One of the tests used by Salem, MA, authorities back in the late 1600s to determine if a suspicious person was a witch was to repeatedly dunk the individual under water until he or she confessed. Not surprisingly, many of those tested in this way were convicted at the Salem Witch Trials for being a witch, and could then be executed.
Something like that is going on with the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations ongoing campaign against small cheese producersthe one thats been going on for the last ten years and is now supposedly in recess as the FDA said in a statement last week that it will engage with the artisanal cheesemaking community, state officials and others to learn more about current practices and discuss the safety of aging certain types of cheeses on wooden shelving, as well as to invite stakeholders to share any data or evidence they have gathered related to safety and the use of wood surfaces.
I can virtually guarantee that the FDAs challenge to cheese makersprove to us that what you are doing is safewill be virtually impossible for the cheese makers to accomplish. If cheese makers somehow do pull it off and convince the FDA to accept wood cheese boards, then there will be another similar issue over the threat of pathogens that will cause the FDA to continue after small artisanal cheese makers. Here is why:
The supposed safety problem isnt over wood boards, it is over the FDAs approach to the pathogen listeria monocytogenes (L monocytogenes). The FDA has a zero-tolerance approach to L monocytogenesor, at least, L monocytogenes that crops up at small cheese producers. Because L monocytogenes is so prevalent in our environment, trying to get rid of every last cell in an artisanal cheese facility, which depends on the interaction of beneficial bacteria, can be nearly impossible. Moreover, the agency fails to provide any guidance to producers about what needs to be done to rectify the situation, and when a producer cant come up with a solution, the FDA keeps it shut down.
The supposed problems with the New York producer at the center of the wood-board issue of last week is much the same scenario that was used to shutter the award-winning Estrella Creamery in Washington, and the highly popular Morningland Dairy in Missouri, both in cases that originated in 2010. These were thriving, growing examples of small cheese producers, capitalizing on the growing popularity of artisanal cheese, destroyed by the FDA over the presence of L monocytogenes.
For the last two years, its been the same M.O. at Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese in upstate New Yorka proud dairy making raw-milk cheese, being hammered nearly into oblivion.
The confusion of Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese co-owner, Nancy Taber Richards, trying to satisfy the FDA, is much the same as for those other cheese makers. She told the NY Times: It was kind of like trying to hit a moving target in the dark. I never knew explicitly what they wanted done.
Eventually, the FDA would write New York agriculture officials that this case suggested a problem with Finger Lakes Farmsteads wood boards, and that was what triggered all the media handwringing trying to read the FDAs mind.
Now, what do all these cases have in common, besides bringing the full wrath of the FDA down on honest hard-working farmers?
Heres a hint: Ask how many people were sickened from the wonderful cheeses produced at any of these farms (Estrella, Morningland Dairy, Finger Lakes Farmstead). Thats right. Zero.
Wait, you might say, the FDA cant take any chances. This is L monocytogenes, after all. As the state prosecutor in the Morningland Dairy case that unfolded in a Missouri court in early 2011 said, This cheese can kill. (I describe the Morningland case in detail in my book, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights.)
But the reality is that the FDA doesnt have to take a zero-tolerance approach to the presence of L monocytogenes. That is because L monocytogenes isnt as threatening in small quantities as other pathogens, like E.coli O157:H7.
The FDA could take the same approach as the European Union or Canada. While the presence of a single cell of L monocytogenes is enough to shutter a facility in the U.S., the European Union and Canada allow small amounts of L monocytogenes (up to 100 cells), based on considerable evidence that small amounts of the pathogen dont make people sick.
The FDAs excessively stringent approach has been the subject of debate in the U.S., and a number of scientists have taken the agency to task for its zero-tolerance policy. Back in 2003, four scientists did two studies of L monocytogenes in foods. In one of the studies, “The investigators found L monocytogenes in 1.82% of more than 31,000 food samples analyzed, but only 21 samples contained more than 100 colony-forming units (CFU) per gram (approximately equivalent to 100 organisms per gram),” according to a report. What that says is that of about 600 samples found to contain L monocytogenes, only a little over 3% had the potentially dangerous number of pathogen cells. That also suggests that 97% of the FDA findings of L monocytogenes–often resulting in farm and cheese producer shutdowns based on the zero-tolerance policy–are unwarranted.
The report concluded: It is clear that the most effective efforts to reduce the risk of listeriosis in RTE (ready-to-eat) foods will involve targeting the food servings that are heavily contaminated, even though the fraction of those servings is very small. In other words, the zero-tolerance approach, where inspectors seek the fairly common presence of L monocytogenes, may be less safe than searching out the very few high-concentration pockets of listeria.
