Behind the Sloppy Video Is a Larger Struggle—More from the WAPF on Marler’s Methods

You’ve probably noticed by now that things look a little different here. The blog hosting company upgraded its software, and in the process, forced its blogs to adopt a new look. I wasn’t unhappy with the old look, but if I wanted access to additional new features, I had to change over to a design that is part of the upgrade. More technical changes to come, hopefully of the beneficial kind.

Lots of people seem to be upset with me with my take of the Chris Martin YouTube tape. As if I’m somehow making light of that family’s suffering.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I have long expressed sympathy with the Martin family. No parent can look at the video of Chris Martin and not be upset about what the family went through.

That being said, I am at odds with the use to which the video is now being put. The Martins understandably want to reduce the chances that other parents will have to go through what their son went through. The problem comes with the method they have chosen to accomplish that task.

They really had two obvious choices, if they wanted to use their misfortune to affect change. First, they could have tried to promote more understanding of what makes a few people get very sick in outbreaks from pathogens. If raw milk was at fault (not a given), why did six kids get sick, and 30,000 other people not suffer any illnesses? We can ask the same question with regard to illnesses from ground beef, spinach, lettuce, peppers, etc.

I actually had a good discussion with Bill Marler about this topic. He said there is some thinking in the medical community that certain kids have specialized receptors on their kidneys that make them especially susceptible to pathogens. But we don’t really know for sure. Why not promote more research in this area, where there’s such a dearth of data?

The second choice the Martins had was to seek retribution against Organic Pastures and push for laws and legislation that restrict access to raw milk. That is the path they chose. As part of that path, they decided to turn a sad and upsetting video of their son on life support into a piece of propaganda supporting a political agenda and a political machine. (As just one other example of that machine, every time there is any kind of suspected illness from raw milk, I immediately receive an email from Bill Marler, and I’m sure other media people receive the same email, as if to say, “See, what’d I tell ya!”). The Martins made that choice, I didn’t.

Once you make that choice, though, you enter a different realm. Your story of tragedy or accomplishment is now held up as evidence for a particular ideology. Those of you who can remember back to the Cold War will recall that there were high-profile citizens who sometimes left the Soviet Union for the U.S., or vice versa. Once they made that switch, they were held up by their new country as prime evidence that its ideology was superior.

The struggle over raw milk and the larger struggle it symbolizes over nutritional freedom may not be the Cold War, but it is evolving into a bitter and intense ideological struggle. I understand that video camera dates can get turned off or batteries go dead.

The problem comes when you are using powerful symbols like video of sick children, not to try to rectify the problem of foodborne illness, but rather to try to sabotage a vital and thriving farm business, and restrict the access of millions of people to a food of their choice. I think I am entitled in that situation to demand that the other side have its ducks in a row.

The California Department of Health Services did a sloppy report on the illnesses. It wasn’t clear exactly how many children became ill from E.coli 0157:H7 and whether a boy or girl got milk from a friend, and whether they all consumed raw milk, among various other problems. The Marler/Martin video of Chris is sloppily edited, suggesting that things happened on days when they likely didn’t happen.

Normally, these kinds of things would be minor. But when you’re trying to destroy people and take away people’s rights, I don’t think you are entitled to that kind of leeway.

Part of the problem is that our government and public health authorities have been able to get away with half-truths and propaganda and sloppy reports for a long time in this struggle. Judges in California, New York, and Pennsylvania have expressed their distaste for examining serious and precise evidence on the other side, preferring instead to simply accept the party line expressed by the regulators. So it’s no surprise that the regulators and their supporters like Marler are sloppy—no one makes any demands on them to do otherwise. And the authorities love images like Chris Martin, since it makes their jobs much easier.

Part of what is going on here is that the real victims in this war—owners of small dairies and people who want access to nutritionally dense foods of their choice--have begun turning things around. Instead of sitting back and accepting all the lies and half-truths and sloppy documentation, they are fighting back with the other side of the story.

A prime example is the Weston A. Price Foundation. It has just added to its web site two documents refuting Bill Marler’s examination of the scientific literature on raw milk. (Go to www.realmilk.org, and scroll down; there's no direct link to the documents.) These analyses do a thorough job of explaining how research on food-borne illness is accomplished, and why raw milk gets the blame more often than it should. They are clearly written and make for educational reading. These refutations follow up on the WAPF's excellent response to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s slide show blasting raw milk.

To those who feel there are much bigger food and farm problems than the seemingly endless debate and discussion about the Martin illness, your points are very well taken. All I can say is that sometimes large political struggles are encapsulated by particularly emotional incidents and legal cases—witness the Dreyfus Affair in France and the Scopes Monkey trial in the U.S. It’s not a pleasant business. But the outcomes of these situations can have wide ripple effects.

