Raw Milk: What's the Big Deal?

In this Bloomberg article about a farmer acquitted in a raw milk trial, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claims raw milk products were responsible for at least 93 disease outbreaks from 1998-2009, causing 1,837 illnesses, 195 hospitalizations, and two deaths.

Ummm, ok?  And where's the cost/benefit analysis?  Do you think the CDC might have one?  Well, I couldn't find one, but here is their scare page.  //Warning:  extremely graphic like President Obama's dire predictions of the certain armageddon of sequester - Ensure you have medical emergency devices handy to treat shock or possible cardiac events and access to call 911 for emergency services before clicking either link//

Looking at the new "report" they just issued, "Non-Pasteurized Dairy Products, Disease Outbreaks, and State Laws-United States, 1993-2006", it claims "We found 121 outbreaks for which the product’s pasteurization status was known; among these, 73 (60%) involved nonpasteurized products and resulted in 1,571 cases, 202 hospitalizations, and 2 deaths."  Of course the same report shows that those 60% of outbreaks attributed to non-pasteurized products caused only 36% of the total reported cases of illness, meaning that pasteurized products caused 64% of the reported cases of illness in a lower number of outbreaks. 

Further on, it claims 4/48 outbreaks from pasteurized products "probably resulted" from post-pasteurization contamination by infected food handlers. 

It goes on to attribute another 3/48 pasteurized outbreaks to "probable" failure of consumers to store the products at the appropriate temperature.  Hmmm...  WTF is that?!?  That may apply to individual cases of an illness or two in a family, but for an entire outbreak traced back to a specific food batch? 

Also notice that in the report, such speculations of post-farm production contaminations in the retail/food handling chain or consumer handling procedures are strangely absent for the non-pasteurized products.

Also interesting is that all 73 outbreaks from the non-pasteurized products (milk and cheese) were determined to be due to bacteria, yet 13/30 (44%) (which is kind of strange in itself, since there were 48 total outbreaks from pasteurized products, so apparently they have no idea what the cause was in 18 of them?!?) of the pasteurized product caused outbreaks were due to norovirus.  Is it safe for us to now assume that norovirus infections from non-pasteurized products are non-existant?  Of course not.  In layman's terms, what that indicates is that the CDC has not produced a real report, but rather a piece of propaganda with crappy/limited data. 

Just look at the following graph of their data:

 

Hmmmm....  What's with the years 93-97?  Are we to believe that milk related outbreaks were practically non-existant 20 years ago and all this disease is a new phenomenon or there is only a more recent pandemic developing?  Or perhaps they can convince us that the seemingly exploding number of cases may be attributable to global warming?  Naaaaaaaahhh...  Again, chalk it up to crappy data.

 

 

Imagine: What if?

 

For perspective, I always like to compare dissimilar things...  For if you look at just the situation like that with raw milk by itself, the effects may look like they warrant government action.  However, think about government incursions into other market sectors and you'll see they're spending a lot of money acting rashly for little, if any, effect.

 

So imagine, if you will, the government applying this same process they are using to attack raw milk producers to something like motorcycles.  I'd bet there are a lot more deaths attributable to motorcycles in a single month than in what we saw them report over 13 years of raw milk consumption.  What if they attacked that industry in favor of only allowing people to drive around in four wheel cages because they are so much more safe?   "But, but, but... wait a minute.  Motorcycles are much more cost efficient and burn less fossil fuels", you might say.  Similar to the war on raw milk producers, "Big deal, it will save on deaths, period.  So suck it up" is their answer.

 

Let's get even more drastic and say they ban automobiles too and force you to take trains or buses without regard to inconveniences or limitations on personal mobility.  Well, that's essentially what they are doing with raw milk.  There is absolutely no cost/benefit analysis at all, just half-assed "studies" and "reports" that highlight scary things and downplay or even just plain hide the not-so-scary facts and the personal benefits.  In effect, they're making a minor problem seem so much bigger and scarier than it really is.

 

Of course it will be hard for them to take on the motorcycle or automobile manufacturing giants.  But it sure isn't hard for the CDC, FDA and state health agencies to gang up and destroy small family farmers living on meager sales of raw milk products.  Just look at what they did to Joe and Denise Dixon from Morningland Dairy.

 

So what's the bottomline here?

 

Well, according to the data sets in that most recent report from the CDC, a total of 3 people died and a few thousand more got sick allegedly from consuming both raw and pasteurized milk products over a 13 year period.  Considering the hundreds of millions of people in the US who might drink milk and eat cheese every day, those numbers prove the overall risks to be quite miniscule. 

 

If you start looking for the number of court cases involving these small family farm raw milk producers, you'll see they're mostly farmers fighting big government, not product liability claims.  The CDC and health agencies are spending considerable resources attacking the smaller raw milk producers and trying to put them out of business apparently only because they have been associated with more outbreaks (and they also have less deep pockets to fight back), but those producers also service smaller pools of consumers.  So the effect of outbreaks attributable to them would be much more limited than those associated with the larger factory farm producers who do pasteurize their products.  They are therefore expending scarce resources attacking those who put less people at risk of major large-scale outbreaks which could probably be better used elsewhere for real problems, not these imaginary ones.

 

So, as always, believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.  Always question everything.  Especially question it if it comes from a government agency, because their sole reason for existance is a perceived problem (whether one exists or not).  So if there are no problems, you can be sure they're certainly working hard to create the appearance of one.

