Its one of those problems no one wants to talk about. Something only discussed at food conferences or other gatherings in quiet side conversations. No names, please, whatever you do, is the request at the end of the discussions.
The problem? Raw milk as a lever in child custody cases stemming from divorce of other split-ups. Most typically, the going gets rough as the disagreements over property, and recriminations over emotional stuff, mount over the months and years of acrimony. There may have been disputes over diet preceding the split-up, with one spouse ridiculing the others wacko diet preferences, which include raw milk. Custody may even have been settled, but in the execution, one spouse feels shortchanged.
Whatever the final trigger, one parent threatens to accuse the other of being an unfit parent .because he or she serves the children raw milk. The children are being endangered, goes the argument. The accusing parents hope is that judges, already on edge that they might be blamed for yet another case of child abuse, will fall for the fear-mongering, and go along with the twisted logic.
I know of parents being thrown for such a loop by the threat that they have made concessions of one sort or another that they might not otherwise have made. Moderated desires on child education or visitation. Reduced property demands. Given up some amount of alimony or child support.
Why would any parent committed to serving their children good food give in to such a threat? Because they know the threat isnt an entirely empty one. Not only have they seen judges from Maine to California rule against farmers on raw milk and raw milk cheese, but these parents have seen children taken from their parents on what seem to be fabricated charges. The most notorious of such cases occurred in Massachusetts, when Boston Childrens Hospital put teenager Julia Pelletier in the custody of the state when her parents objected to the hospitals approach to treating their child, and went to move her to a different hospital. And I know of at least one case in which a judge ruled as part of a custody agreement that one parent couldnt serve raw milk when the child was in that parents custody.
I find the whole thing repulsive. But, then, I find contentious child custody conflicts very difficult to comprehend. As much as spouses may hate each other, the one thing they should be able to do, in my view, is the best they can by their children. To resort to the nuclear raw milk option seems only to serve the larger purpose of eroding food rights further than they have been.
I can appreciate if there are genuine disagreements within families about food. These are not uncommon even in families without serious marital issues. Generally, the best approach is compromise of some kind. When it comes to raw milk, it may be that the best way to satisfy one parents anxiety is to serve only raw milk kefir instead of fluid raw milk. Or to serve pasteurized milk that hasnt been homogenized. Or to hold off on serving raw milk to children until they reach a certain age, like 6 or 7.
The point is that families can usually work these issues out in a spirit of whats best for the children. Using raw milk as the basis of threats against another parent seems about as low as one can go.
Mary, I am not sure your questions are the right ones. The situation you recall–of a child being injured while being under parental supervision– could just as easily have been an automobile accident or tainted hamburgers at a cookout. The point is that as a parent, you entrust your child to the other parent all the time…with the understanding that something could go wrong. It is part of what comes with having children.
The rights of parents to the care, custody and nurture of their children is of such character that it cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions, and such right is a fundamental right protected by this amendment (first) and Amendments 5, 9, and 14. Doe v. Irwin 441 F Supp 1247; U.S. D.C. of Michigan, (1985)
Ken
Over the last few years, there have been stories where teachers/school officials have taken kids lunch brought from home away and put school lunch in its place, stating that the home brought food didn’t meet their guidelines. I’ve seen pictures of the slop they are pushing on the kids, it looks like it had already been eaten. Parents are pushed to vaccinate, and to follow status quo without question, and should you question, you are labeled a trouble maker.
It is indeed sad when parents are at odds during divorces and bring the kids into the middle of their bickering. Parents should talk about what they expect of the other and how they believe the best way to raise a child is BEFORE they have any kids, but that wouldn’t be realistic, would it?
I think anyone who feeds their kids fast foods and that over processed crap should have the kids taken away. I don’t know how anyone couldn’t know that is toxic for kids. But then again, they are not my kids and how they choose to raise them is their business, not mine.
Perhaps turkey sandwiches and swimming should be banned? And the friend of the dead girl, apparently has the same thing….Does that mean the dead girls mother is accountable?
“I know in my heart it’s what they ate because everyone else is just fine,” said Elizabeth Sutton, mother of the boy in the hospital.”
Guess obamacare isn’t covering the costs…
http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2014/09/girl_4_dies_of_e_coli_infectio.html
So, 2 kids got sick. They played with other kids and these 2 so far, are the only ones who got sick. AND the only thing they apparently have in common is they shared a turkey sandwich…. was the meat contaminated? Was there lettuce on the sandwich? If so, was it contaminated? Isn’t that how epidemiologists do their investigations? They ask about possible exposure and then rule things out. I couldn’t find any stories on illnesses from ponds/rivers in the area of Corvallis, Per the family that’s all they shared.
