The movement to fight off the federal and state campaigns against raw milk over the past three years has been viewed by the mainstream media as pretty much a fringe thing. A bunch of crazy farmers who refuse to send their milk for pasteurization, and even crazier consumers, who insist on supposedly endangering their health with the unprocessed milk.
The battle has raged mostly in the West and Midwest. In California, movie stars like Martin Sheen joined demonstrations with bad-boy raw dairy farmer Mark McAfee, who runs the largest raw dairy in the country, during 2008 in a vain effort to pass legislation that would have loosened regulatory restrictions on raw milk. Over the last six months, in Wisconsin, a growing citizen movement on behalf of raw milk has led to passage of legislation that would reverse the state's long-standing prohibition on raw milk sales, and allow consumers to buy it from the farm. The governor has indicated publicly that he'll sign it, but in the charged atmosphere over this issue, anything is possible.
But now that regulators are moving to stem the flow of raw milk in the East, affecting the supplies of Boston lawyers, business owners, and health professionals, as well as even Washington bureaucrats, the situation is moving from fringe to mainstream.
The trigger has been a seemingly small but arbitrary decision by a Massachusetts regulator to restrict consumer access to milk. Unlike Wisconsin, which never officially sanctioned raw milk sales, Massachusetts has long allowed sales from dairy farms, and delivery to consumers by any of a half dozen or more buying clubs.
Everything was working fine in Massachusetts -- more dairy farmers producing ever more raw milk and in the process creating a revival for the state's moribund dairy industry. No illnesses in over a decade.
The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources seemed to be doing its job of supporting state agriculture by encouraging raw-milk-producing dairy farmers rather than harassing them, like the regulators do in New York state. Late last year, MDAR publicly supported a suburban Boston dairy farmer in his fight with state and local public health authorities and helped him gain approval to sell raw milk from his dairy.
But then something happened early this year to change MDAR's approach. The agency sent cease-and-desist letters to four buying clubs that had been quietly and efficiently delivering raw milk to consumers who didn't want to burn the gasoline or were unable because they don't have cars or even are disabled, to travel the hour or two hours to a dairy farm in central Massachusetts and pick up their milk. (Buying clubs are private businesses that deliver milk from raw dairies on a contractual basis for consumers.) The letters weren't well received by the owners of the buying clubs, and they began mobilizing support from their customers and legislators to challenge MDAR. They argued that Massachusetts laws and regulations don't specifically prohibit the buying clubs, making the cease-and-desist letters so much paper.
MDAR seems to have agreed, because two weeks ago, it proposed a new regulation to explicitly prohibit the buying clubs. The regulation would make Massachusetts the first state in the country to explicitly ban raw milk buying clubs.
In advance of a hearing May 10 on the proposed regulation, a Massachusetts legislator friendly with Soares set up a meeting on Monday for the regulator to discuss with a few consumers his reasons for going after the buying clubs.
Surprise -- 15 consumers and farmers showed up for the meeting, and started peppering the startled Soares with questions about why he was taking an action that will inevitably reduce consumers' access to raw milk, and quite possibly put at least a few of the more than twenty dairy farms selling raw milk out of business.
These 15 consumers weren't just a few people off the street. They included some prominent local citizens who know how the system works -- Boston employment lawyer Harvey Schwartz, Cambridge business owner Abby Rockefeller, and EPA whistleblower Hugh Kaufman. The latter has served as Chief Investigator with the Environmental Protection Agency's Ombudsman Office, among other high-level positions over a forty-year period.
Kaufman put Soares on the spot during the Monday meeting when Soares said at one point that there was as much passion from anti-raw-milk people as from pro-raw-milk people. Who were these anti-raw-milk people, Kaufman inquired.
"He said that large dairy producers had communicated to him," recalls Kaufman. "I asked him who they were. He said he couldn't tell me."
But Kaufman says Soares talked about concerns the dairy representatives have "that if something goes wrong with raw milk, it will hurt all the dairies." (This is a familiar refrain by the conventional dairy industry that has no basis, since public health and health regulators are quick in any suspected illness from raw milk to alert consumers, in shrill terms, to the distinction between raw and pasteurized milk.)
That led Kaufman to inquire whether Soares had written any of this down. Soares said he hadn't.