 

They came for our cigarettes.  Then they came for our water wasting toilets and gave us ones you have to flush more to get rid of number 2's.  Then they came for our incandescent light bulbs and gave us more toxic ones.  Now they're coming for our raw milk and even our guns.  When will it end?  Or more importantly, how will it end?

 

(Update:  5 Mar 13)

 

This "Scary Drink" May Resolve Your Troubling Health Issues, 1 Jan 12 - According to Dr Mercola the CDC may be misrepresenting those two deaths they linked to raw milk and they may be attributable to a specific type of cheese, Queso Fresco, that is illegal under FDA regulations. 

There Just Ain't Enough Loot to Go Around!!!

After years of egregious levels of taxation on tobacco products w/ big government spurred on by the anti-smoker cabal, a consequence of the Affordable Care Act brings a new scavenger to feast on the prey and the anti-smokers don't like it one bit.  According to the Washington Post, one of the anti-smoker orgs, the American Cancer Society, "worries that the high surcharges could make health insurance unaffordable to cigarette smokers, who are disproportionately low income".   

They have to feign that they are at least somewhat concerned about the best interests of their prey, but what they are really saying is there just ain't enough loot to go around. 

This new assault on smokers comes years after the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between seven of the tobacco companies and a number of states forcing big tobacco to disgorge some $206 billion over the course of some 25 years supposedly to pay them off for years of state medical payments they claim was for illnesses caused by smoking.  That money didn't come from the companies themselves.  No, the companies were allowed to raise prices to pull it out of their customers w/ provisions in the agreement that were designed to inhibit other companies from gaining market share which were not party to the original suit because they had no liability. 

What a nifty little deal that was.  The anti-smoker cartel, to include the newly empathetic American Cancer Society, set it up just that way so they could reap a large portion of the spoils for all their hard work churning out volumes of propaganda to justify the looting of smokers and blame it all on big tobacco as if that made it all morally right.  Of course, they started crying they were getting shorted years ago when the states started deciding to keep more of the money for themselves that they were supposed to earmark for the other thieves in their back room dealings.

Since then, both the federal government and all the states have been busy raising taxes on tobacco products here and there whenever they could to lay claim to even more loot, even though our very own Congressional Research Service published a report on the proposed MSA before the deal was struck called, "The Proposed Tobacco Settlement:  Who Pays for the Health Costs of Smoking?"  That report estimated that smokers imposed no financial costs on the rest of society at the current tax rates at the time.

The funniest thing is that the anti-smokers and government agencies have claimed they've been doing all this to smokers for their health, because of the claims that smoking shortens the average lifespan by some 7 years or so. So now they're going to be force these people they 'saved' to go up against the Obamacare "Death Panels" to decide if there's enough wealth creation left in them to make them worth saving for a few more years buy providing medical care.

So they came for the smokers and after having picked our bones clean they are still coming back to get more blood out of the stone.  They went after the drugs and imposed similarly egregious forfeiture laws to steal as much from drug users as they can.  They're going after small farmers and driving many out of business for horrendous crimes of selling raw milk and cheese products made from raw milk like they did to Morningland Dairy to steal their property from them. 

It's one huge lawless free for all feast for the predators and scavengers alike, operating under the guise of law of a corrupt government and faux legal system to perpetrate their 'legal' plunder.

If you cannot see this blatant stealing going on right in front of your face, well...  at least file it away so you can identify the process when they're done feasting on their current victims and move on to come for everything you own.

Americans Under Attack by Own Government

Morningland Dairy was raided last month and 18 tons of cheese destroyed by bureaucrats and their minions "just following orders". 

This business is not a fly-by-night operation, but a family business that operated for over 30 years with no complaints lodged against them except by government regulation makers.

This is a crime.  And so many are happy when Obamacare will come between you and your doctor because it's "free".  One has to wonder how wonderful they'll think this free service is when doctors start collecting personal information and becoming government informants and ordering you how to live your life rather than giving you recommendations.  This is what happens when the government "health" industry comes between farmers and their customers. 

We're under attack.  Wake up.

(Updated below:  9 Feb 13):

Another video shows questions asked of representatives of the county sheriff's department. 

Now this guy doesn't know about gun confiscation during Katrina.  He also doesn't know about the government's refusal to allow the business owners here to have their cheese tested before issuing a confiscate and destroy order or about the government "health nazi's" attacks on raw milk producers and other small business owners just working hard trying to make an honest living across the nation.

They aren't all just jackbooted thugs.  Many of these guys in public offices are just uninformed people following orders thinking they're doing their jobs.  The answer is education and to get the information out there like Sheriff Mack is doing with the Constitutional Sheriff's and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA).

This should go viral and hopefully honest, hard-working Americans will step up to demand that the government agencies responsible provide just compensation to what they stole from these family farmers.  Government bails out banks and corporations who get in trouble from their own incompetence and they bail out disaster victims such as those of hurricane Sandy who lived where government officials deemed it was safe for them to build, but destroy small family businesses like this example. 

Reach out, speak out, educate and overcome!

And to government officials, sheriffs, peace officers, and judges who may read this.  We are patriots who helped build this country and you work for us.  People like these farmers create wealth.   We are NOT your enemy.  Please, learn how to do your jobs and protect us from tyrannical bureaucrats.

(Update 2 - more links)

1) Interview of Joe and Denise Dixon, owners of Morningland Dairy
2) Family Farm Odered to Destroy 50,000 lbs of Cheese - 11 Oct 10
3) Morningland Dairy - The Final Solution - 18 Jan 13
4) Wisconsin Judge Rules Against Raw Milk Farmers - 23 Feb 13