I’m glad to see that the discussion about Organic Pastures Dairy Co. and the children who became ill has evolved beyond a discussion of raw milk to embrace broader issues, like the problem of foodborne illness, our dysfunctional food system, and the availability of key data from government agencies.
In that vein, I’d like to briefly address two issues Mary McGonigle-Martin raises. First, she strongly suggests that MarkMcAfee should continue investigating the possibility that E.coli 0157:H7 from his dairy made Chris sick. She even states, “He’s behaving like a guilty person.”
Over the weekend, I found myself thinking, What if I were in Mark’s position. What would I be doing differently?
I once was in something at least approaching Mark’s position when I worked with a startup testing online sale of nutritional supplements. I can tell you that my biggest fear the entire ten months or so I was involved in that venture was that a customer would become ill from some accidental contamination of one or another of the supplements we were selling.
Now mind you, this venture didn’t even produce any of the supplements—they were from high-quality outside manufacturers. I spoke with several insurance agents about obtaining product liability insurance for the venture, and they all came back empty-handed. No insurer wanted any part of our venture. Finally, after I badgered one agent I knew well to search harder, he came back with one company that was willing to insure us, but only with a very high deductible, and a huge premium that would have immediately bankrupted us.
Each agent I sought quotes from told me my fears were absolutely justified. As one put it, “Even if you didn’t produce the supplement, if someone becomes ill, you can be absolutely certain the people who got sick will name everyone connected with the supplement, including you, in their multimillion dollar damage suit.”
We never did get insurance—I finally decided to take the risk and go to work with sweaty palms for the few months of the test, and face the issue again if we decided to proceed with the business, which we didn’t.
So I experienced just a fraction of what Mark McAfee experienced, and what many others who not only produce raw milk, but really any food or ingestible product, go through.
I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but rather a fact of business life, that if your business is in a position to possibly make people ill, you’ve got not only a huge personal responsibility, but also potentially major financial risks. And the sicker customers might get, the bigger your potential problem.
All the foregoing is probably as it should be. What is unrealistic is to expect someone under that kind of pressure to say, after they are cleared by intensive investigation, “Hey, Mary, I know you want to get to the bottom of this. Let’s continue this investigation, you and I, let’s look at those genetic codes and search further among my animals. If there’s anything to get on me, I want you to get it, so you and everyone else who got sick can sue the pants off me and put me out of business. And you know what would really be fun? To hear from all the ‘experts’ who would line up to testify in court that these illnesses were inevitable because I insisted on selling raw milk. Come on, Mary, let’s do it.”
I know this isn’t what Mary is saying literally, and it may sound harsh, but looking at this from Mark’s perspective, it’s how it might look. (And remember also, these are my words, not Mark’s, because he’s never verbalized the matter this way to me.) I also know I’ve been supportive of Mary’s quest for answers, but now that we’re nearly a year after the illnesses, I’m questioning whether Mark is the place to go for answers.
For whatever it’s worth, Mark has taken some commendable actions–visiting Chris and Lauren in the hospital and remaining open to questioning on the matter, long after he’s been cleared. How many spinach farm executives or Taco Bell executives did you hear about visiting with sick patients last fall and winter, and continuing to discuss the matter long after the fact? (Oh yeah, I think a few did…when they were subpoenaed by Congressional inquiries.)
Mary can argue all she wants that she isn’t in this to sue Mark, and I believe her. But once the product liability lawyers were to get through telling her it’s not about the money, but about "making sure no one else has to suffer like Chris did," she could well change her mind. Once again, I’m not saying that she should drop the matter because Mark, for understandable reasons, doesn’t want to go further down her path, but rather that she should push harder with the government agencies (California agriculture and public health agencies), which almost certainly have more information than Mark, since they collected data from both his dairy and the sick children. File Freedom of Information requests, challenge privacy regulations, get Melissa Herzog and other parents of affected children involved, mine databases, and do whatever is possible to get to the bottom of the matter.
I also want to answer Mary’s statement, about me: “He’s pro raw milk and wants to encourage pro raw milk messages/information on this blog.”
It’s not the first time I’ve heard this observation. In a variation, I’ve been asked by a number of friends and colleagues, “Why do you care so much about raw milk?”
My interest in raw milk grew out of several investigations I did for BusinessWeek.com last year into what appeared to me to be unreasonable interference by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration against producers of health-related products. One that especially stood out was against Michigan cherry farmers and another was against producers of natural hormone supplements for women. I came to appreciate how serious the government was in seeking to prevent consumers from learning about and using certain alternative products that could be beneficial to their health.
So when I investigated the shutdown of Organic Pastures last September and the raid against Richard Hebron in October, I saw additional examples of unreasonable interference. The examples have only multiplied.
While there’s lots of discussion about raw milk on this blog, I consider raw milk to be a proxy for a much larger struggle over food production and the role of nutrition in improving health. The rabid establishment opposition to raw milk belies an underlying fear: if raw milk becomes accepted, and people discover that it may be improve health, then the entire edifice of our agriculture and medical system could be in danger.