Isn’t the above how they come to conclusions about raw milk?
http://www.kgw.com/story/news/local/2014/09/09/girl-diagnosed-with-e-coli-dies/15334113/
“Serena Profitt and her 5-year-old friend Brad Sutton both became ill last week after sharing a turkey sandwich at Roadhouse 18 Bar and Grill in Otis, Ore.”
Guess it’s best to avoid all establishments in the area since the news can’t get it right.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/10/us-usa-washington-e-coli-idUSKBN0H520U20140910
“Two young girls have died and a boy was hospitalized in critical condition in the Pacific Northwest ”
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/08/31/your-health/safety-access-fuel-raw-milk-debate.html
“165 Dayton-area herd-share owners. The Department of Agriculture had revoked the license after three people who had consumed raw milk became sick and one was hospitalized.”
Out of 165 people only 3 became ill? Doubtful it was the milk.
The issue with raw milk is that many times its implicated in a food-borne illness, but its not confirmed,
Of course it isn’t confirmed, they apparently can only guess.
The raw-milk debate is not a scientific debate about whether its safe or not, added fellow researcher Jeff LeJeune, a professor of food safety and head of the OARDCs food-animal-health research program. The issue were debating here is the political parameters that surround access.
Bingo
The Profitt family owns chickens, dogs and a goat.
So what? There are dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, beef cattle, dairy cattle, mice, squirrels, barn swallows, starlings, and pigeons that reside on our farm. Yet, there is hardly a weekend that goes by where there is not a friend or family member who visits the farm, interacts with the livestock and drinks raw milk. This scenerio has been going on for over sixty years and no one has become ill.
Health officials are not only grasping at straws, they are also barking up the wrong tree.
Ken
One of the commenters in the article you referenced who noted the practice of bringing dogs into a restaurant, reminds me of our family doctor who is in his mid to late 70s, a former orthopedic surgeon who now practices complimentary/integrative medicine.
When a patient enters his clinic they are greeted by a cat that goes from room to room greeting the clientele, lol. This has been going on for decades. If there were an issue or problem one would think that the cat would have disappeared by now.
Ken
“Graduate student Megan Thoemmes has discovered something rather disturbing while undertaking her latest research project. Enrolled in biology at North Carolina State University, Thoemmes’ research suggests we all have microscopic, semi-invisible mites living in our faces.
Demodex mites, a group of insects that enjoy dwelling in our hair follicles and glands, are thought to live in the majority of human faces, according to a new study that was recently published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.”
These mites are doing our immune systems a favor providing we dont screw everything up with the extravagant use of drugs and chemicals.
Ken
A few months ago there was an e.coli outbreak involving young children on a play date. The family owned a cow. The kids petted the cow and they all played in a plastic pool together. 3 or 4 of the kids became ill with an E.coli infection.
When I worked in hospitals, patients were shocked and/or disbelieving when told that the staph infection they acquired whether inpatient or out patient was probably because everyone has staph on their skin as part of normal flora. Then they’d get a mini biology/physiology lesson. You cannot make skin sterile , for some reason post-op patient seem to think that’s what doctors do before cutting on them. go figure.
I learned in A&P that all the creatures in and on our bodies are there for a reason and they do a great job of maintaining homeostasis, unless something interferes with that. And the body is usually good are correcting itself if it isn’t subjected to to many insults.
Based on what authorities tell us with respect to the inherent dangers of drinking raw milk or being around livestock one would think that something should have transpired on my farm in over 60 years?
I know of no producers who pasteurized their milk before they and their family members drank it. There were some due to liability concerns that refused sell raw milk or offer it to visitors that came to the farm, however that was more the exception then the rule. The decision by them not to make raw milk available to outsiders was based on a recognized, predominant societal stereotype with respect to cause of illness including the kneejerk inclination by authorities to blame raw milk and raw milk products. Indeed if their milk happened to be blamed for causing an illness they would behind the egg ball from the get-go. Most of us however, although aware of such a reality chose to ignore it and through caution to the wind. We mustve had golden horseshoes up our assess, right?
Ken
When the Chief Medical health officer of BC pulled this stunt (Dec 2009) I put him to the test … 6 months later, on official stationery of the province, he admitted he had no facts with which to back up similar propaganda.