Throw YouTube into the Mix, and the Case Involving OP and Sick Kids Gets Weirder and Weirder

Last week, germ lawyer Bill Marler took two actions that were intriguing for their timing. As I mentioned in my previous post, he issued a press release calling on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto SB 201, the legislation that will do away with the coliform standard that is a threat to the ongoing production of raw milk in California.

Second, he posted a video of Chris Martin in the hospital on life support during September 2006, after allegedly becoming ill from consuming raw milk from Organic Pastures Dairy Co.

When I read the news release last Friday, I dismissed it as an opportunistic marketing effort by Marler. Now that I’ve viewed the YouTube video he posted, and re-read the press release, I think I was wrong.

This two-pronged attack on SB 201 is a vivid example of how ever-more politicized the raw milk issue has become. Except to go along with all the other weirdnesses of this case—the timing that overlaps a national outbreak of E.coli 0157:H7 illnesses from raw spinach, the inaccuracies in the writeup by the California Department of Health Services, the lack of a smoking gun—there is now another. I’ll call it the video synch problem.

Before I get into the specifics, I should preface this story with my reluctance to even discuss it, since it is as pure a piece of propaganda as you are ever likely to see. It takes a single tragic case, provides inflammatory and inaccurate narration (suggesting, for instance, that all six sick kids were on life suppport), and presents it not only as fact, but as if it’s indicative of a major health problem. I was sent a version of the video, without the narration, about nine months ago, by the Martin family, and asked to keep it private. I did done that. Now, though, as the raw milk situation becomes ever more political, the Martin family has apparently decided to hell with their privacy, they’re going to work with Marler to do everything they can to bring down SB 201 and Organic Pastures.

There’s at least one major credibility problem with the video. If you watch the video carefully, you’ll notice that at the end, Chris seems to get sicker and sicker as he’s attached to a ventilator. In fact, you can hear him breathing laboriously.

Also near the end, you’ll see two dates, seemingly from the video camera, in the lower right corner—Sept. 23, 2006, and then Sept. 24, 2006. There’s only one problem with those dates: Chris Martin wasn’t on life support those days.

The reason those dates stood out to me was because Mark McAfee has told me on several occasions that he visited Chris and another patient, Lauren Herzog, at Loma Linda Medical Center on Sept. 23. Here’s how Mark recalled the situation when I spoke with him last April: "I arrived at the hospital expecting these kids to be there with the priest by the bed. Instead, I'm told, 'I don't think the kids want to talk to you because they're on their cell phones."

I decided I should call Bill Marler, the lawyer for the Martins and Herzogs, and try to find out what was going on here. He told me it was the Martins' idea to post the tape on YouTube. "Absolutely out of the blue, the Martins contacted us, saying, 'Perhaps we should put this up so the governor knows.' "

Marler said he has a technical assistant who edited ithe tape for length and added the narration--it all took about an hour. So it was all just coincidental, "fortuitous," as Marler puts it, that the video came in just as Marler was issuing his press release.

And what about the discrepancy on the dates? He went back to check in his office, and then called me back about an hour later: "The dates on the video are not consistent" with actual events, he said. "I don't have an explanation. It looks like it is off. There were two periods of time when Chris was on the ventilator. If Mark was there on September 23 or 24, it's possible he (Chris) was not on the ventilator."

He added, "I have nothing to hide. I have nothing to spin. It is what it is. I believe the explanation is there is something wrong with the date on the camera."

I'm not sure if this might affect the court case. But clearly there is a major credibility problem, or rather, another credibility problem among a seemingly endless number. If something as fundamental as the dating is wrong—so obvious that a non-lawyer like me picked it up—then you wonder what else is wrong in this sad and sorry case. After all, we all know how easily digital photos and videos can be adjusted and edited to make points particular parties want to make.

I think the problem here for Marler and the Martins may be that the political tide is showing some signs of shifting with the likely implementation of SB 201. If it is adopted with essentially no opposition, as seems possible, it takes much of the fire out of the Marler/Martin arguments about the dangers of coliforms, and the need to keep Organic Pastures and Claravale Dairy continually on the edge of collapse. Then it might serve as a reasonable model for other states. And an indication of a shifting of mindsets.

Get Ready for Pasteurization of Veggies; Probing Big Dairy’s Raw Milk Connection; Opposition to SB 201

Isn’t this the way milk pasteurization started? You have a number of disease outbreaks. You try pasteurization out in a few places, in a few markets. You reassure the public that pasteurization doesn’t change the nutritional value of milk. Processors love it because it extends shelf life. And presto. After a few decades, it’s the only legal product and the old way is illegal.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has just approved “ionizing radiation” of spinach and lettuce, in response to outbreaks of illness from E.coli 0157:H7, some of which have been linked to spinach and lettuce. We’re told it doesn’t affect the veggies’ nutritional value. The technique is expected to be applied initially in just a few markets. But that may well change, since the FDA says the irradiation extends produce shelf life. It makes sense that dead veggies last longer than living veggies, just like dead milk lasts longer than living milk.

