortable thought especially when we are all taught that fecal matter and manure is filth. It is filth….but it is also critical to life and to be appreciated for its value and virtue.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness….but sterility is a prelude to death.
The next trick for humans to figuer out is…how do we create strong immune systems and avoid bad bugs. The answer is as old as the earth….work with the good bacteria and support, feed and grow more of them…then stop creating Superbugs by antibiotic abuse etc…!!!
UC Davis Dr. Bruce German found that the Oligosaccharide sugars found in raw breast and raw cows milk serve a critical function. This special sugar does one thing…protects bacteria in the stomach and feeds bacteria in the GUT. Hence colonizing the bacteria that form our immunity.
When scientists that work for yogurt companies look for the next best bacteria for commercially produced cultured milk….they look to manure to find it.
I take a shower every day and wash my hands…but I do not use triclosan or antibiotics…I drink raw milk and fermented raw milk and eat a whole food diet 99% of the time. I am never sick. None of my family is ever sick.
It is a balance…manure is not the enemy. Ignorance and lack of information is the enemy.
Not not confuse this opinion….I demand extremly clean udders. But it does not matter how clean the udder, the bacteria found in trace amounts near the teats and inside of them are many of the same bacteria found in the cows manure.
David finds it painful to hear the arguing over raw milk, and indeed it is painful when spitting overwhelms kindness. It is the mark of humankind, I suppose. Self über alles. The physician promotes medicine as health, the lawyer promotes lawsuits, self promotes self, and nobody sees fit to give quarter. That is the pain that I and others feel who ask simply to be left alone to build health outside the western medical/legal paradigm. We find ourselves harangued and shoved about by the State, by experts, and by countless process-control supporters. Well, what if the current paradigm is wrong? What if the logical end point of microscope-driven health is really poor health, and the endless pushing of the paradigm buries the spark of truth that might produce optimal health?
Look at the “Mark-Up” for the 2012 Farm Bill. It’s being done by Kansas Conservative Republican Pat “We-Don’t-Need-Small_Farmers-Local-Markets-Or-Rural-Development” Roberts and from Michigan, the “We’re-Going-To-Bring-The-Final-Solution-To-Non-GMO-Pigs-&-The-Farmers-Who-Dare-Raise-Them” State, Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. They’ve been praised for working together-so well-and why not? They are both serving the Big Ag Companies. They’re happily shaving $28 Billion Dollars from the only demographic that has any real chance of sparking a REAL Economic Recovery, while friends on other Budget Committees sign on to reduction in Social Security and Medicare, but raise an already bloated Defense Budget, including a long term (and how long we wonder?) $1 Trillion Plane, PLUS tack on $28 Billion (interesting number) for that Epic Fail, “The War on Drugs”. all of which line the pockets of Big Business Special Interests.
We saw how the Big Banks rewarded “Us Folks” for the multi-billion dollar bail-out that allegedly saved their bacon. Do you like your new rates and fees?
Whether you’re a COFA Meat Producer or “Free Range”, Organic or Commodity, Big or Small, Corporate or Family, you ARE ALL FARMERS. As such, like it or not, you’re part of the 99%.
So, serve Big Ag if you want, but remember, when they’re done with you and have gotten everything they want from you, you might find yourselves on the boxcar journey to “Share-Cropper” Land.
Try to remember the Fable about the Turtle and the Scorpion…it’s just their nature.
I suggest that Marler Clark take the lead in prosecuting the mother-of-all-class-actions, holding the Dairy Cartel to account for knowing ( for at least 30 years) that Johnes disease in dairy cattle, is THE cause of Crohne’s disease in human beings, meanwhile it profitted from denying / obfuscating that hard science.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21465768
To quote “The microbial colonization ( of the teat canal )can be influenced by the environment of the animals.
Cows live in an environment covered in manure.
Certainly…I do agree that the concentrations and populations are different in every ecosphere based on location of the body of the cow, but many of the same types of bacteria share different ecolocations. Based on diet these types of bacteria also change. The same goes for humans. Itis interesting to note that the canal bacteria fight pathogenic bacteria. Did I hear that right???
Good bacteria protect and kill off bad bacteria in cows teats….hence their raw milk contains bacteria that kills off pathogens. This is PUBMED, NIH… FDA stuff.
