Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price FoundationChange often comes in funny ways. Take the debate about raw milk. Earlier this week, food poisoning lawyer Bill Marler, who has close ties to the public health and regulatory communities, issued a diatribe of sorts against the Weston A. Price Foundation and against me for supposedly failing to acknowledge that people can get sick from raw milk.
Now, just a few days later, the lawyer and Sally Fallon, the head of the foundation, are saying some things few would have expected.
Bill Marler, who has been endlessly derisive of raw milk supporters, started things yesterday by posting a comment on his blog in which he suggested strongly that he isn’t as anti-raw-milk as everyone might have assumed. While much derision was still present, his proposal was that raw milk be allowed for sale from farms:
“My problem, and why I seem so ‘anti-raw milk,’ is that I think we need fairer information out there on the real risks – especially to pregnant women, the elderly and children – children especially, since that is the target consumer.
“So, where is the compromise? I think raw milk if sold, should be sold on farms that are certified by the state and inspected and tested regularly. The farms should be required to have insurance coverage sufficient to cover reasonable damages to their customers. I agree that folks should be able to look the farmer in the eye. I also believe that accurate information on risks should be clearly given and only benefits that are real should be touted.”
Later in the day, Sally Fallon posted a comment on my blog following the previous posting, in which she articulated, more fully than I’ve seen before in writing, that people can indeed become ill from raw milk, and advising producers of raw milk to take extra care in their production methods. (I should note that she has made the statements in talks to farmers and consumers.) Actually, she was responding to a previous posting on the Marler blog comparing the dangers of pasteurized and raw milk, but some of her comments sounded as if they were responding to the original Marler blog tirade:
“ To protect (foodborne illness) victims from such pernicious effects and to protect the general population and our society from wasted time and resources due to milder and more common forms of foodborne illness, we thus consider it imperative that farmers produce raw milk and raw milk products in accordance with the most conscientious standards, from grass-feeding to proper sanitation of bottling equipment. While raw milk contains numerous built-in safety mechanisms (most of which are compromised or destroyed by pasteurization), this safety system can be overwhelmed in extreme situations, such as in confinement dairies where cows are fed a diet based or grains, or where large amounts of pathogens from contaminated water or manure inadvertently get into the milk.
“Furthermore, while we believe that raw milk is itself protective against systemic infection, we still have the responsibility as a society to further investigate how individuals can maximize their immunity to foodborne illness.
“The fact that pasteurized milk, deli meats, spinach, and many other commonly consumed foods present as great a risk or perhaps an even greater risk than raw milk does not excuse farmers from bearing responsibility for their own raw milk products.”
Granted, both of these individuals are continuing to say things likely to offend the other’s camp. And on the big ag/regulator side, it could be that sudden acceptance of raw milk signals an effort by big ag to somehow exploit the explosive growth in interest in the perceived benefits of raw milk.
At this point in time, though, I choose to be optimistic that possibly this is the beginning of a political change affecting food rights. I’ve long argued that raw milk is a proxy issue for the growing regulation of the food supply. Now we have one of the leading food-safety advocates adjusting his view, becoming more tolerant. And we have one of the leading advocates of food rights adjusting her emphasis. It could all be just rhetorical positioning. Hopefully, it’s the beginning of something more.
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To Bob Hayles, yes, it has been a long time. Welcome back. We’ve missed your strong voice. Right on about how Georgia milk buyers should have reacted.
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Kathryn RussellI’m sorry to report that one of Virginia’s most prominent food rights activists, Kathryn Russell, was killed in a car crash last evening, She was 54, and a an active member of the Virginia Independent Consumer and Farmers Association (VICFA) and a founding member of the National Independent Consumer and Farmers Association (NICFA). She was also a commenter on this blog, and very passionate about food rights. She leaves six children living at home. I had been in frequent contact with Kathryn over the last few months, to participate with Joel Salatin in a program to screen the movie “Fresh!” and discuss the raw milk issue. I’m told by Deborah Stockton, one of her close friends, that the event, schedule for Nov. 7 in Charlottesville, will still be held, since that’s what Kathryn would have wanted.
The same could be said about vaccines:
The problem with our current program is that the benefits are exaggerated and the risks are denied instead of studied. Too much too soon, with too many toxic ingredients. Too many permanent reactions that are ignored/denied by the medical/governmental communities. Too much money to lose
A down side of vaccines is that they do not provide lifetime immunity. Students are coming down with mumps/measles who were vaccinated against these illnesses as children. The incidence of shingles has increased instead of decreasing; rare exposure to chicken pox prevents the immune system from remaining active in fighting this virus.
