The good-cop-bad-cop routine is one of the oldest in law enforcement. Talk with me, goes the advice to the criminal suspect from the nice-guy cop, or I’ll send in our junk yard dog, and you don’t want to deal with him. Lord knows what he’ll do to get you to cough up the real story, and he’ll make sure you get a long jail sentence to boot.
Regulators from the Maine Department of Agriculture have been playing the good-cop-bad-cop game with proponents of Food Sovereignty, in an effort to convince them to back off from their fight on behalf of Dan Brown, the farmer who has been sued in a test case over whether the Food Sovereignty ordinances passed by eight Maine towns (including his town of Blue Hill) are legal. At the same time, the Maine regulators work closely with the federal regulators and, as I suggested in Part 1 of this series, have even indicated a preference for the federal hard line on food rights over their own governor’s inclination toward compromise.
One of the proponents they have played this good-cop-bad-cop game with is Heather Retberg, a farmer and one of the organizers of Maine’s Food Sovereignty initiative. Like Brown, she has refused to apply for a state permit to sell raw milk, asserting her right to sell privately, under the Food Sovereignty ordinance passed last year by her town of Penobscot. But according to nearly 700 pages of emails and other documents obtained by lawyers for Dan Brown, the Maine Department of Agriculture has told Retberg she could well be the next farmer sued by the state.
In correspondence with Retberg earlier this year, she questioned a Maine ag official about whether the agency would be able to protect her from possible enforcement action by the FDA. She attached information from an owner of Estrella Cheese, which was shut down by the FDA in 2010. Retberg said that Estrella was “a licensed, price winning cheese maker in Washington state who had worked well and favorably with her Department of Agriculture, but was left unprotected from FDA aggression and is still struggling through an awful ordeal and has ceased making cheese and may yet need to sell the farm.”
To which Steve Giguere, a Maine Department of Agriculture program manager responded: “If FDA attempts to regulate in-state sales of raw milk and we can show results of high quality milk being produced by licensed distributors who meet the standards for quality set out in the PMO (Pasteurized Milk Ordinance) we can make a very good case that Federal intervention is not necessary.”
The notion of the federal government becoming more actively involved in controlling raw milk availability comes up in other documents. For example, there is a May 2011 memo from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to state epidemiologists and public health veterinarians, that said in part: “In 1987, the FDA prohibited the distribution of raw milk over state lines for direct sale to consumers. Despite the federal ban on sale of raw milk across state lines and broad use of pasteurization by the dairy industry, human illness and outbreaks associated with consumption of unpasteurized products continue to occur. Raw milk is still available for sale in many states, and CDC data shows that the rate of raw milk-associated outbreaks is higher in states in which the sale of raw milk is legal than in states where sale of raw milk is illegal…To protect the health of the public, state regulators should continue to support pasteurization and consider further restricting or prohibiting the sale and distribution of raw milk and other unpasteurized dairy products in their states.”
Further evidence of a national organizing effort against raw milk comes up in several emails concerning attorney Bill Marler’s Real Raw Milk Facts site, and its efforts to gather national data on state laws covering raw milk. The CDC also promoted the Real Raw Milk Facts site with states like Maine, and in one email to its bureaucrats, Hal Prince, head of the Maine Department of Agriculture’s Quality Assurance and Regulations division, observed, “the realrawmilkfacts site is pretty eye opening. If you watch any of the video, I believe that we will be having more (and more intense) discussions over this issue in the upcoming legislative sessions especially since Maine allows the sale of unpasteurized milk and the sales are growing.”
Given the intensity of Maine’s obsessiveness over raw milk, I felt a sense almost of comic relief when I came across an email exchange between a reporter with Food Safety News and Amy Robbins, an epidemiologist at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Last November, the reporter inquired into the number of outbreaks attributed to raw milk that had occurred in Maine over the last five years. To which Robbins replied, “In the past five years no outbreaks related to raw (unpasteurized) milk products have been identified in Maine.” But, she added hopefully, “outbreaks related to raw (unpasteurized) milk products have occurred in other states.”
Might the FDA attempt to ban raw milk nationally? That possibility was raised by a number of people in 2010when debate was going on about all the additional power being conferred on the agency by the Food Safety Modernization Act. I’ll just say that I don’t buy the notion of a good cop or bad cop. If you are in the right and innocent of wrongdoing, you don’t try to justify your actions by hanging your hat on either the good cop or the bad cop. In the end, they’ll both screw you.
(This is the third and concluding segment on “The Raw Politics of Raw Milk” from Maine, though I will be providing ongoing coverage of the Food Sovereignty situation there.)
**
I’ve just written a feature for Grist recapping the crackdown by Maine regulators on farmers over the Food Sovereignty situation
They said in an email that they had restarted cheese making under their state laws and would not be shipping or selling any of their products across state lines ( presumably to avoid FDA juristiction ).