It is time for us to all listen to Dr. Bassler PhD MIT Biologist Genome researcher extrordianaire again.
http://www.ted.com/talks/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html
We are Bacteriosapiens!!!! Not a damn thing you can do about it. If you kill off bacteria in and on your body you get sick and die.
Modern Medicine now uses fecal transplants to save lives!! Shit Rocks!!!
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/20/8419332-sounds-gross-works-great-fecal-transplants-cure-nasty-c-diff-infections
We all know about Spousal Intercourse…but now Spousal PooperCourse is saving lives. Fecal transplants save lives and has a cure rate of 92%!!! Antibiotics C-Diff is killing more than 32% of those effected.
Get over the fecal paranoia.
I did not come up with “Spousal PooperCourse”…that was the writter of the Medical Story about saving 92% of medical patients with C-Diff through the use of a spouses fecal transplant.
The tipping point is tipping.
Seems like more than over regulation. 139 acres and verboten to have 8 pigs.
I do not understand why the author reiterated the fraudulent disease-statistics from CDC, health department, university and processed-food employees and investors as if the statistics were based on science and fact, especially since they possess such a superstitious prejudice against raw milk. I gave her research that proved calling bacteria the food problem is an intentional misdirection and a way for government/industry to gain control of our food.
The misinformation starts with the Pasteur info, was stated as if it were case history. The Sorbonne’s Pasteur Institute of the time was hot on the heals of Pasteur’s heat-process that stopped the molding of his friend’s wine grapes, thereby saving his friend’s land that he would have lost if his grapes were not made into wine and sold. The Sorbonne jumped on Pasteur’s coat tails at the time to ride the notoriety as if they had helped Pasteur with his idea. However, they gave credibility to each other, captured the ears and lips of Europe with the publicity that pasteurization arrested the mold in picked grapes. The medical community jumped on the band wagon stating that Pasteur’s process proved that germs caused disease as well as molds, and that they could be stopped.
However, it was not widely publicized that the wine was abominable to the connoisseur, not sold at posh markets and restaurants but sold to the impoverished who normally could not afford wine. The grower nor Pasteur would drink it. The pasteurized wine was of tainted quality mainly because of pasteurization. It was sold cheap, but it sold.
The affluent class that experienced failed wine crops in their past, now had a market for a processed cheap and inferior food in case mold grew in their grapes. They would never suffer a complete loss again. The market was the trusting poor public in Paris that thought they were getting a drink from the rich man’s table. It was sold and marketed as such. There were many reports of illness from consumption of the pasteurized wine, including irrational behavior, increased home and job accidents and violence. Pasteurization alters enzymes, minerals and trace fats that would normally restrict the quickest absorption of radical sugars and alcohol that often cause undesirable personality alterations.
While being interviewed for almost 2 hours for this article, I explained to the author how the CDC and health departments base their statistics about raw-milk borne disease on surveys not science. That should have been obvious when it could have been verified that Organic Pasture’s milk did not cause those children’s illnesses because there was none of that bacteria in the milk. Bacteria in a calf that does not produce milk, and the fact that that bacteria does not survive airborne, should be enough facts to demonstrate that the illnesses were not caused by the raw milk they consumed but something else.
Also, the girls who were obviously sick and hospitalized in San Diego whose sicknesses were caused by something other than Organic Pastures’ raw milk – received massive amounts of antibiotics such as Ciprofloxacin that caused kidney disorders exactly like those of HUS in laboratory animals. Therefore, it was likely the antibiotics in such massive concentrations that caused the kidney damage, not the bacteria for which the suffering girls were being treated, and wrongly blamed on raw milk. The article misleads every reader to believe that raw milk caused and causes illnesses because it falsely presumes that raw milk is innately prone to “bad” bacteria. It seems that even David and Mark believe it.
Utilizing the statement from a health “authority” that pasteurization makes milk safe was a blatant falsehood. The word “claim” did not appear before that statement. In the history of pasteurized milk, there have been over 500,000 cases of scientifically-proved incidences of food-poisoning, literally epidemics, one involving 197,000 people. Raw milk is condemned by accusations – not science but surveys and statistics.
