| Right to Healthy Food Undercut by Nanny State 
By Kimberly Hartke
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 Swartzenegger recently vetoed
SB 201, 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, by
pushed the Terminator’s pen on a bill that received populist
support and nearly
unanimous approval by both houses of the legislature.
Similar back room
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 imbibe 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 have as its aim a chilling of 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, He 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, Chirdon 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, while disseminating 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. This release to the
media of
the unorthodox test results, however, totally eclipsed the
PDA’s subsequent
announcement that the official test results for pathogens in the
dairy’s milk
came back negative. The dairy had been exonerated, yet the public
perception
was left that it was risky to buy its products.
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 and the nation’s leading champion of raw dairy for its
nutritional benefits, 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 depends 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 the state of Virginia.
She suffers from a painful knee condition, chondromalacia patella
(runners
knee), that has been alleviated by adding raw dairy to her diet. Virginia
has banned
retail and farm sales of raw milk, so she invested in a cow lease
program in
order to have access to farm fresh milk. She is currently the publicist
for the
Weston A. Price Foundation, a non-profit, which promotes raw mile from
pasture-raised cows as a healthy alternative to processed milk. Visit
her web
site here.
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(Issue
# 41,
October 13, 2008) |