I see where they are going with all of this. My hat is off to them. It is clear to me that the FDA stands at the state geographic border BUT can do nothing unless and until you cross over. The Estrellas have denied the FDA any authority by staying off the FDA authority grid.
As far as “real-milk-facts.com” information and inflamatory video showing sick raw milk drinkers….
Wish I had some additional funds. I would start a website featuring footage from the 77 funerals from pasteurized milk consumers that have DIED after drinking or eating pasteurized dairy products since 1973!! Then add the 8 kids that have died from allergies to pasteurized milk since 1998.
But…unlike Marler, the CDC, the FDA or BIG AG FOOD INC, I have some ethical and moral basis in my conscience and would not exploit death to make my point.
As a paramedic I was trained to understand and believe that “living is better than dead”. In the Marler, CDC, FDA BIG AG FOOD INC world….they believe (through their actions) that death is far better than illness. In fact, it appears that death is to be ignorred. They never mention the deaths from pasteurized dairy consumption or the 422,000 illnesses in the last 38 years.
Weird world we live in.
Let me put it plainly….it is a politically sick world we live in. Our federal government and its agencies serve corporate money and there is little true service to humanity.
If I am wrong…please show me the evidence.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/06/30/the-sickening-nature-of-many-food-safety
[excerpt from article]:
. . . regulation attaches a false veneer of safety to a particular food based on the public’s misplaced faith in the ability of regulators to ensure food is safe.
[end of excerpt]
There are a few great hyperlinks, too.
This article reinforces the Maine experience, essentially explaining how the food safety regulators have done a masterful job of expanding on their original roles, and selling us a huge bill of goods in the process. The problem is once they have all their new powers, not only do we not have improved food safety, but they won’t give any back–even via a compromise approach such as in Maine– without a huge struggle. You have to give credit where credit is due, and admire their ability to sell fear.
“The Food-Safety Fallacy: More Regulation Doesn’t Necessarily Make Food Safer,”
Only someone with their head in the sand would believe this.
“Poke-and sniff often entailed having an inspector poke a piece of meat with a rod and sniff the rod to determine, in the inspectors opinion, whether the meat contained pathogens.”
Wow, I did not know this was how they scientifically came to their conclusions…….’With all that historical experience the FDA was using the poke and sniff method until the 90’s? That alone is justification for disbanding them.’
Only someone with their head in the sand would believe this.
I need to clarify that statement.. Only someone with their head in the sand would believe more regulation makes food safer.
A few years ago the meat packing plant/slaughterhouse here where I live burnt to the ground. No great loss as far as most of the town was concerned because it was stinky and the inspections there left much to be desired. It did cost a few hundred jobs, but people have managed to survive. That plant was located in what is known in my area as the “flood plain” and shouldn’t have been there in the first place, after the huge flood here in 1972 (with a loss of 268 lives). This year was the 40th anniversary since that happened and no one forgets it for a minute, believe me. But the galling part is that even though that land is still considered “in the flood plain” (where nothing is to be built, supposedly) wouldn’t you just know that several doctors, dentists, lawyers and engineers have now built several VERY expensive office buildings in that very spot. Apparently they think history will never repeat itself, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t for many reasons. But the meat plant was not allowed to rebuild in that area because it was “flood plain”. Go figure.
As with most things, it’s not what you know it’s who you know and the amount of moola (pun intended) involved. That goes for most gubment stuff, as well.
I think you should embark on a new crusade to destroy all bridges, since they encourage and facilitate people to commit suicide. Happy 4th, with lots of explosions etc.
too
Mary, you are correct, much has changed at this blog. Then again, much has changed in the world around us. When you arrived here five years ago, we had a different president, Twitter and Facebook were in their infancy, and there were few web sites and blogs that took much notice of raw milk. There was no Raw Milk Institute. Many of the people commenting here were different as well. You, Milky Way, and some others are among the old timers, along with me. I definitely miss a number who have moved on. A few of them write me from time to time, and I know they are still reading this blog. Some of them have been put off from commenting by the intense tone of the commentary here–the tendency on occasion by people to get overly personal in their attacks. Some have been put off by the tendency of a few people to dominate the conversation with their own political agendas. I have personally encouraged several of those individuals who dominate to limit their comments here or take their ideological rants elsewhere.
But one of the huge changes has been a shift in the nature of the food struggle. For all the discussion about raw milk safety, the anti-raw-milk community has, unfortunately, not shifted in any meaningful way. In terms of illnesses, which you always like to raise, rather than try to use them as an opportunity to improve milk quality and educate, the opponents just dig in their heels and work harder to obstruct. You refer to the Oregon illnesses, which were sad and unfortunate. What have been the big-picture results? The dairy industry is trying to exploit the situation to restrict or ban raw dairy. Many in the raw milk community were shaken by what happened in Oregon and, indeed, the local raw dairy producers have rallied behind an effort by RAWMI to inform and educate so as to improve raw milk production methods and milk quality. I know, there are problems with RAWMI, and disagreements among raw milk producers over whether RAWMI is the best way to inform and educate. But the overall thrust is constructive and positive, not destructive and negative, which is what I see from your side.