When a doctor or hospital reports bloody vomit or diarrhea, usually it is 2-12 weeks after the incident that a health-department clerk calls the person who suffered and asks what they ate when they got sick. Who remembers all that they ate yesterday much less weeks after an intense illness? If the person states that they drank raw milk, raw milk is automatically determined to be the cause. That is not science but prejudicial survey-spinnable false statistics. CDC and others certainly spin it, creating misleading statistics.
Technically, we should not call vomit and diarrhea sicknesses. We should call them what they are. A person’s body rejects something that is toxic with vomit or diarrhea. Those is not sicknesses but detoxification of something poisonous. If the tests were done to detect industrial chemicals in the vomit and diarrhea instead of the microbes, we would have a proper answer of their causes.
I have seen literally thousands of very sick individuals recover from disease by drinking raw dairy and eating raw meats. I do not know how “investigative” journalists sleep at night with their poor research. Seems nothing is very thoroughly investigated and the status-quo concepts continue to be regurgitated and accepted as unquestionable truth. A proper investigation would entail a study of the children and elderly who completely recovered from their illnesses while drinking raw milk. A good comparative study would entail children and elderly who remained trapped in their diseases while not drinking raw milk but taking medical drugs that offer no cure or proper healing.
Take for example Walker Kerhrer who was an asthmatic boy on medication. At 7 years old, he stopped taking his medical and began consuming raw milk. At 8 years old in 2001, he testified before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors that before he drank raw milk he suffered terrible asthma and that when he did not have his raw milk, he suffered terrible asthma. In 2009, Walker was the top high school tennis champion in the USA. From asthma to tennis champion; will that fact be filed away in the minds of the medical- and university-indoctrinated minds as anecdotal information? How will you file it?
Notice that the the New Yorker article stated that my recovery from blood, bone, lymphatic and stomach cancers were merely my personal claims. She could have easily researched the truth by seeking the records at the hospitals where I was treated. She didn’t ask for proof. I could have shown her and given her photos of my surgical scars to verify but she did not ask and I did not think to offer. I have a letter written by one of my doctors 44 years ago that berated me for discontinuing chemo-treatments with a 1% chance of living miserably for one more month. In the letter, the doctor tried to emotionally manipulate me into continuing a process that caused me to vomit, defecate and urinate all over myself 5-20 times daily. Such doctors are insane. From medical treatments, I was a hairless worm on the floor in excruciating pain 24 hours daily, only able to sleep 6-10 minutes before I would awaken in greater excruciating pain. I suffered other severe side effects from all of the medical treatments.
However, when I began drinking raw milk and raw carrot juice, my symptoms immediately began to diminish little by little. After awhile, I notice that when I drank more raw milk than carrot juice, I experienced less pain. When I drank more carrot juice than raw milk, I suffered more. I was able to achieve a measurable balance. The correlation between foods and health became very apparent to me even though doctors were in complete denial about it. To them, only pharmaceuticals – industrial chemicals – favorably altered health.
ALL health departments and universities are controlled by medically indoctrinated propaganda instituted by the money and power of the pharmaceutical industry. They have only drops of objectivity when it comes to their brainwashed bacteria-phobic thought processes.
Every bodily process occurs by the interaction of numerous species of bacteria, inter-cellularly, extra-cellularly, and bodily fluids, including all of the activities in and of the body. We are 150 bacteria genes to every 1 human gene. We are about 1/2% human and 99.5% bacteria. The concept that bacteria cause diseases is called the germ-theory. It entails the ludicrous notion that a tiny colony of certain terrorist bacteria can willy-nilly overwhelm the the body, even cause the body to attack itself. That is as accurate as a small village of 200 natives with primitive weapons arresting and annihilating all of the people in the United States of America. That sort of phenomenon only happens in fictional movies. It is an absurdity. Why do people believe it? Because our minds are literally turned against natural fact.
The bacteria that is being accused of causing diseases (so-called “pathogenic”) are actually cellular janitors. They cleanup organic waste. We all have varieties of bacteria that digest (disassemble), construct (reassemble) and cleanse (collect waste, neutralize toxins, and select reusable waste and discard waste that is not reusable).
When laboratory technicians put live animal cells in an unnatural industrial chemical fluid environment that sustains cellular life it also denigrates the cells simultaneously. Cells that are not in their natural biological fluids degenerate and/or transmogrify.
