Government and Corporations Poison Milk

Raw
milk and the government/corporate effort to crush it
by Linn Cohen-Cole

A Mennonite Farmer is Hauled Away for Selling Raw Milk. No One
Arrested for Cancer-Related Milk.

On
Friday - April 25, 2008, in Cumberland
County, Pennsylvania,
Mark Nolt, a Wenger Mennonite (Horse and Buggy Mennonite) dairyman, threatened
for months with arrest for selling raw milk without a permit was removed from
his property by state troopers.  

Jonas Stoltzfus, a friend, fellow farmer, and
Church of the Brethen, was asked by Mr. Nolt to speak for him, and said of the
raid yesterday - "Six state troopers and Bill Chirdon of the Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture trespassed onto his property, and stole $20-25,000 of
his product and equipment."  

Mr. Stoltzfus explained that Mr. Nolt did not
have a permit because "he chose to turn his permit back in because it did
not cover all the products he was selling.  He felt he was being dishonest
selling stuff that was not covered by the permit.  He is a man of great
integrity."  

"According to reports from neighbors and
the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, several officials of the Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture participated in the raid, and while Mark was being
transported by police car to the courthouse, PDA officials confiscated $20,000
to $25,000 worth of dairy products and production equipment. Neighbors reported
the farm had been closed and that a large group of officials had gathered, with
videos prohibited."  

"Mr.
Nolt was told that people had gotten sick from eating his food, but no one ever
came forward and no proof was ever offered."

"This
is a Gestapo raid," Jonas Stotlzfus said, "complete with state
troopers, raiding a hard-working farmer selling milk to friends and customers.
 And his customers ARE his friends."  Mr. Nolt

Mr.
Stoltzfus said of Mr. Nolt, "he is not going to stop [selling raw milk]
til he is ready to stop.  He is the equivalent of that little black lady
in Alabama who wouldn't go to the back of the bus.  He is doing the same
thing, he won't go to the back of bus."  Mr. Stoltzfus said "she
got arrested for that and so did Mr. Nolt.  He ignored [the threat] and
kept on selling.  He is a courageous man."  Mr. Stoltzfuz said
"Mark believes it is his right to sell, according to the constitution,
just like it was Rosa Park's right to sit wherever she wanted on the bus.
 Same deal.  There is nothing in the constitution to prevent Mr. Nolt
from buying and selling, especially to his friends," Mr. Stoltzfus said.
 

Stoltzfus
commented that Mr Chirdon of the Food Safety Division of the Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture used to work for Dean Foods and Hershey Foods, big
corporate operations, and that Chirdon was "jealous that farmers make a
better product" and called the raid by Mr. Sheridan "a
vendetta."

This case
is similar to that involving Meadowsweet Dairy LLC in New York, in that both
Pennsylvania and New York allow raw milk sales, but adamantly oppose the sale
of other raw dairy products. 

Mr.
Nolt was doing things the way his community has for generations, selling milk
straight from his cows to those he knows.  

Mr.
Nolt contends that the regulations have not been approved by the legislature
and shouldn't apply to him because he is selling directly to consumers, via
private contracts that are outside the purview of the state, making a privilege
out of a right he believes he has - the right to private contracts.” 

The
permitting issue, ostensibly for food safety, is contradicted by a look both at
raw milk itself and at its competition, corporate milk - pasteurized and often
from cows injected with rBGH.  

Four
issues stand out:

1. INDEPENDENCE of farmer and customers

Raw milk:  Farmer
sell raw milk from their own cows, to neighbors and friends at a price farmers
set themselves, paid by people who value their product, without a middleman.
 

A
growing number of people prefer raw milk (unpasteurized milk), considering it
not only safe but healthier than pasteurized milk because it is still rich in
pro-biotics not killed off by pasteurization. https://www.realmilk.com/raw.html  Farming communities have consumed raw milk for generations.  The
exchange between farmers and neighbors play a central part in the web of
relations sustaining those communities.  Yet raw milk is banned in many
states.

