In October, I expressed the view that an academic article favorable to raw milk, and posted on a web site of the University of California, Davis, was removed at the orders of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s director of Plant and Dairy Food Safety, John Sheehan.
Not so, says Sheehan. In an email exchange Sheehan had with the head of the Dairy Research Institute, Greg Miller, Sheehan sounds off on the article mystery…and on yours truly, since I was the only media person to raise questions about the infringement on academic freedom.
The email exchange was obtained by Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. via a Freedom of Information inquiry. If you’ll remember, the article, analyzing research out of Europe showing strong linkages between reduced asthma and allergies among children drinking raw milk, was taken down shortly after it was posted in the “Splash” newsletter by the UC Davis-based International Milk Genomics Consortium. The IMGC is supported in part by the California Dairy Research Foundation, which in turn is supported in part by Miller’s Dairy Research Institute.
All indications, as I described in my post, pointed to Sheehan. But when Miller of the Dairy Research Institute forwarded Sheehan a link to my post two days after it went up, the FDA official responded, stiffly: “The fact of the matter is that I expressed my regret to you that the decision was made to take the article down, as opposed to just correcting it. I still think it’s a pity that they didn’t just correct the article, as every reader of same would surely have benefited from getting the correct information as to the impact of minimum HTST (high-temperature short-time pasteurization) conditions on caseins and whey proteins.”
The article was re-posted a few weeks later, with a number of editorial notes and edits, which I detailed in a followup post.
Sheehan had some choice comments about me as the author of the original post pointing to FDA complicity in the removal of the academic article, suggesting I wrote the post because I have it in for the bureaucrat. In providing background to Miller about me, Sheehan actually started off pretty positive: “This guy has written a few articles about me before. Seems like every so often he feels the need to do so. One time he actually flew down to Florida just to get my picture (see above)–or so he says. The resulting article that he wrote was just hysterical–really very funny.”
Gee, he almost made it seem like we were buddies…except for his omission to Miller that Sheehan in Florida refused to have even the briefest of conversations with me. (Here is that post.)
And the buddy-buddy thing goes bye-bye pretty quickly after that, as Sheehan continues on about my motives: “He has even gone so far as to publish a very old version of my resume–I don’t know why or to what end–and has generally done his best to try to cause me some harm, or so it would seem. This latest article is just more of the same, really.”
Really? Sheehan portrays himself as some unknowing victim of a vendetta by me, when the reality is that he has cloaked himself in nearly complete secrecy while waging a take-no-prisoners war on raw milk providers and consumers. For instance, that resume situation he refers to…I obtained the document via a Freedom of Information Act request after he refused to authorize the FDA’s PR people to provide me with any substantive details about his background, such as where he worked before he came to the FDA–all when I was researching my book, The Raw Milk Revolution. High-ranking bureaucrats routinely hand out such information to the media, yet Sheehan decided to be completely uncooperative and secretive, and has pursued that approach in nearly every aspect of his job.It’s not just me–he refuses pretty much to speak with any media that he thinks might ask serious questions. He has opted out of interviews and speaking engagements when he thought raw milk proponents might be in the audience.
Anyway, I’m not sure he has pulled back the cloak far enough for us to decipher who actually did what to whom in that troubling episode of stomping on academic freedom. But clearly, the orders came from outside UC Davis, from on high in the dairy industry and/or the government.
I can nearly bet the farm on one thing…the FOIA request was not completely delivered to me. Sheehan kept some of the prior email information and did not deliver it as required by law.
This is expected. When Dr. German and others stand together and declare very publicly that pasteurized milk is non digestible by young children and is toxic….you can bet that Sheehan will run for the hills and try his best to hide someplace and deny he knew anything about the defects that are found in pasteurized milk.
To quote some body very high up at UC Davis Milk Genomics….”Pasteurization is a 18th century solution to an 18th century problem”. “We can do better now that we have the technology to test for pathogens in literally minutes down to the specific DNA type”. Raw milk is a perfect food that took 200 million years to perfect and optimize and the FDA continues to screw it up tragically even after we now know that pasteurization is so dangerously allergenic that 8 kids have died after drinking it…since 1998. Surely, tens of thousands more kids were saved by EMS heros and paramedics that were quick with epinephrine as so many more kids reacted to pasteurized milk but did not die.