The bacteria that are naturally part of the cleansing of such degeneration are propagated within the cells, coming out of hibernation so-to-speak to eat and/or transform the chemically damaged tissue of the cells. In cases wherein the chemical environment causes mutations, bacterial genes are transmogrified and resultantly so are the cells. In laboratories, Petri-dish observers see that the cells are being eaten, dissolved or transmogrified by the cleansing (janitorial) bacteria and say, “See, those cells are causing cellular disruption and dissolution. They cause disease.” The naturally occurring followup-thinking becomes, ” How can we make money off of this? Let’s create millions of weapons of mass destruction that we will call antibiotics, antiseptics and antimicrobials. We’ll make a fortune.”
Do we blame the janitors for the waste they clean in our homes and offices? Do we blame the janitors who clean the pollution that mutates our janitors and gives them diseases? Some day soon, I hope that people will awaken and realize that industrial chemicals, including those formed by cooking and processing, cause all diseases. We must stop blaming bacteria or we will never understand our bodies. Bacteria are never the problem.
However, bacterial waste can be highly toxic when bacteria are fed foods containing industrial chemicals. Take for instance, intestinal bacteria that are supposed to be 90% of digestion. They eat the food we eat. Their waste is our food that we absorb. Their feces, urine and perspiration are our foods. When the bacteria eat foods with gross toxins, they release those toxins as a natural product of the toxic food.
Bacteria are not to blame for our diseases. The chemical farmers and processors are to blame. If people acknowledge those facts, who would they find to buy non-organic and processed food, and medical drugs? Our politicians and business people say the economy is at stake so to hell with health, let’s keep up the economy. Is the economy more important than living in a healthy body? That is a question each of us must answer.
The drugs that cause most disease are vaccines. Every ingredient is toxic in every vaccine. There are not exceptions. Together, the ingredients are a soup of toxins that have no proof of effectiveness for preventing the disease for which they are given. However, there are volumes of science that prove those toxins cause illness and disease in laboratory animals.
The reason that those toxins in vaccines may seem to work in some people is that the body stops the janitorial bacteria from cleaning old organic waste and accumulated toxins. Instead, most bodies focus on the immediate toxins from vaccines. It will take a body many years to handle, neutralize, eliminate or store those toxins from a direct injection of toxic fluids. So the normal diseases that result from toxic living are temporarily subdued but increasing.
The body responds to most drugs the same way, temporary cessation of disease symptoms but increased toxicity that leads to greater disease. The people who benefit are all of those who invest and work in medically-related fields while decaying the health of people. If everyone were healthy, medical-related businesses and employees would be out of business and work.
Only if you are sick, do they profit. Do you really think they want you healthy? Those who want people to be healthy yet continue to work in the medical fields are in total denial and ignorant of the results of what they really do.
I want to return to the article Raw Deal. The author and/or editors failed to investigate the validity of Sharon Palmer’s response that all of the thousands of dollars of commercial food she bought were sold to restaurants, inferring that they were not sold or distributed at farmers’ markets or Rawesome. Did the author contact the restaurants and verify Palmer’s statement? Did the author and fact checkers fail to contact the employees who testified that the commercial food Palmer bought were sold at farmers’ markets and Rawesome. They testified that Palmer sold those commercial foods as being truly organic and/or Grass-fed food.
When I speak of organic, I do not refer to the USDA’s corrupt version of organic that allows hundreds of industrial chemicals to enter the grounds that grow plants and animals for food as long as it does not exceed 15%. Fifteen percent chemicals can and does cause massive harm to animal cells, most often gradually but sometimes immediately. Those are the chemically-laced commercial foods that Palmer peddled as truly organically and/or grass-fed raised-on-her-farm products. Go to: http://www.UnhealthyFamilyFarms.com to see much of the facts in this case.
James Stewart was complicit in distributing that commercial toxic food to all Rawesome’s trusting members. I am witness to that for the many times he lied to me for 2 years. James went off track many years ago and let’s hope he gets back on track, at least with his own foods. I will never trust him again to handle my foods. For 2 years, he told me repeatedly that Sharon’s products were completely organic by my standards and completely raised on Sharon’s farm. He stated I was being irrational and ridiculous to question the quality of those foods. Often he screamed at me at Rawesome in front of many members. The investigators that were hired and the Los Angeles City investigators found that Sharon had peddled the commercial foods for at least 2 years to Rawesome members and people at farmer’s markets.
