The Minnesota Department of Agriculture continues to push ahead with misdemeanor criminal charges involving the distribution of raw milk, meat, and eggs against farmer Alvin Schlangen in his home county, despite the similarity to three charges he was acquitted on last September.
At a hearing in St. Cloud today, the Stearns County prosecutor, representing the MDA, indicated he has no intention of going along with a motion by Schlangens lawyer to dismiss three of six charges that are very similar to those he was acquitted of by a Minneapolis jury. In arguing briefly against the motion, prosecutor Bill MacPhail likened raw milk to a controlled substance.
Schlangens lawyer, Nathan Hansen, was taken aback. I would dispute that raw milk is a controlled substance, he told the judge.
Both the Minnesota and U.S. Constitutions prohibit “double jeopardy”–trying a person more than once on charges he was acquitted of.
The judge, Thomas Knapp, gave the prosecution two weeks to file a brief in opposition to the Schlangen dismissal motion. The defense will then have a week to file a response. Its not clear how soon after the three-week process the judge will issue a ruling on the Schlangen dismissal motion.
The complaint against Schlangen alleges he was violating Minnesotas prohibitions on selling raw milk he didnt produce, and that he was selling beef, eggs, and other foods without proper licenses.Three charges having to do with illegal sale of raw milk and selling food without a retail license are very similar to the previous charges. The three having to do with his alleged failure to keep eggs at prescribed temperatures, selling custom-slaughtered beef and chicken, and removing embargoed food, are new ones.
Schlangen argued successfully at his trial in Minneapolis in September that he was delivering the milk from a farm to members of his food club. The eggs, he said, came from his own farm. He was distributing other foods as a volunteer manager of the food club, he maintained. If found guilty of all six Stearns County charges, Schlangen could face 18 months in jail, plus a $6,000 fine.
The MDA has similarly shown no inclination to back off a case it filed in an administrative court seeking to have Schlangen prohibited from carrying out the same activities the criminal suits have accused him of. That case involves no penalties, unless Schlangen were to violate any prohibitions; then, he could be brought to trial on still similar criminal charges.
FDA, MDA – it doesn’t matter. They’re the same baby, they’re just riding in different strollers.
MADISON (WKOW)
An 8-month WKOW investigation revealed that the Dept. of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection sometimes ignores or rushes to close consumer complaints without ever responding to the consumer who filed the complaint.
Consumer complaints used to be handled through the Dept. of Justice, but the legislature shifted responsibility to the Dept. of Agriculture in the 1990s.
Governor Jim Doyle acknowledged on Friday that many consumer complaints will not get any attention.
Here’s a full transcript of Doyle’s comments about consumer protection:
WKOW: Are you concerned that DATCP is promising something to Wisconsin taxpayers that it doesn’t have the staffing to deliver?
GOVERNOR DOYLE: No. DATCP has a very difficult job in consumer protection. If you want to know my preference from the days I was attorney general, was this should all be in the attorney general’s office. This is all something that for years I’ve been supportive of, and that’s what’s true in most states. DATCP is not a law enforcement agency. The fact is, if you want, every time someone has an argument with a business over a bill, to have a state employee go in and essentially investigate the entire dispute, and try to decide who the winner and loser is, we could probably add 10,000 more people to the state payroll. DATCP has a difficult job. It’s one they really have to try to focus on what are the areas, what are the most serious cases, what are the areas of biggest consumer concern, and in appropriate cases make a referral to the attorney general’s office. So I don’t think you could expect that DATCP would, every time someone has a complaint against a business, go and investigate that
WKOW: Are they clear to consumers they’re not going to go and do that?
GOVERNOR DOYLE: Yeah. [Moves on to next question from another reporter]
Doyle has declined repeated requests for a sit-down interview about the state’s handling of consumer complaints.
I wish strength and fortitude to Alvin Schlangen during this ongoing trouble. His bravery means more freedom for the rest of us.
What will they do when the nurses have a reaction to the shot? Disclaim any responsibility? Will those who refuse increase?
What’s to stop them from mandating other drugs? Other issues?
http://www.cornucopia.org/2013/01/the-gm-lobby-and-its-seven-sins-against-science/
This starts out with a look at the science and ends up at the food end of the spectrum. It’s long, but it’s extremely good reading. I do not agree with his take on the ozone layer and global warming, but thank heavens it’s only one sentence in the article, and doesn’t take away from the general idea. Not all science is good science, that much we know for a fact.
http://www.cornucopia.org/2013/01/obamas-science-commitment-fda-face-ethics-scrutiny-in-wake-of-gmo-salmon-fiasco/
http://preventdisease.com/news/12/011612_Modern-Wheat-Really-Isnt-Wheat-At-All.shtml
Gluten intolerance is no longer a fringe medical concept. Researchers are fully aware there is a very big problem with modern wheat cultivation. Wheat is far from being a health food. It makes you fat, causes gas and makes your intestinal tract your enemy, or rather vice-versa. High-yielding and now genetically modified varieties of wheat are making this one cereal grain you’ll probably want to axe from your food list.