There is no more hiding at the FDA or in the dairy industry…the internet has no hiding places and the truth is clear as “dollar voting” has decimated fluid pasteurized milk as it is literally dying its forecast-ed and well anticipated death.
Hey…John, I know you read this. I do not dislike you, I just dislike what your soul allows you to do for a paycheck. What you do kills and sickens kids with the most allergenic food in America. A food that is made allergenic by FDA policy and industrial greed. A food that was not allergenic until processors kill it.
I hope you can sleep tonight, there are mothers all across America that will be up all night with their kids in the ER because of pasteurized milk allergies and asthma. Because of your lack of ethical and moral content there is no one to lead the FDA to a better place. A place that could help the dairy industry and not kill it. A place that was honest and could respect the work of Milk Genomics Scientists instead of sanctioning the research as to politically hot to release to the public. You are not a scientist….you are a FOOD INC mobster….leave our scientists to do their work and keep your FOOD INC intimidation tactics off of them.
Is John Sheehan really acting on his own and driving this bus? I doubt it. So who is actually the puppet master? A consortium of pharmaceutical companies that maybe bankroll the proceedings? A higher political power? Let’s get to the bottom, or top, of it and call them out. I have a feeling that Sheehan is just a sort of media manager caught in the crosshairs.
LMAO, from a person who appears to try at every turn to prevent something people want? From a person who claims consuming raw dairy is like “playing Russian roulette”? What BS.
Raw dairy is going to be consumed as it has been for centuries. By not working with farmers and the public, they only further widen the chasm.
Of course someone like Sheehan is probably to a large extent “acting on his own” in the sense that the system selects for such psychopaths. They know what they’re there to do and they’re prefectly happy to do it, so they don’t need much supervision.
I’ll just bet he wanted to see that UC Davis article “corrected”. As long as it was corrected the way HE said it should be. Did it need correcting?
You’re also probably pretty close when you call him a media manager. I wouldn’t have put it so kindly. He’s a mouthpiece and a suit.
http://www.cornucopia.org/2012/11/organic-food-justice-for-the-99/
John Sheehan is surrounded by agency employees that wear uniforms and follow the general commands of the day. This is not a place for free thinkers or a place that is free to read or accept new thought or even a new scientific study or discovery. The FDA is a follower not a leader. Look at what happened with Jack in the Box ecoli in the 1980’s. It was Jack in the Box that changed standards and mandated that beef processors provide pathogen reduced ( or ecoli free beef ) beef. The FDA actually resisted this move made by Jack in the Box. They followed years later after Jack showed the way.
The FDA is the classic agency that holds the present course no matter what. Even if that course is towards icebergs. They could care less. They are placed into power to hold the course and follow a military type directive. Change is one of their enemies as well as anything related to concern for consumers. Concern for their masters in FOOD INC is the order of the day…one hell of a corrupt process.
What I can not believe is that our system somehow sustains this process and continues to support this level of corruption and disservice to the citizens and it is robbing and killing us all. 99.9% of Humans are really really stupid….really stupid. I guess those in power like it this way. More convenient to make money.
Kristen, I’m glad you found the post entertaining. To me, it’s worse than undiplomatic of Sheehan to go out of his way to avoid all events where he might be in contact with raw milk proponents. It’s a slap in the face to his employers–you, me, and everyone else on this blog and elsewhere who not only pay Sheehan’s salary, but care about food policy. The fact is that dairy processing has become a controversial matter, and it’s Sheehan’s job to familiarize himself with differing views about the subject–the best way to do that is engage with a variety of people.
For once I agree with you. I think my response to this article was immature, just as Sheehan’s actions are bowing out of events because raw milk proponents will be there. I know my tune has changed but upon further reflection it is true: his position is one where he needs to know and entertain all sides of the issue. What is wrong in this country is a bent towards extremism with a lack of serious dialogue and discourse. This is a prime example.
Best,
Kristen