Corporate
milk:  Dairy farmers sell their milk to milk
"producers" who pasteurize it, may add things to it, bottle it,
distribute it, often at great distances.  Dairy farmers must accept a
price set by others, in a large competitive market.  Nothing in the
process promotes local farming communities.  

"...The system of influence and
control..is highly skewed in favor of the corporate and financial system."
- Vincente Navarro, (Professor of Health and Social Policy, John Hopkins
U.).  

2. HEALTH  

Raw milk:

"[For years, m]illions
[in California] consumed commercial raw milk, ... not a single incidence was
reported. During the same period, there were many instances of contamination in
pasteurized milk, some of which resulted in death.  [I]f we withdrew ...
every food type responsible for a case of food poisoning, there would be
virtually nothing left to eat. But only raw milk has been singled out for
general removal from the food supply.

"... the bacteria in raw
milk is the healthy bacteria of lactic-acid fermentation while the bacteria in
pasteurized milk is the bacteria of spoilage. ... Both raw and pasteurized milk
contain E. coli, normally a benign microorganism. The most likely source of the
new strains of virulent E. coli is genetically engineered soy, fed to cows in
large commercial dairies. If there is any type of milk likely to harbor these
virulent breeds, it is commercial pasteurized milk.

... Children fed raw milk
have more resistance to TB, scurvy, flu, diphtheria, pneumonia, asthma,
allergic skin problems and tooth decay. In addition, their growth and calcium
absorption was superior."  

l
 (In California, there is currently an effort to ban raw milk.)

"Four distinct groups of bacteria survive pasteurization....the
strep of pasteurized milk are the most frequent cause of rheumatic fever --the
most deadly disease of childhood." - USDA

Corporate milk:

During the Clinton administration, a new study was released "conclud[ing]
that milk from cows injected with [genetically engineered bovine growth hormone
- rBGH) increases risks of breast and colon cancers in humans.   
....

"rBGH
poses an even greater risk to human health than ever considered," warned
Samuel Epstein M.D., Professor of Environmental Medicine .... "The FDA
and Monsanto have a lot to answer for.  Given the cancer risks, and other
health concerns, why is rBGH milk still on the market?"

Since
1986, independent scientists have expressed concern about the lack of research
on ... rBGH milk. ...

Michael
Colby, Executive Director of Food and Water said,

"Monsanto
's claims that rBGH is perfectly safe have been proven dead wrong today
.... Only Monsanto is benefiting from this drug.  It's time for dairy companies
to side with consumers by adopting a policy that they will not allow rBGH,
under any circumstances, to be used by their farmers."

Epstein
said:  

"The entire nation is currently being subjected to a large-scale
adulteration of an age-old dietary staple by a poorly characterized and
unlabeled biotechnology product which is very different than natural
milk."

In 2007
- when Mark Nolt was first arrested for selling raw milk (natural milk) -
 a citizens' petition to the FDA on rBGH milk showed 30 scientific
journals indicating an up-to-7-fold increased risk of breast cancer, and an
increased risk of colon and prostate cancern.  

3.  PROMOTION

Raw milk is
sold primarily through word of mouth.  

Corporate milk is promoted through large, expensive ad campaigns.  

The
California Milk Processor Board is now targeting teens  ...
""Goodby, Silverstein and Partners created a page on MySpace to
promote White Gold and the Calcium Twins, a team of new fictitious characters
turned rock stars who spread their love of and devotion to milk through music.

...
 TV spots, print ads and PR will also support the promotion. 

"The
Milk Processor Education Program ... is funded by the nation's milk processors
... committed to increasing fluid milk consumption."

https://www.thinkaboutyourdrink.com.

4.
LABELIING

Raw
milk is just milk.  Those who buy it know
that and seek it out for that reason.

Corporate
milk is ...?   Monsanto continues pushing
bans on labeling rBGH-milk.  

Customers usually do not know they
are consuming rBGH milk.

