Okay class, pay attention.
Today’s subject of discussion: academic freedom.
Enough with the groans, everyone. I know it’s not the sexiest topic when it comes to food issues, but you may change your attitude when you hear the story I’m about to tell you.
Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about what I thought was a well balanced scientific assessment, by a prominent
international science writer, of several large-scale research studies out of Europe about the potential health benefits of raw milk (with the unsexy title, “The evidence around raw milk”). It was published in SPLASH, the newsletter of the International Milk Genomics Consortium (IMGC), which is housed at the University of California, Davis.
The IMGC has been doing research for years on the benefits of mother’s milk, and obtains financial support from the California Dairy Research Foundation (CDRF), a nonprofit arm of the state’s conventional milk industry.
The IMGC has begun extending its research in recent years to cow’s milk. Potentially dangerous territory, as we all know, since those who regulate milk in the U.S. think everything that needs to be known about milk is known, as in pasteurized milk is wonderful and unpasteurized milk is deadly dangerous.
But the newsletter article from the IMGC didn’t reinforce that view. Yes, it summarized statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control about the dangers of raw milk (“The CDC estimates the risk of a glass of raw milk causing a disease outbreak is at least 150 times that of a glass of pasteurized milk,” it said at the very outset.)
But after summarizing the CDC data, it explained potentially positive implications of major research studies out of Europe on raw milk. “The data suggest that raw milk can cause both trouble and advantage to a human body…To be sure, heating milk to 72°C for 15 seconds reduces the odds of a bad belly, but does it also destroy complex proteins and other components that could bolster human health? Apparently so.”
Then, it poured gasoline on the flame it had ignited, by saying that “there is strong evidence that (raw milk) benefits young children…” And, turning a roaring fire into an inferno, it added that “the world needs studies testing whether large numbers of grown-ups suffering from asthma, hay fever, and similar medical problems see their allergies dampen down after drinking raw milk for a prolonged period.”
In retrospect, such statements were akin to standing on street corners in 1491 and shouting out that the world was round. My post went up Oct. 2, presumably a day or two after the October issue of SPLASH went up, with three articles. By last Friday, only two of the articles were still available to all visitors. “The evidence around raw milk” had disappeared.
The one- paragraph intro to the third article, “The evidence around raw milk”, was there as well, but when you click to read more, you are taken to a page asking for your log-in info. So I registered, figuring I could access the article that way. When I received a link to get a password, and got onto the site and tried to call up the article in question, it said “Insufficient Privileges.” The article had been pulled. And off to the left column of the page, where it showed who had been on the page before I got there, the most recent name was that of John F. Sheehan, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Director of Plant and Dairy Food Safety. (Damn, the evidence the Internet sometimes leaves behind!)
So what exactly happened to the raw milk article? The word I have on pretty good sources (I don’t want to identify them because this stuff is so sensitive that jobs and careers could be placed at risk) is that someone from the FDA (Sheehan?) contacted the CDRF and demanded that the SPLASH raw milk article be removed. I’ll make an educated guess that the FDA was upset because the SPLASH article asserted that the European research indicates pasteurization may “destroy complex proteins and other components that could bolster human health.”
I make that guess because Sheehan testified on just this subject before the Maine legislature in 2011, in connection with a (successful) effort by the FDA to block legislation that would have made it easier for small dairies to sell raw milk directly to customers.
He argued in his testimony that the European research on the role of proteins in conferring health benefits, and their sensitivity to pasteurization couldn’t have been correct. Pasteurization does not destroy milk proteins, he claimed. Caseins, the major family of milk proteins, are largely unaffected by pasteurization. Any changes which might occur with whey proteins are barely perceptible.
Back to our lesson on academic freedom. The FDA obviously has a different view of “truth” than the European researchers. And certainly, the issue hasn’t been resolved. It requires further research and analysis. That is what academic freedom is all about–analyzing, researching, debating, discussing.
