Personal Liberties at Stake in Raw Milk Issue

Sunday, October 12, 2008 2:33 PM

By: Kimberly Hartke Article Font Size

Our constitutional right to liberty is systematically being attacked by
government agencies
flanked by anti-competitive forces in the food industry.

Nowhere is this more obvious than on the raw milk issue. California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger recently vetoed SB201, a bill to preserve consumers' rights to
access farm
fresh milk while guaranteeing its safety.

The governor, who likely consumed raw dairy in his rise to stardom as a body
builder,
thwarted the freedoms of the over 40,000 raw milk devotees in his state. He
ignored the
will of the people in favor of the milk processors and the government regulators
bent on
crushing the raw dairy producers in their state — two of which are the most
successful in
the nation.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture, whose officials repeatedly
refused to
appear at hearings on the legislation, pushed The Terminator's pen on a bill
that received
populist support and nearly unanimous approval by both houses of the
legislature.

Similar backroom politics killed the Farm Fresh Milk Act in Maryland last year,
which would
have reinvigorated struggling small dairy farms by recognizing their right to
sell milk
direct to consumers at the farm gate. Hundreds of Maryland families participated
in
lobbying efforts in support of the bill, and yet it was killed in committee (by
a very close
vote) because of the bureaucrats' dire warnings of an imminent threat to public
health.

In Pennsylvania, an aggressive anti-raw milk stance has created a hostile
atmosphere for
over 100 family farms. Pennsylvania raw milk farms practice humane animal
husbandry
and consequently offer a superior product to thousands of consumers, many of
whom
consume raw milk for its healing qualities.

Bill Chirdon, the director of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's (PDA)
Bureau of
Food Safety and Laboratory Services, is spearheading a pathogen witch hunt that
appears
to be aimed at chilling consumer demand for raw dairy.

Through stepped up inspection schedules and a flurry of negative press releases
warning
of pathogens in raw milk in 2008, Chirdon has managed to damage farmer's
livelihoods,
thus raising the ire of consumers and farmers alike. Taking a guilty until
proven innocent
attitude toward one dairy farmer in a recent case, he even issued a press
release pinning
blame for several illnesses on the dairy, prior to the return of official test
results.

When the test results came back negative, he proceeded to withhold the release
of the
results to the media. At the same time, he disseminated another press release,
which
claimed a pathogen was found in an opened milk container from a sick household.

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund board member, Ted Beals, M.D., a pathologist
and former laboratory chief says that the testing of an opened container,
especially from a
sick household, is an unacceptable test. An opened container may be
cross-contaminated,
and this is even more likely to happen in a home where there is illness.
Releasing these
unorthodox test results to the media totally eclipsed the PDA's subsequent
announcement
that the official test results for pathogens came back negative. The dairy had
been
exonerated, yet the public's perception remained that it was risky to buy raw
milk.

Consumer choice and the survival of family farms, particularly those who
practice
traditional and sustainable farming methods, are under siege by government
policies
informed by institutional bias against unprocessed milk.

Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation
www.westonaprice.org and
the nation's leading champion of raw dairy for its nutritional benefits,
www.realmilk.com
has a dire warning of her own. "The right to produce and consume raw dairy is
vital to the
health of the family farm and our citizens. The future of sustainable
agriculture and the
health of our nation depend on a new paradigm that respects the essential
liberties of
farmers and consumers."

Bureaucrats and Big Business with wanton disregard for our freedoms, may stir up
such
resistance that they end up stimulating demand for raw dairy, rather than
curbing sales.
Their campaign of oppression may be just what we need to bring that new paradigm
about.

Kimberly Hartke is a raw dairy consumer in Virginia. Virginia outlawed retail
and farm
sales of raw milk, so her family had to buy a share of a cow in order to have
access to farm
fresh milk. She is now the publicist for the Weston A. Price Foundation, which
suggests
raw dairy from pasture-raised cows can heal many health problems. Visit her
blog:
www.hartkeonline.blogspot.com.