In regards to vaccinations it appears that many are only willing to hear information that supports their agendas/views. The parents of the child who had a severe reaction from a vaccination are left on their own (the vaccine court is another issue) You have to research everything and weigh what you believe will be best, then you have to live with your choices. I can only imagine the self inflicted guilt of those parents who thought they were doing the right thing Yet when they try to speak out about what happened to their child, they are ridiculed by the establishment. Why is that? Where is the unbiased research?
Living is a risk. We make choices and we live with those choices. Consuming raw dairy, pasteurized dairy, spinach, meats, etc. is a risk. I keep hearing the same rhetoric.
My heart goes out to the family.
This may seem unrelated, but I watched Larry King last night, who interviewed two alternative cancer doctors and two conventional cancer doctors. The dynamic was very interesting. The alternative doctors, who have been persecuted by the medical community, merely were asking for the acknowledgment that conventional approaches may not be for everybody, or for every diagnosis. They did not denigrate conventional approaches.
The conventional doctors, however, went out of their way to discredit and demonize the alternative doctors, coming close to accusing them of preying on the weak and vulnerable.
The same thing seems to happen in the raw milk debate, for example when opponents of raw dairy accuse parents of endangering their children for feeding them raw milk.
My belief is that consuming all products the motto is buyer beware. The consumer must research, become knowledgeable, no matter what they buy, whether it is food or a household product.
I am offended by the nanny state mentality of our government and the hubris of the doctors I saw last night. They barely let the alternative doctors speak, I guess they were afraid the public might actually listen. Considering how many cancer patients die of chemotherapy and complications from a decimated immune system, and the many given palliative care (doctors will give you chemo even when they know it will do no good, supposedly to make you feel like there is hope, even when there is none). Those doctors have a heck of a lot of nerve.
Kimberly
As more producers came to us to start the same, most were not closed herd situations and many nasty presents where left by the dairy industry over time.
Enter raw milk production handbook.
We have lost the artform of animal husbandry for the ease of cheats & magic potions, and many books that portray the gross opposite of the obvious leaving many new to the trade, and even old timers lost to polarity.
Extremes of any type are monocultures wether of the mind or the land, and truth seldom lies on either end of the pendulem.
Here lies our debate of safe raw milk….
many pathogens can infect cows and milk…
many of those nasty things are transfered in utero or early in life and can lay dorment
all of those nasty things have been bred into our food system by large ag…and sometime caught by small ag via diversified farms.
most do not understand soil and the importance of minerals, the pathogens credited above can flurish in a demineralized stressed situation…
I ,we, anybody can stress a rumenant on straight unmineralized grass just as easy as too much unmineralized grain…
enter food bourne illness, johnes, TB, warts, low production, low conception/birth rate, high mortality rates…excepted as the norm and any inprovement of the above is hearlded as enlightenment.
However…Martler and the State except these norms as long term trends and must require technology to address them and make them safe..a little technology worked in the past… now more will work better(much like the synthetic fertilizer argument)
However those whom have imbraced the polar opposite have created stress (stress is stress) from lack of knowledge and or shear obstinance and the lingering pathogens reemerge.
As Sally has always said.."nutrient density is key to good health"
We do not know our potential for health of our soils/plant/animals/humans, and to settle for our current gain will only doom our offspring to mediocraty.
We have the ability to use science for better understanding of where we are…and stop using it for a sales pitch.
Marler & crew must however realize that over the course of time we have been proven wrong more times than right… in our guesses of how things work and the perceptions from the current viewpoint.
We who are passionate about food as a great tasting tool have seen the changes and the doors of possiblities it opens…but that possiblity only comes from a constant growth in understanding of what was left us to work with and what it takes to recreate the vibrancy we have just become to understand.
We don’t have to prove it to anybody, but our wisdom learned over time will prove vitale when "they" come looking for the pure building blocks to begin again.
Tim
Amanda
=Blair
I’m Kathryn’s oldest daughter, and I wanted to give a brief
update. Our family is working on a letter to send out to friends and
to post on the various (many!) sites where my mother has friends.
One of the things that has brought us the most comfort is reading
letters from people who talk about how mom influenced their lives or
helped them in some way. We would love to continue to receive them if
anyone has stories to share. We would NOT like to have the street
address distributed, but rather: Post Office Box 74, North Garden, VA
22959.
The wonderful homemade meals people have brought us have helped a
great deal (http://www.takethemameal.com, username "russell", password
"2009"). We are not collecting any sort of financial contributions,
and have been consulted nor have approved of any organizations doing
so. There are plans in the works to establish a small farmer crisis
relief fund, named in honor of my mother. Any contributions to such a
fund would be used to benefit other small farms in times of need.
I can send a copy of the letter once we’ve completed it, if you like. My email address is hollyATyllohDOTcom.
Many thanks,
Holly Russell