The view underlying academic freedom is that no one holds a monopoly on truth. It explains why professors get tenure–so they will feel free to express their views on scientific (or other research) despite the political pressures of the day. Censoring scientific papers is a big no-no within the tradition of academic freedom.
I have no way of knowing whether anyone at UC Davis or CDRF protested to the FDA that pulling the raw milk article was a serious infringement on academic freedom. But I can guess at what the FDA reaction would have been–something like if you were to tell an underworld enforcer trying to sell you “protection” that such practices are against the law. A laugh, and then a question: “Who you gonna complain to?”
But perhaps the FDA should be looking over its shoulder, and asking a different question: How long can it keep its finger in the dike and preventing the Truth from asserting itself?
**
It’s always strange to read about your activities through the prism of (another) journalist, and especially in the context of age. But suffice it to say there is, what seems to me, a nice profile of my activities on behalf of food rights at Philly.com.
Nice write-up about you David.
Thank you so much for writing about raw milk scientific discoveries, the scientific truth and the FDA meddling and oppression of this truth.
What Sheehan did is corrupt ( good catch on that one ), and FOOD INC criminal!!! Nothing short of it. He will lose his job over this…this time he screwed up and got caught. It is RICO Racketeering at the federal level. By denial of the truth of the benefits of raw milk and only permitting the story of pasteurized milk to be advocated by the FDA as the official line, this is nothing short of manipulation of data and ….is even criminal. Especially when 8 kids have officially died after consumption of properly pasteurized milk because of allergies to pasteurized milk!! UC Davis is telling us why those kids died….yet the FDA is blocking this information. The FDA is by default causing more kids to die from allergies to pasteurized milk!!
There is a criminal charge that should accompany his firing at the FDA. Where is the attorney general when you need them?
I have filed a FOIA for the information regarding this email exchange by Sheehan. It is my friends inside of the UC Davis Milk genome project that are being pushed around by Sheehan. They can do little except to continue their work on raw milk and the ill effects of pasteurization on the living whole elements found in raw milk. The Milk Genomics researchers are very well aware of the 160 million years of evolution that it took to make raw mammals milk the perfect food to grow little mammals. They are not about to let some paid-off corporate hit-man at the FDA ruin the lives of consumers…or oppress the truth. In fact they tell me that this FDA stunt….speaks volumes and is a confirmation that the research is valid.
The more that the FDA tries to cover its tracks the more that RICO charges stick. That is called “conspiracy”. A judge will have a hay day with all of this.
This is getting fun and truly juicy. This is how true change is fueled. I love my job!!
Mark
I am so glad my kids are grown. It is amazing what stupid words come out of supposedly educated peoples mouths.
Marietta
I don’t doubt that people are starting to wake up to the realities of this blatant deception because I see it occasionally myself (mostly in the older generation though, few young people even care). I just doubt that anyone in a position of power is ever going to be in any trouble at all. This Sheehan creature won’t even be registered as a blip on the legal radar. He’s shielded.
As I’ve seen happening locally in the past week with some local raw milk producers, the people in authority positions will continue to bully. They may not bring down the hammer this week or next month but eventually they’ll “do their jobs”. The idiot from the health department here (who shut down the raw milk producer) doesn’t even understand the basics of campy and yet is flinging around statements in various newsrags as if he were the angel of mercy. People who are uninformed as to the truth about real food, SEE him as the angel of mercy. That’s how he keeps his job.
But the parents are still pretty confused about sunlight, aren’t they? The gubment did a spectacularly outstanding job of scaring the hell out of people when it comes to sunlight. They’re afraid of the sun but not afraid of slathering on poisonous sunblock.
Shazam.
This may have been mentioned already, but it’s relevant here again: the October 22, 2012 issue of the New Yorker has a lead article, “Germs Are Us – Bacteria Reconsidered” at page 32 by Michael Specter, which recaps the steadily growing science we speak of here, e.g. the micro biome project, gut diversity, and the growing interest in medicine of the possibilities of healing our bodies with friendly bacteria (fecal transplants, etc. etc.). Life is infinitely diverse, and nature abhors a monoculture. In this context, FDA is a monoculture.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/106-years-jungle-squalid-factories-foodborne-diseases-rising-144403719.html
Watch the video (and try to keep from laughing) and then read the article below it.