James Stewart and Sharon Palmer robbed, cheated and stole from all Rawesome members. The worst of their actions was that they harmed the health of people who consumed those chemically tainted foods. They harmed the people with the very products that members joined Rawesome to avoid.
I have been criticized and ostracized for reporting Stewart’s and Palmer’s criminal behavior to law enforcement. Stewart and Palmer left me no choice. I approached them about the quality of foods produced at Sharon’s farm numerous times in 2 years but most often they yelled at me. If I hadn’t arranged for the independent investigation and stopped them, members would still be defrauded into consuming the poison members thought they were avoiding at very high prices FOR 2 YEARS – not some isolated incident.
Furthermore, James Stewart does not have any significant experience in farming. His experience involved acquiring food and food sales. He is not the protector that he purports to be. He simply peddles the food for which others establish quality.
I worked very hard to achieve the best quality of food possible by working with our Amish farmers who supplied Rawesome. I visited the farms in Pennsylvania. They changed their farming habits to accommodate exactly what I found was best because it was common sense farming. However, it is only common sense when you extricate your mind from agricultural-brainwashing produced by the food and chemical industries. Under Right To Choose Healthy Food, I contracted the farmers to grow and deliver our food in the safest manner possible for our times with the most nutrition.
People need to realize that Stewart has harmed our food-movement immeasurably. He did not leave me a choice but to stop him the way I did. If he had truly been about our right-to-food-choices movement, he would not have supplied toxic commercial food and sold it a high prices to people he had contracted with to not supply those industrial foods for 2 YEARS. Additionally, he did not take the brave approach as the farmers Vernon Hershberger and Micheal Schmidt did. Vernon and Michael were ready to go to jail for the well-fare of their food-club members and all of our rights to healthy food. Michael was ready to die for them.
James, however, opted to take actions to save himself, resulting in the closing of our club, depriving us of Rawesome and put all other raw food clubs in the country in jeopardy. For other people’s sake, I hope that James Stewart has changed for the better if ever in the future he supplies food to people who care for their health. I will not trust him to handle my food. How could I trust a supposed friend who knowingly defrauded and poisoned my patients and other Rawesome members, including me, for 2 years with the chemically tainted commercial foods Sharon fraudulently peddled as grown on her tiny “family” farm? If people earn trust, have Stewart and Palmer earned our trust?
In closing, our food safety should not be predicated on the notion of bacteria, species of bacteria or bacterial behavior. The safety and quality of our food should be solely based on absence of industrial chemicals in food that causes diseases, even if those chemicals do there damage ever so slowly for the purpose of growing fast, pretty food with long shelve lives. What is more important?
healthfully,
aajonus vonderplanitz, ph.d nutrition
No, I am not saying that those are desirable activities for humans but they are not innately dangerous. I would never suggest that anyone eat their own feces or any human feces. There is no more toxic animal than human on this planet, except domesticated dogs and cats fed foods that are fed the worst commercial foods of all. Their feces are contaminated with toxic pathogenic industrial chemicals.
Bacteria is not our problem of disease.
aajonus vonderplanitz
More manipulation by our government, with ground water contamination that effect all of us!!!
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/04/sneak-attack-on-clean-water-act-pushed.html#more
Here’s another one about Mad cow disease in California.
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/04/mad-cow-disease-may-infect-through-milk.html
Don’t be surprised if there isn’t a major sickness outbreak again (and possibly from dairy) and this time people die, and our government says because a farmer killed someone they should not be allowed to produce food any longer, no matter how many years they have been producing it.
And has anyone seen this connection?
http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/news/mad_cow_disease_may_be_misdiagnosed_as_dementia_or_alzheimers.htm
Aajonus, I agree there are assertions to question and debate in The New Yorker article. Where I have difficulty is with your explanation in your comment here of your actions with regard to James Stewart and Sharon Palmer, especially your suggestion that you had no choice but to take the extreme actions you took. You state:
“I have been criticized and ostracized for reporting Stewart’s and Palmer’s criminal behavior to law enforcement. Stewart and Palmer left me no choice. I approached them about the quality of foods produced at Sharon’s farm numerous times in 2 years but most often they yelled at me…People need to realize that Stewart has harmed our food-movement immeasurably. He did not leave me a choice but to stop him the way I did.”