Kaufman maintains that when government officials have conversations with industry representatives while new regulations are being considered, the officials are supposed to open a docket -- make a written record of what happened and when.
I should say at this point that four other people who were at the meeting with Soares have confirmed Kaufman's account of what occurred. Moreover, I tried via phone and email to obtain comment from Soares. His publicity official emailed me Thursday asking what I wanted to inquire about. I wrote her back that I wanted his version about what was said at the Monday meeting about his contacts with dairy officials. I didn't receive a response.
Kaufman thinks he understands the problem: "Soares couldn't handle 15 knowledgeable people. In the process, he opened up a pandora's box. Now his legal problem is that he is hiding from the public the names of the large business entities, that he is meeting with, who are pushing him to restrain trade. As well as hiding from the general public, the fact that he's being pushed by these business entities in the first place. Not making a public record of these ex-parte discussions with the big dairies lobbying him to harm their competitors, during an Official Government Rulemaking, is NOT legit."
I'll add to Kaufman's impressions. We know that the FDA and Midwest agriculture officials have targeted raw milk buying clubs -- the case of Wisconsin buying club owner Max Kane and the pressure to force him to testify about where he obtains his milk and who his customers are is a direct result of the official crackdown.
What MDAR's Soares seems to be saying is that the dairy industry is part and parcel of the campaign to hamper raw milk distribution by cracking down on buying clubs.
At least it's all out in the open. Now it's up to consumers to let the regulators and politicians know how they feel about this joint government-industry enforcement campaign to deprive citizens of health-giving foods of their choice. The next big opportunity comes May 10, at 10 am at 100 Cambridge St, Conference Room A, 2nd Floor in Boston, Mass. Come one, come all. It's all within shouting distance of where the real Boston Tea Party took place.
And the big factory farms have the money to make any rule that they want to protect their profits from those small family dairy farms!
Enough is enough!
Why should I suffer because some business is afraid of competition and has lawmakers in their back pocket?
My rights are being infringed on, just so they can keep making a profit!
Isn't it enough that they already get a government handout to stablize milk prices at a set rate? They can't lose, why do they have to monopolize the market?
But this same government doesn't care about how the factory farms are run, only that they are big contributors to political campaigns!
It never was about protecting the public's health.
Why don't we have the freedom to choose what we eat?
For our good health?
Not really, tobacco and alcohol are freely sold.
Drugs known to kill are freely advertised and prescribed in the millions. Some of the most popular are the most dangerous.
Avandia, Celebrex, Seroquel, Depakote, Cymbalta, Ambien, Zoloft, Zyprexia, Viagra,
For public safety?
Not in this life, all those half drunk, doped out on prescription drugs users are driving around with no restraints. Some are still asleep from having used a popular sleep prescription and won't remember having left home!
Part 1
But we must be protected from the threat of a TB or salmonella outbreak from a few customers who bought raw milk!
Raw milk is the code phrase for irresponsible living, the ultimate in risk taking!
I can buy a hand gun, if I wait 3 days and go out and kill anybody I choose, but I can't buy raw milk at Kroger's!
I can buy enough beer to fill my pool but I can't drive out to a farm and buy a gallon of milk without being arrested for breaking the law and put in jail.
If I sold raw milk, I could be arrested, have my computer and records seized and my family terrorized as they ransack my home looking for "evidence".
This is what America stands for, the Golden Rule.
He who has the most Gold makes the Rules.
If we are what we eat, then what we eat is vital to our survival.
We should not be forced to eat that which is proven detrimental to our health, or causes more disease and disfunction because we have no choice.
There is a war being waged against all healthy choices, a force feeding of processed foods. Even though the government as long known that these foods are deficient in vitamins, minerals and nutrients necessary for optimum health.
The RDA is based on MINIMUMS not MAXIMUMS. You can't run a car with minium maintance for long, let alone a living body!
If they were producing better products, people would buy that. But it's cheaper to produce garbage and control the buying public, force them to buy junk.
We, the people, don't have the money for lobbyist to pester lawmakers to pass laws that favor the business that pays their salaries.
But we must endure these laws despite our knowledge of better ways to live.
Part 1
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2.) You overstate the percentage of people with lactose intolerance. Those who are descended from ethnic groups with a long history (5,000 to 12,000 years) of dairy consumption continue to produce lactase through out their lives as a rule. This includes most people of European, Middle Eastern and northern African descent, as well as a large percentage of those descended from ethnic groups in India.
