Why would the U.S. Food and Drug Administration feel so threatened by a scientific assessment of research on raw milk out of Europe that it would bully a dairy group into forcing the article’s removal from a major university’s web site?
After all, the assessment wasn’t revealing anything that lots of people didn’t already know. The most recent of the findings, the GABRIELA study, has been out for more than a year now, postulating that it could well be a protein in milk–damaged or destroyed by pasteurization–that confers protective effects on children from allergies and asthma.
And interfering with the academic freedom of a major university like the University of California, Davis, is not a trivial matter, even for a bullying organization like the FDA. There had to have been a number of approvals necessary before the dairy group’s head, John Sheehan, did the dirty deed.
My guess is that the FDA wanted to send a clear message to the dairy industry that any thoughts its members might be having about exploring even the most minimal shift to raw milk won’t be tolerated. Even though dairy processors have been as opposed as the FDA to raw milk, the dairy farmers are another matter.
They’ve gone along with what the processors want, since they know well where their milk checks come from. But as ever more dairies flounder and fail in the face of insufficient pricing, well, more dairies are beginning to think the unthinkable.
The California Dairy Research Foundation foundation says it is “governed by seven directors. The representatives of the Board of Directors are drawn from key producer and processor organizations…” But if you look at the seven board members, five are from dairies.
Might it be that the dairy board members are beginning to see that the economic future of the dairy industry needs to accommodate raw milk somehow, if the industry is to have a viable future? Sales of pasteurized milk continue a long steady decline. The future is increasingly in value-add products, particularly probiotics.
What the censored research paper, “The evidence around raw milk”, was suggesting is that dairy products will have much greater health benefits if they are produced from raw milk.
All you have to do is review other articles on the CDRF web site, and you will appreciate where I’m going with this. (You may want to hurry, since there’s no telling when these articles may disappear as well.)
There is one on how probiotics are showing ever more evidence of being able to lower cholesterol.
Then there’s this uplifting one: “Stress, Depression and Suicide Prevention for Dairy Farmers”.
Finally, and perhaps most significant, there is an article just posted in the last few days about how the FDA has interfered with American researchers who have been having trying to do research on probiotics.The title pretty much says it all: “How FDAs actions are guaranteeing research on probiotic foods is not conducted in the USA”
The article advises researchers: “The FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research‘s (CBER)…role is to evaluate biologic drugs so when they see ‘probiotic‘ it seems they automatically think ‘drug.‘…But if your intent is to conduct research that will substantiate claims on a food (or dietary supplement), then an IND (investigational new drug application) is an expensive, time-consuming, unnecessary task, that may lock your product into the drug category...Consequently, companies are turning to ex-US locations for conducting probiotic food research.”
In other words, the CDFR appears to be supporting complaints that probiotic research is being forced outside the U.S., possibly for foreign countries to benefit from the emerging business opportunity.
What the CDFR seems to be saying via these articles (including the banned one) is that California dairies are being screwed over so badly that its members are committing suicide, yet there’s this emerging business opportunity via raw milk that lies out there just beyond the horizon, if only they are allowed to grab it.
If you are wondering why the CDFR didn’t just tell the FDA to get lost when it told the foundation to pull the raw milk article, the answer is that the FDA has pretty much complete regulatory control of the dairy industry, through the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, which it enforces with the states. It also determines which foods can be sold as foods, and which must get approval to be sold as drugs, per the above article.
It could be that the struggle for control of an emerging commercial raw milk business is unfolding right before our eyes.
The FDA operates as a kingdom with edict. A place unquestioned by our legislature. A place that is populated by corrupt ex-corporate golden parachute types on FOOD INC furlough.
There is a place in autism hell for these FDA types. John Sheehan is the whore lacky that leads this secret service in disservice to all of America.
Pretty soon the FDA will have alienated even their own PMO dairy industry…. pretty soon they will be considered an enemy of America. Trust me on this one. Pharma is about to lose all of its consumer confidence. I think the death count is up to 17 on the injectable steroid debacle ( with hundreds sick ). Dollar voting and consumer awareness with the advent of the Internet brings on a new world of consumer democracy and education.