Irradiation is currently allowed for meat and some fish. Now it extends to veggies. The FDA seems likely to extend approval to other foods. It all follows up on required pasteurization of ciders, juices, almonds. Seems we really are edging closer to the time when all our food is sanitized, and to get the real thing, we’ll have to grow it ourselves or go directly to farms.

***

As Steve Bemis points out in a link following my previous post, there is an excellent retrospective on the politics of raw milk by John Schwenkler in Doublethink Online. I had spoken with John during his research, and it looks as if he went and did his homework—the article is well worth reading.

The most intriguing parts of the article have to do with his reporting efforts to tie Big Dairy to the sabotage campaigns against raw milk’s legitimacy. I’ve long been dubious of this tie—not doubting that Big Dairy would prefer a world without raw milk, but suspecting that it isn’t a big enough threat for Big Dairy to spend a lot of time and money on. And that looks to be kind of what Schwenkler found--that there is opposition, but it’s not a high-priority matter for Big Dairy.

One dairy official worries that all the attention paid to illnesses from raw milk might damage the overall milk “brand.”

I think Schewnkler is probably more on target when he examines the raw milk situation in the context of factory farming/agribusiness and the consumer movement. Here, though, he neglects to point out that the 1987 FDA ban on interstate sales of raw milk occurred over the objections of the FDA, at the behest of the dean of the consumer movement, Ralph Nader.

***

Finally, germ lawyer Bill Marler seems to have discovered a potential marketing opportunity in the pending California raw milk legislation, SB 201, which is designed to undo the crazy coliform regulation that threatens to put the state's two raw milk dairies out of business. There hasn’t been anything in the way of real opposition, so Marler leaps into the fray with a press release on BusinessWire, claiming, “the country's top food safety advocates are calling on California legislators to vote against it.”

I read through the release, looking for the names of all the top food safety people who have aligned themselves with the germ hater. But, alas, only one person is mentioned in the release--the person who paid (the appoximately $500) for putting it out: Bill Marler.

Is Another Raid Planned on Mark Nolt? The PDA’s Undercover Guys Are Posing As Raw Milk Customers

I know this probably sounds weird, but I had a bout of guilt and paranoia after I wrote a comment in response to Amanda Rose’s description of how she feels her hen house is clean enough for her two kids (following my August 12 post about the NY Ag & Markets hearing). I suggested that, given what the California Department of Food and Agriculture is doing to the private petting zoo/ag project in Napa, she might want to keep an eye out for CDFA agents. Then I found myself wondering if I was actually putting Amanda at risk (though I also have a good sense that Amanda knows how to protect herself).

I haven’t had such intense feelings since late October 2006, when I was nervous about reporting on Richard Hebron’s alternative delivery arrangements for the Family Farms Cooperative in Ann Arbor, in the wake of the Michigan Department of Agriculture’s huge sting and confiscation of Richard’s raw milk products a few weeks earlier. Then I thought to myself, maybe I’ve been writing this blog for too long.

Any concerns that I might be getting carried away went by the board after I spoke with Mark Nolt earlier today in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has made Mark its poster boy for the down side of operating without a raw milk permit—even though dozens of Pennsylvania dairy farmers are known to do so—by twice raiding his farm and confiscating expensive dairy equipment.

Such raids are usually preceded by visits from ag department goons, and it turns out Mark has had two such visits in just the last few weeks. Three weeks ago a man Mark didn’t recognize came in looking for milk. “I asked him, ‘Did Bill send you?” Bill, of course, is Bill Chirdon, director of the PDA's Bureau of Food Safety and Laboratory Services. The man turned beet red and left.

That screwup must have stirred lots of high-level late-night strategizing at PDA, because last week, a PDA agent tried again. Actually, it was a plainclothes Pennsylvania State Police agent, Kirk Perkins. But this time, instead of confronting Mark, the cop waited till Mark wasn’t minding the farm’s dairy store, and entered while one of Mark’s sons was waiting on customers.

Perkins told Mark’s son that Jonas Stoltzfus, a nearby dairy farmer and friend of Mark, had recommended Mark as a source of raw milk. Believing the agent, Mark’s son sold Perkins two gallons of raw milk. Not surprisingly, Jonas is hopping mad about having his name used to deceive.

PDA actually described the Perkins milk buy as part of a motion it filed last week in Pennsylvania state court, seeking a permanent injunction against Mark to bar him from selling raw dairy products. It was under a temporary injunction in force through June, along with citations it issued against Mark, that PDA raided Mark’s dairy last summer, and again this past spring. Except this time, says Mark, the word around is that the PDA plans to arrest and jail him.