So how–and when–did this ancient grain become such a serious health threat? Author and preventive cardiologist William Davis, MD, says it’s when big agriculture stepped in decades ago to develop a higher-yielding crop. Today’s “wheat,” he says, isn’t even wheat, thanks to some of the most intense crossbreeding efforts ever seen. “The wheat products sold to you today are nothing like the wheat products of our grandmother’s age, very different from the wheat of the early 20th Century, and completely transformed from the wheat of the Bible and earlier,” he says.
Plant breeders changed wheat in dramatic ways. Once more than four feet tall, modern wheat–the type grown in 99 percent of wheat fields around the world–is now a stocky two-foot-tall plant with an unusually large seed head. Dr. Davis says accomplishing this involved crossing wheat with non-wheat grasses to introduce altogether new genes, using techniques like irradiation of wheat seeds and embryos with chemicals, gamma rays, and high-dose X-rays to induce mutations…
Clearfield Wheat, grown on nearly 1 million acres in the Pacific Northwest and sold by BASF Corporation–the world’s largest chemical manufacturer–was created in a geneticist’s lab by exposing wheat seeds and embryos to the mutation-inducing industrial toxin sodium azide, a substance poisonous to humans…
Intense crossbreeding created significant changes in the amino acids in wheat’s glutenproteins, a potential cause for the 400 percent increase in celiac disease over the past 40 years. Wheat’s gliadin protein has also undergone changes, with what appears to be a dire consequence. “Compared to its pre-1960s predecessor, modern gliadin is a potent appetite stimulant,” explains Dr. Davis. “The new gliadin proteins may also account for the explosion in inflammatory diseases we’re seeing.”…
A powerful little chemical in wheat known as ‘wheat germ agglutinin’ (WGA) which is largely responsible for many of wheat’s pervasive, and difficult to diagnose, ill effects. Researchers are now discovering that WGA in modern wheat is very different from ancient strains. Not only does WGA throw a monkey wrench into our assumptions about the primary causes of wheat intolerance, but due to the fact that WGA is found in highest concentrations in “whole wheat,” including its supposedly superior sprouted form, it also pulls the rug out from under one of the health food industry’s favorite poster children…
…in the past 15 years, it’s been showing up in more and more processed foods. Wheat ingredients are now found in candy, Bloody Mary mixes, lunch meats, soy sauce, and even wine coolers.
As if making you hungrier wasn’t enough, early evidence suggests that modern wheat’s new biochemical code causes hormone disruption that is linked to diabetes and obesity…
Right as GMO feed stock was being pushed. The bone meal from other cows and sheep is blamed, but did anyone ever look at the concentrations of GMO proteins in the bone meal?
Why is BSE (Mad cow) still around, if feed lots no longer feed dead cow bones to beef cattle?
Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/1559365-there-connection-between-mad-cow-gmo.html#ixzz2HmrgRNIh
Read more at http://www.newstalkflorida.com/rancher-loses-livestock-due-to-gmo-corn-jerry-rosman-elizabeth-dougherty-audio/#783dqZ3ggwqD70lz.99
Here’s a full transcript of Doyle’s comments about consumer protection:
**
WKOW: Are you concerned that DATCP is promising something to Wisconsin taxpayers that it doesn’t have the staffing to deliver?
GOVERNOR DOYLE: No. DATCP has a very difficult job in consumer protection. If you want to know my preference from the days I was attorney general, was this should all be in the attorney general’s office. This is all something that for years I’ve been supportive of, and that’s what’s true in most states. DATCP is not a law enforcement agency. The fact is, if you want, every time someone has an argument with a business over a bill, to have a state employee go in and essentially investigate the entire dispute, and try to decide who the winner and loser is, we could probably add 10,000 more people to the state payroll. DATCP has a difficult job. It’s one they really have to try to focus on what are the areas, what are the most serious cases, what are the areas of biggest consumer concern, and in appropriate cases make a referral to the attorney general’s office. So I don’t think you could expect that DATCP would, every time someone has a complaint against a business, go and investigate that
WKOW: Are they clear to consumers they’re not going to go and do that?
GOVERNOR DOYLE: Yeah. [Moves on to next question from another reporter]