I wonder if you really had “no choice,” that there weren’t some less extreme measures you could have taken. Perhaps asked the Rawesome members to vote on changing the situation. If that wasn’t practical, how about simply having invited Rawesome members who didn’t like what Stewart-Palmer were allegedly doing to move with you to establish a new food club? Or if you wanted to take legal action, I’m sure there was some kind of civil action you might have filed, like sought an injunction against them supplying the food you thought was dangerous.
I suspect that the hostility you say you have encountered stems not only from your decision to publicly air your complaints via a web site, but also from your decision to take your Rawesome food complaints to criminal prosecutors. Those complaints did nothing to affect Rawesome’s food supply–the prosecutors cared not a whit that Palmer might have been substituting conventional eggs and meat for her farm’s produce–but did result in loan fraud charges against the two that could send them to jail for more than 30 years each. In effect, you opened the door for prosecutors to exact revenge on Stewart for running a private food club.
We may be mammals, but WE ARE NOT ANIMALS, THEREFORE ANIMAL POOP AND HUMAN POOP WILL MAKE US SICK. This is not complicated to figure out. When babies are first born, we dont rub the mothers fecal matter all over the baby or advise a woman to rub fecal matter all over her breasts before she breastfed too insure a healthy immune system. Ive watched cats give birth many times. They eat the placenta for energy and if a kitten is born dead, they eat that also. Humans dont eat the placenta or eat dead babies. See, we are not animals.
If you would like to eat your own poop, drink your urine and eat raw animal meat, go for it, but dont encourage anyone with children to include feces or raw animal meat as an immune boosting staple in the diet they consume.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1908442,00.html
I am going to give you a big time history lesson . . . first of all humans have not been bathing regularly and taking showers daily historically up until the 1970’s . . . it used to be that lower and middle class people took weekly baths (if they were lucky) on Sunday . . . from the 1920’s up to the 70’s . . . prior to that, baths were sporadic at best and people used to change out linen undergarments either daily or weekly depending on the “Class” structure. . . . and kids did not wear shoes in the summer . . . I know this because I am a top Antique Costume and Textile dealer as well as a small farmer . . . Go to a local cemetary and look at gravestones . . . prior to the 1940’s . . .I bet you big money that most of these stones show young children/infants who died before the age of 5-6 (unless there was an epidemic of Typhoid, Smallpox, etc.,), Mothers who died in Childbirth or shortly thereafter and very elderly people from 60+ . . . our lifespan and health had NOTHING to do with bathing every day. Back then . . . nobody had heart disease, diabetes (which once upon a time along with gout a rich man’s disease), cancer, autism, etc. . . . if you survived infancy . . . you were okay for the most part (even if you smoked, chewed, took snuff or drank like a fish!!!) unless you had an accident or lived during a time of an epidemic. . . . then you lived to a respectable age. Our focus on cleanliness and antibiotics has destroyed our immune systems . . . couple that with dozens of immunizations and GMO based processed foods and you have a nation of chronic sickness . . . maybe I am wrong . . . but history does not lie here . . .
I cannot speak to the validity of his arguements about raw milk and the bacteria world. But it seems anti-progress to turn your back completely away from modern science and medicine.
Kristen
Ive been present at the birth of all of my children with the exception of one. Clearly there is a great deal of pressure down there as the child begins to exit and it is quite common for fecal matter and juices to be squeezed out of the rectum. Its at this point when a child receives its initial inoculation or baptism if you will, of indigenous microbiota.
A child in the uterus is normally sterile, however during and after birth the infant is exposed to an increasing number of microorganisms. Not wiping poop all aver your child does not mean it is not exposed to the many organisms that are in it. In turn when a child begins to nurse it transfers acquired organisms to the teat canal. For everything there is a purpose.
Many bacteria including ecoli from the bowel colonize the lower party of the urinary tract. Lactobacilli are found in both the urinary and reproductive track and help to nurture a healthy acidic environment (beware of antibiotics).
