Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally

[Dennis S]

I don't know where I stand on this. Maybe someone has a persuasive argument.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011...k-locally/

[hal]

Once again the washington times comes through with the BIG story that simply doesn't exist anywhere else on the net.

Do they make it up? Or are they the only ones that are in on this year long sting operation.

Wonder if they ever found that fleet of ships full of Saddam's WMDs that was see floating around the indian ocean....

"The FDA’s actions stand in contrast to other areas where the Obama administration has said it will take a hands-off approach to violations of the law, including the use of medical marijuana in states that have approved it, and illegal-immigrant students and youths, whom the administration said recently will not be targets of their enforcement efforts."

yeah, this is great reporting here...

I vote: fantasy - it never happened...

[Dennis S]

Sorry. I didn't even notice it was the Moonie Times.

[freeradical]

Why do you all doubt this? A quick Google search reveals that the FDA sent them a warning letter about this a year ago.


http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActi...209276.htm

[hal]

cause I looked everywhere and didn't see this news except on WT , drudge and a zillion blogs...

[Grace62]

It's real. Here's the warning FDA's letter to the farm from a year ago.

http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActi...209276.htm

The weird thing is the way this has been politicized.

Comparing raw milk to medical marijuana is kind of interesting. The former has killed a number of people, usually children.
I don't think medical marijuana has killed anyone yet, nor is it likely to.

Anyway, this whole raw v. pasteurized dairy product war has been raging for some time between fans of "all natural" and regulators.
If the raw stuff had warning labels if might be OK, like "don't drink this if you are pregnant, a child, an elderly person, a person with serious illness, or someone who'd rather not get salmonella, e. coli, listeria, or various other bacterial poisonings."

That would probably cover it.

[cbelt3]

Ignoring the 'obama' about all this, this sort of thing has been going on in Ohio for years. The local Ag agents keep trying to get a reasonable interpretation of the law for the local Amish (we have a large Amish population).

I can still remember the efforts my mother made to get 'raw' milk for us when we were kids. She had grown up on a dairy farm.

[haikuman]

I have drank Raw Milk for at least half of my life... I know it is in vogue to say """ I do not do dairy""""

Thats never been an issue in my life........ Fsck the FDA Perhaps they should focus on some real issues
like false claims about food and drugs... ooooh thats right they get more payola from those guys.

Can you imagine some cigarette smoking GSA lifer telling us to stop drinking raw milk... sad to say I can .

Rudie

[rjmacs]

haikuman wrote:
I have drank Raw Milk for at least half of my life... I know it is in vogue to say """ I do not do dairy""""
...
Thats never been an issue in my life........ Fsck the FDA

It's great to hear that you haven't had any issues with raw milk, Rudie. However, your case in isolation is not as relevant to the development of public policy as the epidemiological data on the risks of raw milk.

The truth about raw milk is that it is less safe than pasteurized milk, which admittedly has nothing to do with its better taste. Some people would like the freedom to purchase less safe products, and policy-makers have to weigh the risks when deciding how to regulate these items. Tobacco is an historical anomaly (and notably, was not regulated by the FDA until 2009), and the worst possible comparative when looking at product regulation.

Do you think that nobody has been sickened or died from raw milk-borne illness? There are many documented cases, so i'm not certain whether you're challenging the public health system, or epidemiologists, or something else?

[Acer]

Raw milk -- raw eggs -- raw meat

There's a reason we pasteurize it. It can kill you. Consider E. coli alone: even in the cleanest, most modern milking operation, there's a lot of poop flying around.

That being said, "Milk" in the gallon in the store is a pale shadow of what it was coming out of the cow. Much of the fat and other elements have been stripped out to make other dairy products--so much so that the "fat " is added back in, along with vitamin supplements, to reach the 2% or 3.5% or whatever. "Whole Milk" is not really truth in advertising.

Why not just pasteurize raw milk for safety, then leave it otherwise intact?