During its approval process, "FDA scientist,
Dr Richard Burroughs concluded ...  Monsanto was manipulating the [test]
figures. In 1989 he was sacked after complaining to Congress ... To deal with
the ... controversy Monsanto assembled ...PR companies ... of which [BURSON-MARSTELLER] was one."
 

During the Clinton administration,  Monsanto employees were
appointed to run the FDA.  Monsanto's rBGH - the first genetically
engineered product ever - was approved.

...
[In]1994, people at the FDA [wrote] an anonymous letter to ... Congress,
[fearing] retribution ...

"The
basis of our concern is that Dr. Margaret Miller ... wrote the FDA's opinion on
why milk from [rbGH]-treated cows should not be labeled. However, before coming
to the FDA, Dr. Margaret Miller was working for the Monsanto company as a
researcher on [rbGH].”

In
1996, during the Clinton administration, there was a press conference on rBGH's medical
risks.  

"Given
the potential health impacts of consumption of milk and other dairy products
derived from rBGH treated cows, all such products at a minimum be
labeled so
that consumers are aware of what they are purchasing and consuming. More
prudently the FDA approval of rBGH should be withdrawn until the agency
performs adequate long term testing ..."

 "... Wisconsin,
Minnesota, California and Vermont attempted to enforce labelling of milk produced with, and
containing, this hormone.  Their efforts were thwarted by Burson-Marsteller acting on behalf of
these companies."  Burson-Marsteller has been a long-term (now campaign) advisor
to Hillary Clinton,
through its CEO, Mark Penn.  And Monsanto's effort to ban labeling of the
milk continues today.  

Banning of labeling of rBGH milk in
effect puts millions of Americans into a human
experiment with genetic engineering, exposing them to greatly increased risk of
cancers.  The Nuremberg Code makes clear
that experimental subjects must give informed consent.

 www.21stcenturyradio.com/NP-11-25-99.html

Mr. Stoltzfus added up losses for
Mark Nolt:  

"Trepass on private property,
private personal merchandise stolen, being deprived of a significant amount of
hard work he and his family put together.  He is being deprived of the
opportunity to market his product now, they are throwing it away.  It's a
shame."

Mr. Nolt did not have a permit.
 He has twice lost thousands of dollars of work or material, and faces
jail.  

Monsanto sells rBGH-milk associated
with cancers, Clinton hired Monsanto employees which approved their own genetically
engineered product, Hillary Clinton has been silent up to today about the risk rBGH
poses to women, PR firms strongly push the milk on all ages.  None face
jail or fines for altered facts, for PR campaigns encouraging even children to
drink rBGH-milk, or for banning labeling of it, which has put the entire US
population at medical risk for years.  Monsanto, the Clintons, Burson-Marsteller and Goodby,
Silverstein and Partners are all making millions.

Mr. Nolt, released after being
taken off by state troopers, refused to accept a ride from them.  He
started walking.  Friends gave him a lift home.

While liberals do not typically accept government
pronouncements on many issues, they seem to routinely accept at face value the
FDA's or USDA's ascription of causes for diseases.  I will be writing more
on this topic, because the government (on behalf of corporate interests) is
manipulating the public (especially educated urban people who trust science
almost implicitly) with "scientific" warnings about food-borne
diseases, just exactly as the government manipulates the right through fear of
terrorists.  In both cases, the government uses fear to whip up demand for
actions which are often unconstitutional and give government more control over
the population and give corporations massive hegemony over its small
competitors. 

 It should be noted that the raw milk "issue" is
not about the safety of milk at all, for any safety concern with raw milk can
be resolved in 5 minutes by slight heating, whereas as the cancer risks with
rBGH are enormous and cannot be eliminated.  In fact they are increased by
heating.  Raw milk is being targeted as a danger - despite humans around
the world depending on it for millennia - not because of any actual health
threat but because it offers dairy farmers the ability to be entirely
independent of the corporate food system.  The threat of raw milk is not
disease (in fact, it is healthier than pasteurized milk) but the challenge it
represents to corporate control over food.