Now that the word is out that a raid and arrest are likely, Chirdon and the gang that couldn’t shoot straight will no doubt be forced into even more heavy-duty strategizing. How are they going to get around all the friends of Mark who will now be posted to keep an eye out for the PDA caravan?

You can be sure the PDA will be burning the midnight oil on this one. But here’s one idea for Chirdon: dress your guys up as storm troopers, with extra heavy boots, and take some videos you can use to impress new recruits about PDA’s professionalism. Oh yes, and don’t forget to return the expensive cheese-making equipment and Joel Salatin book ("Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal") your guys stole from Mark last time around.

For the Sake of the Children? CDFA Pushes a Private Three-Goat Ag Project to Get a Dairy License

If the New York Ag & Markets decision about herdshares described in my previous post has you worried about the growing intrusiveness of regulators into our private lives, then you may want to read about Robin Countryman-Velk and her Kiddin’ Korral Animal and Activities project in the Napa, California, area.

Kiddin’ Korral is part of a 1,400-acre dude ranch that is owned and operated by some 1,400 owners (the acreage is not divided). The owners have an association with a board of directors that oversees the operations. The owners can use the place any time they want—it has 100 cabins, 200 campsites, a couple of large pools and, for the last two years, the Kiddin’ Korral agriculture project, which is a combination petting zoo/demo ag project. The facility even has its own pasteurizer—the kid goats are supposed to drink pasteurized milk, says Robin--so the milk the goats produce is pasteurized before animals or people consume it. (The photo above shows some of the milk fed to the goats.)

The program seems to have become a wonderful source of inspiration for about 70 children, and up to 300 adults—or, it was until Tuesday, when a group of regulators headed by an agent of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, showed up.

I’ll let Robin explain further:

“I’m a teacher and active community volunteer. Nothing made more sense to me than to open a Children’s Ag Program on the ranch. We started with one purebred LaMancha Dairy Goat kid and soon added a Saanen to the mix. The project began as my daughter’s FFA Dairy breeding project, but she turned it over to me because of all the hoops the board of directors required we jump through. We got permission to build an animal enclosure, and then breed them for kids and milk. We were allowed to expand and include a couple of rabbits, ducks and a few chickens too. We started a committee to oversee the program and I began volunteering seven days a week 365 days a year to care for the animals and teach the children.

“Our kids start by learning to care for the small animals, and then the adult goats, then to care for pregnant goats, deliver the goat kids, then to raise those kids. These children (and some adults) learn to properly feed, milk, trim hooves, groom, etc. It is a very extensive hands-on learning experience for them, but they love to learn. (See photo below.)

“Learn they did, they raised two kidding season’s kids and this past June took the two adult does and this year’s five goat kids to the American Goat Society National Dairy Goat Show. Now remember, these city kids had never shown an animal before and walked into a national show! With the seven goats that went to nationals, we came home with seven national titles! What pride we all shared in this amazing accomplishment. All of the staff and participants were so smitten with our children and their enthusiasm. I could not have been prouder of their accomplishments if I’d been their own mother.

“These animals are registered to the committee, therefore all owners and associates of the association have legal rights and ownership of these animals. This is proven by the fact these children could show them and legally sign for their national titles won at show.”

This matter of ownership becomes very important, because it seems the CDFA agent (who was accompanied by a local public health agent and building code inspector) told Robin she’d need a dairy permit to make milk available. Buying all the equipment necessary to qualify for a dairy permit, would be many thousands of dollars over and above the $50,000 Robin says she has already put into the project. She says that when she protested that no milk was sold, that the people who consumed the milk owned the goats, she was told that that didn’t matter.

I contacted the CDFA, and a public information official declined to provide the agency's version of the situation or what it wants to accomplish. “All we can tell you at the moment is that we are reviewing the situation there -along with Napa County Code Enforcement and the Napa County Public Health Department.”

According to Robin, this all came about because one of the ranch’s directors who has opposed the project from the beginning decided to try to sabotage it by contacting the local health department. According to the CDFA official, “We were initially contacted by the health department.”

Robin has been in touch with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, and says one of its lawyers has told her there is no legal basis for California officials to try to prevent goat owners from consuming their animals’ milk.

As Robin puts it, “I’m now confused as to how it is illegal for the ‘owners’ of these animals to not be allowed to consume the milk or cheese from these same animals…Where will the regulation stop? Will it be illegal to own your own cow, chicken, or goat in the next decade? Shall we all be dammed to consume only chemically altered or radiated foods in the next generation? How can you expect to have sustainable agriculture if the small farms, ranches and dairies are asked to comply with regulations that make it impossible to maintain a viable income or lifestyle?”

Good questions, I’d say.