Science has only been able to culture and identify a mere tiny fraction of the millions of bacteria that reside in and on the human body let alone understand their purpose. I would suggest that all organisms are teaching us all a lesson in humility.
Ken
Please delete the second post.
Ken
We should not forget the historical lessons of the presanitation years or the pre-antibiotic era, nor fail to appreciate the complexity of the diseases of civilization. It was not Disneyland. Simply put-sanitation is not sterilization, over use/abuse of antibiotics and the resulting rise of resistant organisms-has turned a gift of Nature into a curse. Historical observations, cultural lore, anthropology etc and basic science are not inconsistent with the goals of healthful living you all seek. Most of you on this blog would be molding compost if not for sanitation and the use of antibiotics let alone medical intervention. But the JUDICIUS and wise use of these technologies for our better health are in conflict with greed, environmental destruction and other cultural or social pathologies. The historical record for the death of civilizations is very clearweare in no way immune, and our children will not be spared the world we are gifting to them. Individual examples do not define nor negate broader trends…. My generation will be the last US generation to have an average life expectancy that exceeds or equals that of our parents. The knowledge is there to reverse the trendthe cultural forces to do so are not.
So what is the image of our evolving species—-large thumbs, delicate fingers with fast reflexes, a brain the size of a walnut, housed in a quivering pile of adipose tissue living on HFCS, and power bars, breathing filtered air .kept alive by marginally educated medical technicians. . . . .and participating in life through video games ..as long as the electricity flows .
The above link is a blog from a person who has diabetes and has, since 2009, because of his change in life style and eating habits, has said he hasn’t had diabetic drugs to control his blood sugar. He was sent a letter from the state of NC to basically cease and desist his blog writings.
The ADA recommends a high carb diet form of “healthy whole grains”, this blogger found what worked for him and has shared his story and the stories of others. His method went against the ADA dietary recommendations. Being able to stay off any medications and keep his blood sugar within ‘normal’ limits should be applauded, as so many have difficulties doing that. This bloggers crime was to contradict the ADA advice – even though he has a disclaimer.
Seems those who share their success stories and/or choices of how they want to live and what worked for them, are slammed when they go against the govt entities/bedfellows. The govt et al has claimed that “organic” is no more nutritious than non-organic. Anything with no or less added chemicals is better.
There are also many studies at PubMed describing the differences in the gut flora of vaginally-born infants and caesarean-born infants. Vaginally-born infants’ digestive systems, and consequently their immune systems, develop much faster than the caesarean-born. Asthma, rhinitis, eczema, food allergies, obesity are some of the conditions the studies examined, and the cesarean-born infants develop these conditions at a higher rate than vaginally-born infants. Also, babies born at home developed an even healthier colonization of gut flora. In my own experience, (one baby born at home, one baby born in the hospital) the home birth is messier and poopier. At the hospital someone is watching and wiping constantly, everything neat and tidy, less exposure. Both were healthy babies, but the one born at home did have a healthier gut. I knew her gut was healthier because of the difference of what ended up in the diaper. I was also surprised to find one study that concluded that the mode of delivery influenced the gut bacteria and immune system more than breastfeeding, (and yet the rates of caesarean births keep rising.)
Poop happens, and healthy animal and human poop are an important part of the healthy, fertile circle of life. (and BTW last time I checked humans are animals, we just like to think we know more than those messy ass-licking lower forms)
I took it to the members. I sent notice to over 1,500 of the 1900 members; I did not have all of their email addresses. Only 22 members came to view the evidence. Six of them were angry at me because they believed Stewart and Palmer’s lies. Palmer told them and they believed that all 5 of the past employees who had worked for her and testified against her were “disgruntled employees.” Common sense alone would force a reasonable person to ask, how could Palmer have made that many employees disgruntled. If you read the testimony, you will see that they were disgruntled because she was deceiving Rawesome members and farmers’ market shoppers. As long as they continued working for her, they were complicit in the deceit. Those employees could not live with their consciences and continue with Palmer’s deceit. They stated that Palmer continually promised them that she would make everything right soon but never did. Each of them gave her at least 5 months to resolve the issue, cumulatively 2 years.