3.) Your claim that all milk contains some pus is ridiculous. Without an infection, there is no pus. Likewise, there is no infection without bacteria. Milk is tested for bacteria before it leaves the farm and when it arrives at the dairy. A farm that consistently tests positive for bacteria will find itself without a dairy willing to buy the milk or even a trucker willing to transport it.
4.) Your claim that large dairy farms keep their cows covered in filth is equally ridiculous. Dairy barns have been mechanized for at least 50 years now. My sister owned a small Grade B dairy farm from 1977 to 1982, and even then she used a "manure spreader" to mechanically remove the manure from the barn several times a day. Indeed, the only time her cows were covered in filth was in the early spring when the barnyard turned into a muddy mess.
But call this milk "natural milk" and call the stuff you get in packs "processed milk". Milk from a cow is not raw in the way steak from a cow is raw. Milk is ready-to-drink as is; so call it what it is -- "natural milk".
Boycott processed milk. It is a vile concoction of pus and dead food.
At $5 to $12 a gallon it makes more money than regular milk does.
Sales and production are increasing to meet the demand.
The raw milk buyers are loyal and more than willing to pay the price to get the best milk on the market.
Raw milk provides so many benefits that the regular dairies can't compete.
It's safe, even under the worst circumstances. since the beginning of time.
Raw milk doesn't spoil, it morphs into more useful products like yogurt, sour cream, whey, cheese. All without adding anything to the milk, just different methods of preparation.
Safe and makes a fabulous profit and doesn't need all the expensive processing, or special feed for the cows!
Cheaper to make, and makes more money.
And since most of the sales are on the farm, there are no transportation costs.
All about money!
The regular dairies had 60 yrs protected by a great lie and misconception.
Their milk has been so adultrated, they have forced people to look for a better product. You expect side effects from drugs, not your glass of milk.
Once raw milk gets widespread consumer acceptance it will be unstoppable.
The truth will be revealed, regular milk sales will plummet.
The milk industry wants it shut down before it's too late to contain it. That means fighting dirty, lobbying for laws favoring their dairies and outright lies.
If they are smart, they'll switch to raw.
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I hauled milk from Dairies for a year or two. In fact, one cow that was being treated could contaminant a whole semi-load of milk that was tested before you could unload at the processing plant from Wells Blue Bunny. You also took samples from each dairy so you could find which dairy had the bad milk, and they were charged the price of the entire load of milk that was thrown out.
Not all dairies are as cautious as the ones you worked for.
And since the equipment used to milk the cows always damages the teats causing mastitis, there will always be pus and infection in the milk processed before a cow's infection could be found and separated.
There are microbes that can stand temps up to 700 degrees, there is no guarantee that pasteurizing or even ultra high flash will kill all the bacteria.
There have been salmonella outbreaks in pasteurized milk that have been hidden from the public by the CDC.
It's becoming a matter of trust and truth.
omega 3s
why are things pastuerized?to kill bacteria, and to make them less edible for bacteria.
if they are less edible for bacteria, why would it make them MORE edible for us?
the man who pruned our fig trees always ate the figs with bird pecks in them: he said the birds knew which were freshest.
RawUSA.org
realmilk.com
http://www.amazon.com/Untold-Story-Milk-Revised-Updated/dp/0979209528/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272801511&sr=8-1
Perhaps, but what of the children of those people assuming that risk? Did they knowingly accept the risks with full knowledge of the risks and benefits?
These are not easy questions. But I guess the "angle' is that Big Brother (USDA, FDA and state counterparts) are somehow conspiring with Big Corporate AG to poison us little guys. Well elsewhere on this site is a good article pointing out the downside of milk.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/dairy-free-dairy-6-reason_b_558876.html
www.RawUSA.org
www.realmilk.com
And to buy an excellent book about what happened to real milk.
It tells the whole story, about the distillery waste fed to the cows, about containment dairies, about how process the milk into a product that is unsafe, allergy causing, tasteless and only a fraction as nutritious as plain raw milk.
http://www.amazon.com/Untold-Story-Milk-Revised-Updated/dp/0979209528/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272801511&sr=8-1