I just got home from a press conference and making a speech at a local farmers market about prop #37, the CA GMO labeling iniative. Standing right beside me was Joaquin Content…the president of the CA Dairymans Association. He and I standing together and supporting the consumers right to know what is in their food. He made a great statement about when the consumers told the dairy industry that they no longer wanted BST milk…the diary industry stopped using BST and now label milk as from non BST sources. he said consumers have a right to know and also a right to choose their food. This was a conventional dairyman. I applaud this comment!!! Go Joaquin!!
I think I am going to try and have lunch with Dr. Gregory Miller PhD at CA Dairy Research Foundation
( CDRF ). If he is half as frustrated as his PhD friends at the UC Davis Genomics lab…we will have much to talk about. A strange consortium of unlikely allies appears to be forming and they all hate the FDA!!
If John Sheehan does not watch out…he will be on the end of his own FDA diving board and he will have cut the board off behind himself on the spring board end. “Splash” will take on a very personal meaning to him.
There are sharks ( and mother lions ) in these American waters. The FDA is a special club that protects FOOD INC. The waters arround this club are not so warm or pleasant. As the body count rises with official FDA policy and its great corrupted sterile wisdom…soon they will be regarded as nothing less than murderers.
You are watching change happen before our eyes.
Sandor Katz has a very fair-minded chapter on raw milk in his new book “The Art of Fermentation”, that I think most of us who post here could agree with. The popularity of this book along with the suppression of the two studies above may be instrumental in changing the dogma that has been too long entrenched in our agricultural and medical industries. The idea that microbes are important players in what happens inside our bodies via our microbiome is just now gaining traction with the increasing scientific evidence. This trifecta of scientific works lends credence to the idea that we can greatly affect the outcome of our symbiosis with these life forms – either for good or for bad. Thus this body of evidence should serve to inform our current generation’s regulators of their heretofore simplistic and sometimes ignorant way of dealing with them.
RAWMI has negotiated accessible reasonable insurance for Qualified Microdairies. Last week Charlotte Smith at Champoeg Creamery ( RAWMI Listed Dairy )was quoted $10,000 per year for her Oregon micro dairy raw milk business. Today the bids came in….after RAWMI explained the risk reduction program, the same coverage with a $750 price tag.
Charlotte is elated….so am I. Risk management pays off in so many ways.
A lot of the discourse here is very complex for those that aren’t hardcore long time readers. I try to digest as much as possible, but understand that it is intimidating for casual readers who probably care very much about the food choice issues being discussed, raw milk in particular, but maybe are not interested in the political and religious tangents and are likely put off by them. If we are to bring them on board to become active in posting here and or supporting the food choice movement, we need to somehow make them feel more welcome without fear of being scolded for ignorance.
I’d like to point out a simple distinction for those people, that is highlighted in this article between the dairy producers and the processors in layman terms, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Dairy producers are the actual farmers that feed and milk the cows and are responsible for the ethical and procedural day to day activities, overall animal and milk hygiene, then take the milk from the cow to sell either consumers directly, or to processors.
Processors are middlemen that take the “product” and zap it (pasteurization) so that it can be more easily and legally distributed in large volumes. My perception is that this is where most of the profit in this industry is made, and it’s interests are what legal authorities protect (surprise!)
The health and risk issues of raw milk are muddled purposely to confuse the general public and instill doubt and fear in order to control availability, aided by biased corporate media propaganda.
Kudos to David for shining a bright light on these distortions. Let’s keep it simple, civil and educational. Our children’s children’s future depends on it.
Marler and all those that mocked RAWMI….hold your tomatoes. Consistent, step by step, strategic, little by litlle Action is our moto. We do not give up the ground we take.
Slight paranoia, and a simple insurance policy plus an effective RAMP program lets me sleep very well at night. If all the insurance providers had gone PMO-Marler-FDA. We would have all been totally hosed.
Today is a great new day for Raw Milk. According to my friends that source these policies, carriers are competing to cover this new RAWMI low risk category of raw milk!!