Marietta,
I agree on taking this viral. Feel free to put links to this post on Facebook and Twitter, and also to obtain the article from Gary Cox (per the first comment here) and send it around to your friends and others you know are interested. I can’t advise you to post it, since it is copyrighted, and thus can’t be displayed without permission of the owner, the California Dairy Research Foundation. I am seeking that permission, and will advise on what transpires.
Thank you, Steve. I like your assessment of the FDA’s role in the life scheme.
But…it is does not use enough cuss words. We need cuss words. The FDA sucks….they really suck. John Sheehan leads the sucking Monoculture.
Life on earth is a biodiverse poly culture and the FDA hates life on earth.
Please let me purge my gut on this. It is therapy.
I intend on ending John Sheehan as the Tsar of anything at the FDA. We have some deep connections with Michele Obama. I intend on using these relationships and a whole lot more to evict John Sheehan from the FDA. He should count his last paychecks. He is done.
The more we discover about feces…the more I page homage to it…pretty soon calling some one at the FDA full of shit will be a compliment. Feces are now part of the most advanced life saving medical therapies…the FDA deserves a name far below our Biodiverse ecosystem content.
Anyone have a name that would fit John Sheehan ?? Shit is far above him and should be reserved for higher living vital life forms.
And a humongous THANK YOU to David for the continuous stream of critical information flowing from his computer!
The govt entities and monsanto types aren’t singing about these types of studies either….
Its great to see a study that reinforces what Ive been saying and doing for the last 30 years.
There is not enough profit in agriculture to justify this government sponsored GMO, chemical and drug approach to livestock and crop production. Indeed the only winners are the companies who produce this toxic crud.
Ken
It makes perfect sense, as you and others have said numerous times: if you take care of the land, it’ll take care of you. All those chemicals added to the land,water, air, animals, plants and our bodies can only cause disease and contamination.
Soil health alone is a fair measure of economic potential (read: opportunity), since health and strength are completely dependent on it. Suggest that to a politician, bureaucrat, businessman, social worker, or economist, and you will likely be brushed off as a fool or an idiot.
Miracles do happen…especially when you demand action repeatedly for very good cause, you have all the facts and Sheehan got caught red handed in the UC davis scientific raw milk cookie jar and Michele gets pissed. She is the first mom.
One can dream!!
A strong informal economy IS essential to a good life. Unfortunately we have been letting the informal economy be converted to the formal economy for too long.If we want the informal economy to recover , we need to learn to get our necessities ,like food, in informal ways ( untaxed and unregulated).
http://www.verdant.net/informaleconomy.htm
”
“There was another crisis in 1998 when the rouble collapsed. How did the peasants do then?”
“Even better. That crisis improved the situation in the villages very considerably. The majority of Russian economists believed what they had been told by the West, that the only way to survive in the post-communist world was to take loans from the world community. That was the policy of the government. So when Western companies left, deciding they could never make any money, Russia feared the worst. Within a year most of the offices in Moscow belonging to Western companies had closed. But as food imports went down, the shops filled with Russian food. Russian farms filled the gap. Often their goods turned out to be much better. So the crisis improved Russian agriculture.”
“Step by step, it has become clear that the crisis was good for Russia, urban as well as rural. The economic conditions have been improving since 1998. This is not accidental. Russia has begun to regain control of its own economy. The main danger to the economics and livelihoods of developing countries, including the former Soviet Union, is dependency. You have to control your frontiers before you can begin to control your own economies. It is a very important lesson – and the complete opposite of what the IMF or George Bush would tell you.”
“Would it be going too far to say that informal economics reflects the dominant way of living on the planet?”