When Rawesome was started in 1999, all of its members were my patients. As our food club grew, I made sure that our main suppliers were growing food the way that I knew best, that is, bio-eco-organic, which is much better than organic. About 2005, when I received my doctorate, Stewart began carrying products that were not truly raw and not sanctioned by me. When I told him they were not raw, he stated that I did not know what I was talking about. He said he had called the suppliers and they reassured him they were raw. I had to contact the producing companies in writing one by one and ask specific questions about processing and temperatures. When I presented the information that they were not truly raw to James, he posted a sign that stated the temperatures at which the food had been processed. He did not send a memo to members stating that he was sorry he had misled them for months.
At another time, he had someone press oils from flax, sunflower and sesame seeds. When I discovered that, I contested that those oils could not be commercially pressed raw. The mere pressing of them in commercial steel machines would bring the temperature above 96 degrees F. He stated his machine was small and did not heat above 110 F. James had a heat-gun and assured me that he had tested the oils himself and they were under 110 F. For me, 96 F. for oils is the point where oils are negatively affected. Because of my constant travel, I was unable to be there on the 2 or 3 days each month that those seeds were “cold-pressed”.
Several months later when I had a respite in travel, I made certain that I was at Rawesome for the seed-pressings, for about 5 hours. ALL of the oils were coming out of the last area of the machine anywhere from 113-168 F. That was way above the 96 F. that I considered truly raw, and way above the 110 F. that James declared he had measured. The problem with James’ heat-tests was that he pointed the heat-gun at the center of the pressing process and not at the end where the heat is the highest.
I knew that in industrial machines, the longer the constant pressing the more the heat rose. So, I remained to watch and test. On James’ small oil-pressing machine, the heat rose up to 182 F. in the flax oil. The machine had to be cooled after so many minutes of pressing to reduce the temperature of flax to about 142 F. We discovered that only the sunflower seeds would press at about 96 F. after the first 4 ounces of pressing. The bottle of the first 4 ounces of sunflower oil was up to 118 F. and was supposed to be labeled at that temperature and sold at a lower price.
Those accounts of food quality demonstrate that James does not have a clue about how to judge or discover whether a food is truly raw and of good quality. I reiterate, James is not a food protector but a food peddler and does not deserve the accolades of quality food provider.
I only testified to law-enforcement about the Palmer and Stewart food fraud at the farm. All of the other charges stemmed from Palmer’s abuse of the farm for which she was entrusted to take care. Palmer is a tenant of the farm, not the legal owner. She burned down the historical barn and built many structures without permits. She caused about 15 building and safety violations for which Larry Otting was responsible because he is legal owner of the property and responsible for all actions performed on the property.
On many occasions, the District Attorneys office threatened to fine and jail Mr. Otting if the violations were not resolved. To date the fines have exceeding $120,000 and continue to increase by $200 daily. Palmer will not correct the violations and continued to build without permits. She refused to allow Otting on the property to correct the violations. Palmer put Otting between a rock and a hard place with the government. Mr. Otting took the matter to the court many times to resolve violations at great time and expense to himself. including legal fees. Because the tenant laws are so strict in California and Palmer’s many false promises to the court, nothing has been resolved. Otting was forced to plead to some charges and stay out of jail. Palmer created that by her willful volations. She still has not resolved the violations.
Again, she is merely a tenant on the land and not the owner of the farm. The investors are the owners of the farm. The farm is not hers and never was. She acquired money for her activities on the property by defrauding investors. She forged deeds falsifying that the land was in her name so that investors would give her money directly. Then she deposited the moneys in Mr. Otting’s account for the property thereby involving Otting in the security fraud. Mr. Otting decided to plead guilty and not face trial and probable jail time for Palmer’s fraud.
It astounds me that Palmer is able to seduce people into her web of corruption. It appears that she wants everyone to buy the farm for her and that she thinks everybody owes that to her. I believe that attitude is inflated self worth when you consider that she defrauded and poisoned the members with commercial food for over 2 years while charging premium prices. Stewart and Palmer are responsible for all of the charges against them and the farm. I nor Larry Otting are responsible for any of their behavior and legal actions.
I hope that all of the issues regarding Rawesome, Stewart, Palmer, Otting and I are now understood. I have spent so much time on this treachery and would like to move on to better people and healthy experiences.