Why doesnt the FDA take the same prudent approach to L monocytogenes as the European Union and Canada? You could argue that the FDA just wants to be super prudent. After all, what do the Europeans know about making cheese safely?
Or, you could argue that the FDA doesnt want to let go of its unrealistic, and itself unsafe, approach to listeria m, because it would lose much of the leverage it has to arbitrarily shut down small artisanal cheese makers. Of course, we all know the FDA would never do something as mean-spirited, arbitrary, and threatening to the public health as mis-using scientific knowledge. No, not our warm and good-hearted professionals at the FDA. But the fact of the matter is that for many years now, the FDA has refused the recommendation of prominent scientists to change its rules on L monocytogenes for ready-to-eat foods like dairy products.
Indeed, the FDA freely admits in its own warnings to cheese makers that L monocytogenes is inherently difficult to completely eliminate. L monocytogenes is a pathogenic bacterium that is widespread in the environment, it said in its initial 2012 warning letter to Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese. The FDA makes that statement in other warnings to cheese makers.
The business about wood boards is just an excuse, a distraction, from the issue at hand, which is the FDAs determination to harass and even shutter as many artisanal cheese makers as it can.
Bigger picture, the FDAs rigidity on L monocytogenes is emblematic of our societal problem with bacteria. The FDAs demand that artisanal cheese producers, which depend on friendly bacteria for the taste and nutritional benefits of their product, essentially create a sterile environment, isnt unlike whats happened to the rest of our society with a push for sterilization of food and the environment, all the way to the ever-present hand sanitizers. Unfortunately for small cheese producers, the only entities that can successfully produce cheese in a sterile environment are the corporate producers, whose cheese fewer and fewer people want.
That says a lot. The growing popularity is scaring the crap out of the big producers of cheese phoods… The writing is on the wall, we can only hope that the burning of the wall is minimal.
Hmm good! (NOT!)
With RAWMI type practices, Raw is safer…thermalized is next “less safe”, pasteurized is higher risk, and even higher temps are very dangerous. The world is not flat either!!! All of the CDC data and studies show this to be true. Look at the deaths from milk!! They are all heat treated!! None from raw.
I say that the FDA “as a culture” is restrained from modern thought and highly restricted from use of science. The do not think….they follow orders. Very old orders. ( or perhaps orders aligned with golden parachutes and Food Inc ). The FDA is a branch of our military. They wear uniforms. They are a top down highly regimented corps. The mission and systems used to address their mission has not changed in 80 years. The sterilized is better mantra is completely out of synch with science and now dangerously unaligned with NIH studies and known data discovered under the human genome research and the human biome research projects. The FDA is a threat to food safety!!
When an agency of our government disregards official tax funded research and its findings….it is time to take away the uniforms, strip the hierarchy of its command, realign the mission, open up the tool box to new methods and see the light!!! It is a matter of public health and national food security.
I am particularly upset about this FDA structure because the FDA continues to ignore my CFR 1240.61 Citizens Petition that languishes in a file cabinet in WA DC. In that 600 page document is contained the hard core evidence that raw milk is not inherently dangerous and in fact is very low risk when produced under certain standards, testing, and simple protocols. Thousands of tests….years of data all sit being ignored.
These are the actions of an agency that takes orders from the top down and has lost its ability to think and evolve. It is too bad that we do not have a president that was exposed to nutrition, biology or science. The greatest change this county could make for itself would be in the GMO, nutrition, biodiversity of diet areas. Our immunity has failed, our health finance systems serve no one….
It is time to elect a president that is a thinker with knowledge of science and all of the recent investments we have made at the NIH. Autism, asthma, crohns, and immunity could be powerfully impacted. Think about all of the school shootings. They are all young men or teenage boys. Think gut brain dysfunction….think gut health equals mental health. This is not fringe thought…this is the core foundational basis for the welfare of our nation.
Mark, I think a big part of the problem is that the President and other high-level politicians are intimidated by the FDA’s (and CDC’s) supposed scientific knowledge. The pols figure that the science is so complicated that only the professionals at these agencies understand it….so the pols must take the agency recommendations. Of course, the agency recommendations are to do things the way they’ve always been done, but do more of it.
This same intimidation issue applies to much of the mainstream media. Reporters and editors are taught that the FDA and CDC are the final arbiters in matters of food regulation. The regulators have learned to continually raise the fear factor with the media, since fear helps attract readers.