“The modern formal economy needs only about a quarter of the global workforce. The other three-quarters are engaged in survival through the informal economy. It is a necessity for polarised, unjust societies. It happens in urban as well as rural areas, especially squatter settlements. The core of the informal economy is not peasant farming, but family and neighbourhood relationships of mutual support. So while the informal economy is seen – if it is seen at all – as the political economy of the margins, when you put it all together you can see it is not marginal at all.”
“As capitalism becomes more global, is the informal economy declining – or will the peasants inherit the Earth?”
“I think it is zigzagging. It depends on conditions. Industrial economies are much more imposing. But this imposition has its limits. In Russia we have seen the collapse of the state without the rise of a fully functioning capitalist model. In this vacuum the informal economy takes over. Look at what has happened in Argentina, where the banks won’t give people their money and they are moving out of the cash economy and engaging in swapping and barter. Even in England, you find people in the villages who have got fed up with the rat race and have started to farm their gardens and take part-time jobs. Not everyone wants to live in the formal economy. The informal sector can make you more a master of your destiny.”
miguel
We will see. Sheehan is pretty darn bold when he treads on UC Davis science. That it pretty thin ice. He must think we in the raw milk movement are not connected with the scientists that support us. We are very connected. His actions just inflame the fires and confirm the findings.
That is a great idea, about the petition. Please let us know when it is ready for signatures.
That, in a sentence, is the crux of the problem. In America, as in other highly technological, highly industrialized countries, the tentacles of the formal economy–media, education, and political control–have more reach than ever in history. (The aristocracies, guilds, and popes of old were putzes in comparison to the globalized, business/government socioeconomic controllers of today.) We have reached the point where few can imagine any other living than working for steady wages, than a job greasing machinery with effects far too big to understand. Central controls have never been so formidable. Even now as the formal economy collapses into a void of debt and disease, as the true value of everything gradually gets obliterated by the manipulations of third-party payments, taxes, rules and regulations, as we become ever less confident of decisions not made by experts, the indoctrinated clamor for even more controls, even more political solutions. It seems we have reached a generational tipping point, where the simple actions of livelihood–of providing products or services to another human being, face-to-face–have become foreign, unworthy, valueless.
Here’s a passage from Robert Neuwirth’s book, Shadow Cities in which he discusses the now billion or more people living in what he calls squatter cities:
This was Southland, a small shanty community on the western side of Nairobi, Kenya. But it could have been anywhere in the city, because more than half the city of Nairobi lives like this: 1.5 million people stuffed into mud or metal huts with no services, no toilets, no [legal] rights.
…The sun slammed down on the thin steel roof and we perspired as we ate. After we finished, Armstrong straightened his tie, put on a wool sports jacket and we headed out into the glare. Outside, a mound of garbage formed the border between Southland and the adjacent legal neighborhood of Langata.
It was perhaps 8 feet tall, 40 feet long and 10 feet wide. And it was set in a wider, watery ooze. As we passed, two boys were climbing the Mount Kenya of trash. They couldn’t have been more than five or six-years-old. They were barefoot and, with each step, their toes sank into the muck, sending hundreds of flies scattering from the rancid pile.
I thought they might be playing King of the Hill. But I was wrong. Once atop the pile, one of the boys lowered his shorts, squatted and defecated. The flies buzzed hungrily around his legs. When 20 families, 100 people or so, share a single latrine, a boy pooping on a garbage pile is perhaps no big thing.
But it stood in jarring contrast to something Armstrong had said as we were eating: that he treasured the quality of life in his neighborhood. For Armstrong, Southland wasn’t constrained by its material conditions. Instead, the human spirit radiated out from the metal walls and garbage heaps to offer something no legal neighborhood could: freedom.
This place is very addictive, he had said. It’s a simple life, but nobody is restricting you. Nobody is controlling what you do. Once you have stayed here, you cannot go back. He meant back beyond that mountain of trash, back in the legal city of legal buildings with legal leases and legal rights. Once you have stayed here, he said, you can stay for the rest of your life.
Robert Neuwirth was recently asked this question by an apparently very indoctrinated interviewer: How can you think about them [as cities if] they don’t have organization, they don’t have governance, they don’t have services. You have to have some sort of order. How do you respond to people who say – that they just reject the premise that this is a city?