I think you’ve hit multiple nails on the head. As sympathetic as I am to Mary’s inquiries (and I admire her courage greatly), I, too think it is unrealistic to expect McAfee to take a different stance. It is the authorities who have her answers.
And while I was very aware of the issues with natural hormone supplements for women, Wyeth, and the FDA, I hadn’t heard of the issues with cherry growers. I thought your article on the cherry growers was excellent reporting. Why can’t the other journalists get it right? I’ve mostly learned that reading about these and other health isses in the mainstream media is a waste of time and just raises my frustration level. If more writers had your ability to tell a story, I would change my tune about the media.
On a different note, but pertaining to the fragile underpinnings of the basis for many medical strategies and perhps even the entire system, have you seen an advance copy of Gary Taubes’ new book, Good Calories, Bad Calories; Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease, due out in September? Gary Taubes is the writer of the excellent NYT article "What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?". I think this new book might just shake things up a bit about the "Emporer’s wardrobe", finally.
The IFSN is evidently headquartered at Kansas State University, and its principal Dr. Douglas Powell is an associate professor there. "Trained in molecular biology, and employed as a journalist, Dr. Powell found that food safety was a discipline where he could meld his interests in science, society and policy — more formally known as risk analysis. His lab, the International Food Safety Network, seeks innovative ways to compel everyone in the farm-to-fork food safety system … to acknowledge and adopt best practices to reduce the risk of foodborne illness."
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2007/08/articles/raw-milk/roll-over-louis/
Dr. Powell evidently monitors raw milk news fairly closely because he immediately jumped on Autumn Valley Farm’s Friday press release and isn’t above cherry-picking quotes to ridicule the people involved and slant the news his way.
http://i-newswire.com/pr116754.html
Unfortunately I’m beginning to believe that Steve Bemis was right, in that AVF’s press release caused barely a ripple in the media. It generated a brief mention in their local paper on Saturday (only quoting a state spokeswoman), and ironically Dr. Powell’s blog entry contained more direct quotes from the press release. And not even David felt it was newsworthy enough to rate a mention, although maybe he didn’t trust the source… 🙂
http://www.thedailystar.com/news/stories/2007/08/18/mb816auction7.html
Two things have motivated to me to make statements about the possibility that Marks milk was contaminated.
You hit the nail on the head, my first motivation is to make sure no child and family ever has to suffer like we did. I dont have a legal team to do the work for me. I only have my opinion and Ive reached certain conclusions after hours of research. I believe Chris had ecoli 0157:H7 which progressed into HUS. I also believe, that despite the lack of hard evidence, circumstantial evidence (matching blueprints of the sick children) still leaves the door open for the possibility that Marks milk was contaminated with Ecoli 0157:H7.
My second motivation has to do with the bigger picture. What if there was another outbreak at his dairy because they never figured out what caused the 1st possible outbreak. What would this do to the raw milk movement? Mark probably runs the largest raw milk dairy in the U.S. He is a symbol of success and proof that raw milk is safe to drink. If his dairy was closed down, it would be a great loss to many people.
Although it is not one of my motivating factors, Mark would be personally devastated if a child ever became severely ill or died from drinking contaminated milk.
In public, Mark brags about his milk and its clean record. He states that his milk is pathogen free because of the way he raises his cows and the sanitary precautions he takes. But behind closed doors, I hope he said to his family and staff. If our milk was contaminated with 0157:H7, it can never happen again! We are going to turn this place upside down to make sure we dont have a contaminated cow or employee.
The most important question is, Is Mark 100% sure his milk did not become contaminated! Has he thought about all the possibilities and improved something in his system that was not in place before. This is all I can hope for.
Davidyou werent being harsh. I know it is ridiculous to expect Mark to give me any information. Its just frustrating being in our position. We cant get any information from the hospital about their internal investigationits confidential. I have to figure out how to navigate through the governments maze of paperwork to get informationits confidential. It feels like everyone else seems to have access to the information but the real victims.
Thanks for the note about the upcoming book by Gary Taubes. Another book that sounds similar came out about a year ago–"Ultrametabolism" by Mark Hyman. It’s worth checking out. Thanks also for your kind words about my articles.
To Mary,
I really respect your tenacity. It’s going to take a concerted, tedious effort to obtain the information you seek. I suggest you read carefully Steve Bemis’ recommendations about making use of HIPAA (following my Aug. 16 post about the FDA and the radio program).
I also took another look at the L.A. Times article by Mark Arax, and there was this statement:
"Even without that smoking gun, the state believed it had a case. The two 8-year-olds in San Diego County were showing an identical pattern of O157:H7, the same unique sub strain that had struck Lauren Herzog and a Nevada City boy named Adam Chaffee." Seems the Chaffee family is another potential target of your efforts, in addition to the Herzogs. And maybe Arax could be of assistance.
This continued for several weeks. Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: "Every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap. "
The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar: "He lives in a home with ten children – he’s trying to catch up on his sleep."
I cried from laughter
Sorry, if not left a message on Rules.