Mark
let’s see those actuarial tables, please. If the govt. wants a piece of paper, I’ll give them a piece of paper … whatever it takes to keep the REAL MILK flowing
This is all a grand game of chess with variants of “strategic war games” and a touch of hide and seek. What we need to do today to build markets, and educate is not what we will be doing later when justice is delivered and truth is revealed. When the FDA is forcefully evolved, Sheehan is either Jailed or indicted as “the head that was rolled” to save higher ups at the FDA….that will be the day. Until then, turn the other cheak, serve and feed the people…what ever it takes. Pride be damned.
At its best, nutrition is science. That doesn’t make it perfect. Our scientific understanding is not perfect in any field, and nutrition is far from an exception. But all opinions about a science must at least run the gauntlet of what we do know. Those that cannot do so and survive are hearsay.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/raw-food-diet_b_2015598.html
I agree, however sometimes it takes a certain amount of grass roots zeal to expose a flawed science that has become widely accepted and entrenched amongst the masses and in bureaucratic circles.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/10/anti-fluoride_group_will_submi.html
Ken
Ken
Any opinions on the value of a periodical entitled “Countryside & Small Stock Journal?”
Thanks,
Mr J. Ingvar Odegaard
This, certainly, is a lie:
“But all opinions about a science must at least run the gauntlet of what we do know. ”
If enough power backs up a lie, science is meaningless. Just look at GMO safety, or maintenance antibiotic safety, or the whole Big Lie that industrial ag outproduces organic and is necessary to Feed the World (TM). We’ve known for years that the truth is the opposite of system lies, but they just keep chugging along, and most people, even most “educated, progressive” people, believe them.
Wow, Ken. I would think that after all these years and the known toxic effects of fluoride, people would be up in arms about starting a water poisoning ignominious failure. Amazing, yet when people have had mis-information pounded into their head on a daily basis, I suppose it is expected.
1: one that promotes; especially : one who assumes the financial responsibilities of a sporting event (as a boxing match) including contracting with the principals, renting the site, and collecting gate receipts
Definition of LEADER
2: a person who leads: as
a : guide, conductor
b (1) : a person who directs a military force or unit (2) : a person who has commanding authority or influence
c (1) : the principal officer of a British political party (2) : a party member chosen to manage party activities in a legislative body (3) : such a party member presiding over the whole legislative body when the party constitutes a majority
d (1) : conductor c (2) : a first or principal performer of a group”
Per Merriam-Webster the “raw milk” movement doesn’t have a “leader” only various promoters. I have never heard of any one person being “chosen” to lead; only various people promoting raw dairy, along with a persons right to choose what they consume etc.
Elizabeth Rich
Elizabeth Rich
Deborah, the article, “Evidence around raw milk”, was pulled from the site by the International Milk Genomics Consortium, which is part of the University of California, Davis. As Elizabeth suggests in her comment, the article is copyrighted. I have tried to get permission to publish it, as is required for a copyrighted article. An official at the IMGC told me the permission would need to come from the California Dairy Research Foundation. I have emailed and phoned the CDRF’s executive director, Dr. Gonca Pasin, and have received no response to any of my messages.
Basically, the IMGC is an academic research organization that is part of UC Davis. It gets at least some of its funding from CDRF, which is a foundation that is an offshoot of the California dairy industry. The CDRF appears to have ordered IMGC to pull the article at the behest of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The CDRF bowed to the FDA’s demand, presumably because the FDA regulates the dairy industry, and can make life very difficult for dairies and processors it doesn’t like, such as those in California. The FDA also provides lots of funding to state regulators and universities, so has a good deal of leverage that way.
Yes, Gary Cox wrote immediately after my original post that he has a copy of the article and is willing to share it:
Contact him at dcoxlaw@columbus.rr.com.
The FDA seems to be worried about two things: First is something called “Truth”, as in the truth about raw milk’s health benefits, and how pasteurization appears to negate those benefits. Second, FDA is increasingly concerned that conventional dairy farmers will gravitate toward selling raw milk as a realistic economic alternative to being exploited by the corruption that dominates the conventional industry. On this latter point, yesterday’s New York Times had an in-depth exploration of the dairy industry’s corruption:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/business/in-dairy-industry-consolidation-lush-paydays.html?ref=andrewmartin
I don’t think Anna Petherick had anything to say about any of these happenings. She was the writer of the article, but once she completed it, the consortium and foundation took control.
http://www.toplevelfit.com/2013/04/10/naperville-fitness-classes/