Of course, there is the problem of Big Pharma and Big Ag paying the politicians to look the other way, and the politicians then signaling to the regulators to cooperate with Big Pharma and Big Ag. These corporate entities want to see smaller competitors tied up as much as possible in unwieldy and unrealistic regulations that the corporations can hire lawyers to help them handle.
Getting change within such a dynamic is extremely challenging, especially since the agencies have no incentive to change….quite the opposite. It’s especially difficult when the “science” used to oppress isn’t always easy to explain, as with something like policy affecting listeria monocytogenes. I mean, who has time to try to understand the implications of zero tolerance on L monocytogenes? I mean, give me something I can sink my teeth into, like cops in riot gear raiding a food club.
The best approach, long term, is to keep shining the light of new knowledge and information, over and over and over, as you and others have been doing. More and more people are learning what they need to know.
There seems to be a listeria food-related issue every week……
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But…check this out
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/06/draft-new-book-advises-consumers-on-safely-buying-preparing-cooking-and-storing-food/#.U57uG7Gt9V8
“- Whats the deal with dairy? Avoid raw, unpasteurized milk at all costs. Happily, its unlikely youll find it at the supermarket, and it is illegal to ship raw milk across state lines in order to sell it. Avoid soft or unpasteurized cheeses if you are pregnant or immune-compromised.
– How to avoid antibiotic-resistant superbugs in meat and poultry? More than three-quarters of the most important antibiotics are used not in human medicine but in animal production, including to speed growth and to compensate for crowded living conditions. That promotes the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that make some foodborne illnesses harder to treat. Look for labels that state, No antibiotics administered: USDA process verified, or, USDA organic. For all meat and poultry, use a plastic bag to handle and wrap packages at the store.”
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So on one hand we are to avoid unpasteurized milk “at all costs”….
YET, in the very next paragraph, they admit there are antibiotic-resistant superbugs in meat and poultry and why do they not give the same advice to avoid this meat and poultry at all costs???????
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Life can only come from Life.
–bill
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/06/agriculture-appropriations-bill-debated-on-house-floor/#.U5r1FrEVQ0o
Certainly farm conservation and regulation is very important, and thats the function of the Farm Service Agency; however, food safety and food inspection is paramount because of all the problems that the country is facing today on this count, Grayson said. Every single instance of death and hospitalization [from foodborne illness] could be avoided if we had a fully funded food inspection system.
[Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)]
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Did you catch that………..
Every single instance of death and hospitalization [from foodborne illness] could be avoided if we had a
fully funded food inspection system.
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If this isn’t the biggest lie ever…true science will tell you this is impossible in the current world we live in.
These folks don’t care about us and real food….to them it is all about money and control….
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Folks, we have two options…either man’s way or God’s Way…
It is truly time to turn back to God and to eat and live according to His commands.
–bill
With all due respect, I do not believe the President and other high level politicians are intimidated…
They just do not care about this issue and they do not care about us. There is no political benefit
for them to get involved….they love having non-elected departmental employees do their dirty work…
(think DATCP here)
Even our politicians at the state level do not care about us…nor do they care about the food we raise…
(I am documenting my case study on this)
All they care about is keeping the existing system running….and this system benefits those in power.
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So, changing the system would mean a change to those in power….it ain’t gonna happen….
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I agree, education of others is the best (only?) tool we have…This is the one thing they cannot control (yet)
and it is making a difference….one person at a time….
–bill
Lensmire,
It’s not always easy to determine what motivates or de-motivates politicians. Let’s assume you are correct, that they just don’t care. I think an argument can be made that what makes them care is lots of people making a fuss about something. I doubt many politicians cared much about gay marriage, but enough people kept at it for long enough, and made life uncomfortable enough for the politicians (and judges), that it has been happening. I think something like that is going to be required to get attention to the autism epidemic. On the cheese thing, it seems as if the cheese-making community has been pretty passive–the American Cheese Society tries so hard to cooperate with the FDA, even as the agency keeps crapping all over them. Maybe when this group decides to make things uncomfortable for the politicians, and regulators, it will begin to get some respect. Or maybe it will be something as simple as the politicians having trouble finding their favorite cheeses that prompts change.
…
How is it possible that back in 1920 we knew it required a constitutional amendment to ban alcoholic beverages but now we think our government can ban food at will?
How is it possible that back in 1920 we knew it required a constitutional amendment to ban alcoholic beverages but now we think our government can ban food at will?
Self-serving greed and idealistic utilitarianism coupled with relativist thinking have undermined the precepts of the constitution.
William B Provine., Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University, sums it up well in his 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address.
“Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.”
Ken