I love when raw milk drinkers educate nervous regulators about dairy safety and benefits. And when the raw milk advocates are clamoring for a regulated solution that the regulators are resisting.

That’s what happened last evening at a hearing in Massachusetts before the Groton Board of Health. Groton is a small upscale community, with lots of open spaces, about an hour northwest of Boston. A Groton goat farmer, Helene Cahen, had requested earlier this year that the board rescind a town ordinance dating from the 1950s, which requires a committee of five physicians to oversee any raw milk production and sales in the town. It’s an ordinance that has never been applied, and sits on the books as a prohibition against raw milk sales in the town.  

A half-dozen of the 25 people in attendance told the board members in no uncertain terms about how much they wanted Groton to rescind the ordinance (and more would have said the same thing, except time ran out), so that local farmers could seek state raw milk permits. (The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources will only issue raw milk permits to farms in towns where the sale of raw milk is allowed; about half of Massachusetts’ towns passed restrictions or bans on raw milk back in the 1950s, when pasteurization was considered the “modern” way of handling milk.) 

Helene Cahen, a local farmer who sells vegetables via a CSA (community supported agriculture), had sought out the change in town regulations earlier this year, but in three previous meetings, the Groton Board of Health has resisted making the change, its members saying they wanted evidence beyond what they found at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s web site about raw milk’s risk, as well as about its potential benefits. Last evening, they received a good deal of information on both risk and benefits. 

Three health professionals—a local dentist, chiropractor, and registered nurse—testified that they have been feeding raw milk to their families and recommending it to patients….without any illness problems. Moreover, these individuals said, their families, and patients, have thrived with raw milk. 

The dentist, Jean Nordin-Evans, who runs Groton Wellness, the largest holistic dental practice in New England in Groton, began her testimony by bringing photos of her three children to the three board members at the front of the room. “I have been feeding my children raw milk since they were little,” she said. “They have never gotten sick from it and they are very healthy.” 

Like others who testified, Nordin-Evans expressed frustration she has to travel an hour or more to obtain her milk. “We’re not asking you to oversee” raw milk production, she told the Board of Health. “It is regulated.” 

The nurse, Cyndi Labbe, told the board she has a 25-goat farm in Groton, but is frustrated she can’t sell any of it to the many people who approach her for milk. “We have a lot of people who want milk. Women cry to me, ‘I have a child who is allergic to casein or soy milk. I need your raw milk.” 

She wondered to the board, “If the state is allowing us to be monitored and tested, what is the holdback on this?”

How did the board feel about the stories they heard? It’s always difficult to anticipate how regulators, legislators, judges, and others will come out on anything having to do with raw milk, but the indications were that the proponents made some headway.  The last time a farmer asked a MA town to reverse a long-standing ban on raw milk was in 2009, when the Framingham Board of Health, after several hearings, agreed to allow a local farmer to sell raw milk. 

At the start of the meeting, one of the three board members, Dr. Susan Horowitz, a veterinarian, framed the issue as entirely about risk: “This is not about agriculture. This is not about business. This is about public health.”

By the time the meeting ended more than an hour later, Dr. Horowitz was discussing the pros and cons of herdshares versus the state’s existing permitting and inspections program. At one point, she told Cahan, the farmer, that if she set up a herdshare program, she “wouldn’t need the approval of the board.” 

But another board member, Robert Fleischer, expressed concerns that “a herdshare provides no inspections” as the state permitting program does. 

Yet Board of Health members also expressed the kinds of dark fears and anonymous incidents that often come up at these sessions. Dr. Horowitz noted near the end of the meeting that she had had a town resident “call me to say she almost died” from raw milk. “She was intimidated to come here.” So no public comment from this individual, just insinuation.

The chairperson of the board, Jason Weber, said near the end of the meeting that “the challenge…is when an adult is making a choice for a minor.” 

But then he added that he wanted “to fine tune” the warning language on raw milk labels that farmers Cahan and Labbe would use on their milk. So his position not clear, either. 

Weber also made an intriguing request: “The piece that is missing is reliable studies about what the benefits of raw milk are.” 

I pointed him toward the European studies indicating raw milk helps protect against allergies and asthma in children, which he had only seen partial descriptions of.  I also provided testimony on illnesses from raw milk among the New England states, which is very low. 

In the end, the board adjourned without reaching a verdict on rescinding its existing ordinance, but indicated a decision could well come at its next meeting July 7. For Cahan, it was more frustration. “Cows and goats on pasture is a healthy thing. I get sick on pasteurized milk…We need to have a great deal of respect for locally produced milk.”  More information to come on the July 7 meeting. 

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Two farmers who have been fighting state efforts to restrict their food rights gained judicial endorsements recently. 

In Minnesota, a state judge declined a prosecutor’s requests to punish farmer Michael Hartmann for continuing to sell and deliver raw milk to Minneapolis area residents. The state argued Hartmann was violating the terms of his probation and state law, but the judge didn’t agree. 

Afterwards, Hartmann, who has been fighting the state for four years, since he was accused of producing milk that made eight people sick from E.coli O157:H7, indicated he will keep doing what he has been doing—supplying customers with milk. 

And in Ontario, a judge refused to force farmer Michael Schmidt to change lawyers, in its seemingly interminable case charging the farmer with illegally moving potentially diseased sheep. The skirmishing over Schmidt’s lawyer is just one of a number of maneuvers by the state, with the case of nearly two years not even close to moving toward trial. More on the case at The Bovine; see the second letter of comments.