Mary Martin McGonnigle : we know the Dairy cartel finances your junkets around the country, for merchandising your personal sob-story. UN-VERIFIED AS IT NEVER WAS, with actual science.
either produce the actuarial tables which substantiate that REAL MILK is “high risk”, or quit peddling your dis-information / put up or shut up
http://www.thestate.com/2014/09/11/3674599/investigators-seek-source-of-fatal.html
Guess this means others have to die or become ill for them to keep searching for the cause? Since no one apparently drank raw milk, they have no one to blame.
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/oregon-family-sue-hospital-missing-e-coli-killed-girl-4-article-1.1936442
Yup, the poor kid is another hospital statistic. They screwed up and the child died.
The unreality you’re stumbling on here is because the divorce and child abuse INDUSTRIES have nothing to do with justice or truth and everything to do with profiting by destroying families and undermining Western Civ.
I agree.
There is growing contempt towards the sanctity of marriage. Our ability to make mature and conscientious decisions has been clearly influenced by the tendency to quantify moral behavior based on selfish, political, religious, scientific, and legal perspectives.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., Every man and woman must decide whether they will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Ken Conrad
“She said all three children, including the boy from Washington, ate watermelon they bought from Walmart in Lebanon.”
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/E-coli-connection-3-year-old-girl-also-gets-sick–274978221.html
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2014/09/12/high-levels-of-e-coli-discovered-near-silverton-wastewater-treatment-plant/15546725/
Much more likely : all the ill children visited the same petting zoo, the same day. So of course, the solution is that every petting zoo in the continent must be outlawed and shut down, immediatement?!
before posting any more of that stupid insinuation that raw milk fans illogically “pick apart” media propaganda about raw milk, give us the actuarial tables comparing risk of consuming raw milk, versus attending a petting zoo. I wonder if it’s possible for people like you to ever move on from your own trauma, and learn something which undoes your sob story? Never scientifically validated, mind you
having perfected her act [ which is nothing but emotional-ism] then taken it on the road, Mary McGonnigle Martin is not just a viper, but a dangerous enemy of the Campaign for REAL MILK. Fortunately Jesus Christ gave us power to handle snakes
people = don’t bother posting bilge about my ” tone”. (Libelous material removed.) I am not in the fly-catching business : spend your honeyed words on the enemies of our race who sit at the levers of power, in the high places of government, and see how far you get. Do your own homework : see the scandal this week where one of the scientists at the CDC, admitted he lied about the link between the MMR and autism. In British Columbia, the entire rationale for raw milk being outlawed in British Columbia is predicated on what the Centre for Disease Control says. Whose credibility is now zero.
this WAR is against anti-christs who know very well what they’re doing …. attacking our inheritance … this land of milk and honey. We prevail by exposing their wicked ways = Mary McGonnigle Martin’s patented poison, being Exhibit One. Meanwhile : out-producing them
Either of the following outcomes is possible, correct?
(Initial conditions include: child; E. coli O157:H7; allopathic medical orbit)
If
[1] Start: E. coli O157:H7,
[2] And treatment course [A],
Then,
[3] End: HUS.
Or
[1] Start: E. coli O157:H7,
[4] And treatment course [B],
Then
[5] End: Back to ordinary good health without encountering HUS.
Is it not true, that after [1] there is a fork in the road of MD (allopathic) processes where one path, [2][A], leads to [3] and the other path, [4][B], leads to [5]?
Is it not true that a properly trained Allopath will follow [B]?
And is it not true that a (so to speak) properly ignorant Allopath will follow [A]?
If so, then Continuing Education of the community of Allopaths is called upon to remedy this diagnosis of ignorance in regards to [A] and [B]. No?
Childrens kidneys are at stake.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
It has been my experience that after doctors leave all their schooling, what they learn after that is a lot of OJT. Many do try to keep updated on “new” or different approaches and their information on drugs is what the drug reps tell them.
Sadly many are imprisoned by what insurance companies dictate, and the low man on the totem pole in the big offices- meaning they have no say. If they step outside the box, they chance losing everything (including their license) and still are required to pay off their education. They Really don’t have time to read a lot or research. They have too many patients.
They also have a lot of stuff pounded into their heads in school; you know that saying about telling a lie often enough? Soon it becomes the truth.
Even the parents who agree to vaccination but request them to be given spread out are ostracized and intimidated. Shame on them for stepping outside the box.
“Continuing Education” can be a joke, as an RN we had the choice of many different ways of obtaining the CEUs. One was an open book test-I felt anyone who didn’t get 100% should have their license checked. I’ve been to a few seminars and out of all the years, there was one I learned a lot from.
If my surmise is correct, and in light of the CE picture youve painted, it is greatly in the self-interest of the Raw Milk Community to spearhead the education of the pediatric medical community in regard to this matter and to publicize this matter in order to avoid iatrogenic damage to pediatric patients.