The same thing applies to Maine’s Food Sovereignty movement. It represents a trial effort to reduce regulation, and encourage local food production. Yet the forces of negativity and control can’t stand even a trial effort. Maybe because it might work–help local producers, without any accompanying safety problems–and serve as a model that could work nationally?
I think what you are seeing here in the shift in bloggers and topics is reflective of a shift in the entire food rights movement. It has moved on to a new political and judicial phase. There will be serious court fights on behalf of farmers and food producers likely before the year is out in Wisconsin (Vernon Hershberger), Minnesota (Alvin Schlangen and Michael Hartmann), Maine (Dan Brown), and California (the Rawesome Three), along with Canada (Michael Schmidt). These court cases will probably go a long way toward determining whether we as Americans will retain or lose the right to freely buy and sell food privately.
Discussions about the safety and nutritional value of raw dairy are always useful, but it’s important to appreciate that the nature of the discussion is moving on to whether we retain a simple fundamental human right to decide which foods we’ll put into our bodies.
I see that you are eating with and blogging with Milky Way…who is Milky Way any way? Please share.
Obviously, Milky Way is your friend and lives near you.
David, the start-up challenges experienced by RAWMI are now a distant piece of history. We have found our vision and our mission and RAWMI is being embraced as a farmers best friend and tool.
RAWMI interest in Oregon is tremendous. People do not want to become the next Foundation Farm and realize that the Oregon Dairy Industry is about to hold some “Not So Freindly” hearings on Raw Milk in Oregon. In fact it has been made very public that raw milk micro dairies are not invited ( not sure how this will work…this is a democracy and all citizens can speak at a hearing ). Micro Dairies are now on notice that they must do something serious and do it fast.
Churchill said it best: “The only thing to fear is fear itself”. Just last week a local pasteurized micro creamery came to OPDC to pick up some plastic bottles that we had transported from Oakland for them ( YES…. OPDC has close friends in the pasteurized small dairy-creamery community as well ). They brought their calf trailer to get the plastic supplies. It was covered in calf manure as they placed the bundles of plastic bottles into the trailer.
Can you see the picture I am describing here. Dairy creameris are emerging and connecting to their consumers and producing local products….but that does not mean that they have the training to do it ( yet ). Even pasteurized creameries had not put on their thinking caps as they try theit best to create value added products and survive.
Since that visit to pick up bottles….we have all shared, learned and now appreciate the crucial nature of the ENTIRE food chain and assuring that plastics supplies are secured far away from possible contaminants.
Farmers are farmers….they take their fifth wheel calf trailers everywhere to pick up everything. That is farming. It is second nature and it is also a ticket to FDA sponsored sick kid hell, and brand recall purgatory. RAWMI helps farmers to look at food safety and avoid issues…serious issues that can occur along the entire extended food chain. Issues that are not so clear or easy to see.
Ora, thank you. I try. And appreciate your input here.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303640804577488742788794400.html?grcc=9424cbe259201557a0c677b4ee915a42Z3ZhpgeZ0Z25Z200Z25Z2&mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_lifestyle#articleTabs%3Darticle
http://gma.yahoo.com/study-links-cat-litter-box-increased-suicide-risk-194116398–abc-news-health.html
Stories like this, causes people to panic. They believe this without investigating. Of course this story misleads and leaves out many facts. I wonder why funded the study?
David, is there a way to correct typos?
Sorry Sylvia, I’ve inquired and no easy way to set it up so everyone can correct typos.
My forum set up was completely free (still is after 4 years) and I set the whole thing up in about 10 minutes. I can add topic titles, or remove them and add other new topics as time goes on. There are probably many free ones around, but mine is through forumer.com If ever it’s going to be down for maintenance or whatever, they USUALLY email me so I know what’s happening. Sometimes things don’t work perfectly in that regard but about 95% of the time it’s problem free. Can’t ask for more than that.
It was funded by a weathy “German Shepard”.
Clearly…..”not having litter boxes” would cause a massive increase in Suicides or Cat Homicides in my case. We call our cats “shitty kitties” at our house. They are a hair-ball pain in my ass…but my wife loves her cat…so the pain stays. That is life.
The German Shepard investor and most dogs are grinning from ear to floppy ear right about now.
Wow, what could be more appetizing than a hair ball? Or, for that matter, a litter box . . .
Ewww.
I know, I’ll get raked for this comment, but I never did care for cats and still don’t. Not to mention, they make me itch and they make my eyes burn. Cat hair, cat dander – it’s all the same to me. A problem.
In the barn they are fine because that’s where they’re meant to be – catching mice. Otherwise, they are a most useless animal, and haughty to boot. For several years our neighbor’s cat has been killing off songbirds and I’ve watched right from my kitchen window. Makes me angry.
I love dogs because dogs can guard things and be trained to help out around the place.