Neuwirth’s answer: When you go there, you discover that they’re not disordered. We’re not talking about places that are completely lawless. They form their own organizations. Every squatter community has residents’ associations. Every neighborhood has its informal associations of who leads it. In fact, many of the communities were built by a kind of cooperative or mutuality, where 10 families would get together and build 10 homes. So this is not something that comes without structure. That’s the first point. The second point is that we make the mistake of thinking that these communities are outright deprived. One of the huge surprises I had when I went to Kibera and first came into the community, this is the, basically, largest mud hut settlement in sub-Saharan Africa, is how much commerce there is there. The main drags are just loaded with stores, all run by the squatters themselves. There’s bars, there’s, you know, health clinics, there’s grocery stores, there’s places where you can buy just, you know, the average necessities, drug stores. So this is a tremendously thriving economy, even though each store may be worth very little. In aggregate, it’s a huge amount of commerce. And people are negotiating what their rights are, let’s say. So can you have a bar there? And can you have a grocery store here? And is it OK for a cigarette shop to be located here? Or a church to be located there? So they’re sort of proto-zoning, if you will. So the communities are basically organizing themselves and that says to me that they are communities and they are creating structures that we can work with and that are adaptable to working in partnership with the city.
This renders it all the more deplorable to see the way the rump “middle class” in the West, currently being liquidated, including what’s left of real farmers, still clings to the system ideology which is destroying them. We could start rebuilding community mindsets, polities, and economies right now. The imperative is clear enough – as much as possible, break free of reliance upon the centralized political system and the corporatist economy (including the intellectual dependency on them so pronounced at this blog), build alternatives to them (for example community political councils and time banks as alternatives to cash), and try to resist their depredations.
This is especially necessary and doable where it comes to our food, since above all other sectors food markets are naturally local (but this is more or less true of all economic sectors; globalization is a high-maintenance planned economy artifice in all sectors), while the inevitable collapse of fossil-fueled corporatism will mean literal death for millions if we don’t relocalize and democratize our food production and distribution.
The structural facts of the growth economy render it the inherent enemy of sane, moral, practical agriculture. That’s why it’s so frustrating that the discussion here almost always assumes corporatism as normative and natural. John Sheehan is doing his job, period. He hasn’t committed any “abuses”. He’s a typical bureaucrat in a corporate capitalist system. (For example, universities are there to serve the corporatist system. “Academic freedom” within the system was always to some extent a scam, and by now is fully so. Complaining that a scam isn’t being sincere is to miss the point completely.) If you don’t like what he does, you have to abolish his job, meaning abolish his system. Yet some people here claim to think it’s meaningful to whine to the system about its own cadres.
A truly strong economy is a naturally scaled, bottom-up 100% demand-driven human economy. Such an economy will always be predominantly local/regional. The centralized, top-down imposed, supply-driven capitalist command economy which prevails today is fundamentally weak and depends completely on cheap oil, corporate welfare, government-sanctioned lawlessness on the part of powerful economic actors, and government thuggery. Once the cheap oil gives out it all comes down. The goal of today’s increasingly fascist policy is to preserve the system’s power as full-scale feudalism is resumed. (“Capitalism” was always really a hybrid, neo-feudalism adapted to the fossil fuel age.)
Thise who want strong human economies will have to rebuild them from the ground up with little or no help from, and increasingly in defiance of, the existing system. That has to mean taking back the land.
“Many medical guidelines don’t stick to quality standards designed to make them trustworthy, and the situation hasn’t improved over the past two decades, researchers have found.”
That speaks volumes.
“The IOM also recommends that panel chairs and co-chairs be free of conflicts of interest, which in theory might warp their judgments.”
Good luck with that one.
“Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in U.S., data show
Fueling the surge are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol.”
Any warning here in the US?
There is no need for you to tell me the benefits of drinking Raw Milk.
I make Kombucha and drink a tall glass of it every day too.
There are lots of great benefits there also.