This would also affect medical malpractice law, removing an arrow from the quiver of the nut-case anti-raw milk crowd and their commercial overlords.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Gordon, you don’t do the food rights movement any favors when you post blather like this. You also paint me into a corner in terms of whether to remove or edit it. I decided to leave it, minus a blatantly libelous sentence, because I think most everyone here knows about your racism and religious zealotry…and discounts it accordingly. Please don’t answer this response here–I don’t want to debate or discuss this with you.
Teaching is best. As we’ve seen with all things in life, there is a potential of contamination. Teaching what to look for, various ways to correct it (In the case of raw milk, what works for one farmer may not work for another, OP is huge and trying to force a small cow share to run their farm the exact same isn’t best practice.)
Also teach the consumers, they are following what the gov, et al says because that is all they know. It appears that people envision ALL dairy cows looking like the happy cows in the TV ads. All pigs are laying about in clean mud holes, chickens roam the lush pastures, steers are munching those same lush pastures…….. If they only knew where their food came from and how it was processed……
Planting seeds that cause the consumer to ask their own questions and seek out the answers may be the best way to teach. People absorb better when they are ready to learn… When the student is ready the teacher will appear I don’t know who said that, I think it’s true.
Humans are creatures of habit and change is very difficult for many, especially change in mindset. This is asking people to change their belief system. Fear was a fact at one time, because of the unknowns (milk fever, bad feeding practices,etc) These unknowns sickened many and that fed the fears. The pasteurization seemed like a miracle. Sadly, it was not a fix, only a band-aid on a problem that allowed a deeper festering of the wrongs going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y34nZrMEbRw&feature=youtu.be
two hours long … it’s brilliant. Especially the part where he quips “we’ve been praying to the wrong gods” … sure hope that doesn’t get him censored from this forum! as has happened to me, laterly
In the so-called Pro-Life thing, one of the finest of them all said to me re: my astonishment at people ignoring us / reviling us as we tried to warn and inform them … “It’s not that they won’t come around, it’s that they’re slow to come around”… applied to the Campaign for REAL MILK = I’ve been at this 15 years and seen the herd get to the stage where I was, back then. Let’s compare notes a decade from today, then we’ll see if my style furthered the cause
The role of the prophetic type is to provoke consciences, WHEN THE NATION IS ANTAGONISTIC TO THE TRUTH. In such vocation, a diamond-hard forehead is given at birth, so as to enable one to endure all the knee-jerk epithets.
but it’s not my forum = if it’s a one-way street. then, as my old man used to say : “you can’t insult me… I’ve been insulted by experts”
Below is an item = indicating political affiliation co-relates with similarities in DNA ; pertinent to this forum because the Campaign for REAL MILK is as political as it gets. Racial chauvinism has everything to do with realpolitik
people go crazy in herds ; they come to their senses one at a time. As understanding of the Human Genome Project percolates into consciousness, soon, people will look back at how the word “racist” was tossed-around as a pejorative, then shake their heads at how it was so laughably wrong.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gail Sullivan, Washington Post, September 16, 2014
Conservatives and liberals do not smell the same to potential mates. According to a study published this month in the American Journal of Political Science, people can literally sniff out ideologyand this may explain why so many couples share political beliefs. Or, as the studys title says, Assortative Mating on Ideology Could Operate Through Olfactory Cues.
Researchers led by Brown University political scientist Rose McDermott found that, to a small but significant degree, people prefer the body odor of those who vote as they do.
Previous studies showed long-term mates are more similar when it comes to politics than anything else besides religion. {snip}
To test the link between smell and party affiliation, researchers rounded up 146 people aged 18 to 40 from a large city in the northeast United States. They used a seven-point scale to determine where they fell on the political spectrum. They sent 21 of these10 liberals and 11 conservativeshome with fragrance-free soap and shampoo and a gauze pad taped to their armpit. {snip}
They returned the stinky armpit pads 24 hours later. Then 125 participants sniffed the stinky pads, taking a break between whiffs to cleanse their nasal palate with the aroma of peppermint oil. The sniffers, who never saw the people whose smells they were evaluating, then rated the attractiveness of each armpit sample on a 1 to 5 scale.
The subjects found the smell of those more ideologically similar to themselves more attractive than those with opposing views.
It appears nature stacks the deck to make politically similar partners more attractive to each other in unconscious ways, the researchers wrote.
Evolution might explain it. Parental similarity in values increases the likelihood that such individuals may be able to say together long enough to raise their children successfully into adulthood, the researchers wrote.