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BREAKING! Raw Food store raided SWAT style by FDA yesterday for selling raw milk (8-3-11)

Migrated topic.
Heretic

Heretic

Rising Star
'If the people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in the sorry state such as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.' - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President

This kind of stuff really disgusts me!



I am eager for the day when we finally start fighting back.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -my homey Thomas Jefferson again


I know this forum does not like conspiracies, so I will avoid speaking of any.
Do your own research on the FDA.

I truly believe that we here at the nexus are life savers.
We are game changers.
We are power breakers.

Lets use our influence to wake people up!
 
It may just be my imagination, but it seems to me that there has been a recent increase in the number of unwarranted SWAT raids and shootings of innocents during these raids. It also seems to me that the government is providing less of any kinds of explanation after the fact.

I recently traveled to France, and was struck by the lack of a police presence there like exists in the US. Our military (including police forces) consume a tremendous amount of resources-- the city near me has 12% of its budget dedicated to police and our federal military is over 20% of the federal budget.

No conspiracy here, just poor policy decisions that feed on themselves.
 
Got this email this morning. Only seen reports from health food enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists etc. Is all this due to the information these people try to spread about good eating? Truly bizarre... what human would sit behind his/her desk and make these decisions...

Then again... there could always be another side to the story, the future will bring truth
 
I think that the link provided is a highly one sided and rousing one.

If I read things like "This was an ILLEGAL raid being conducted mob-style by government thugs who respect no law and no rights. This is an all-out war by the government against people who try to promote healthy raw and living foods." then my first thought is: "What is the real story?"

Without us knowing the real story this is just a one sided opinion and not worth much as it sounds a lot like propaganda.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is one government agency taking things way too serious without thinking about the consequnces but if you want to make a statement then make a correct one and not as full of propaganda as the government likes to do at times.


Kind regards,

The Traveler
 
That's what I would have liked to have said Traveler, if I could word properly this afternoon :); being able to have established alternative media and collective thought more suited to our own individual paradigm than mainstream should be a blessing... but both sides can be extreme
 
The Gestapo tactics sometimes used by law enforcement sickens me, and whenever I read about a “raid” that’s out of proportion to the activities/substances that initiated the legal action, I get angry about our loss of freedom.

However, there’s always more than one side to every story. Raw milk can be a source of the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes, and listeriosis can and does cause deaths. A quick search turned up many instances of recent deaths from listeriosis. Here’s just one: Denver Listeria Deaths Investigated.

Laws requiring pasteurization of milk and other foods aren’t part of some grand government conspiracy – they’re in place to protect public health and to reduce unnecessary illnesses and deaths.

Should people who understand the risks (and benefits) of consuming raw milk products be prevented from buying and consuming these products? I don’t think so. But at the same time, the general public should have some sort of assurance that the foods they buy are free of potentially lethal pathogens.
 
Well put, Gibran.

Interesting to note that in that in the US, foodborne illness rates are 16,000:100,000 and in France the rate is about 1/13th that or 1,210:100,000 (ala Wikipedia). Mortality from foodborne illness is also a bit less in France, but not significantly so. In France, unprocessed milk (and cheese) is readily available-- raw beef is also readily available.

So I would argue that US food safety policy is missguided, and the focus on small producers of raw milk is an expression of that. If the milk of this particular seller was a problem, it would have made good sense to save the milk and have it tested. By dumping the milk, their actions support the view that the police are being used to promote a corporate agenda.
 
gibran2 said:
However, there’s always more than one side to every story. Raw milk can be a source of the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes, and listeriosis can and does cause deaths.
Click to expand...

Punish all (raw milk per se) for a mistake done by one facility ? That would mean bye bye cucumbers.

Moar links:

My understanding of the problem.

"Stewart runs the Venice market Rawesome, which has been in operation for more than six years but has never had any type of business permit or license, prosecutors allege".

"While it is lawful to manufacture and sell unpasteurized dairy products in California, applicable licenses and permits are required. These include regular veterinarian inspections of the animals and following equipment and sanitation requirements."
 
Shaolin said:
gibran2 said:
However, there’s always more than one side to every story. Raw milk can be a source of the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes, and listeriosis can and does cause deaths.
Click to expand...

Punish all (raw milk per se) for a mistake done by one facility ? That would mean bye bye cucumbers.

Moar links:

My understanding of the problem.

"Stewart runs the Venice market Rawesome, which has been in operation for more than six years but has never had any type of business permit or license, prosecutors allege".

"While it is lawful to manufacture and sell unpasteurized dairy products in California, applicable licenses and permits are required. These include regular veterinarian inspections of the animals and following equipment and sanitation requirements."
Click to expand...
I also said this:
gibran2 said:
Should people who understand the risks (and benefits) of consuming raw milk products be prevented from buying and consuming these products? I don’t think so. But at the same time, the general public should have some sort of assurance that the foods they buy are free of potentially lethal pathogens.
Click to expand...
 
Well, Listeria gets around quite a lot in pasteurized products.

When you say that pasteurization laws aren't part of some grand government conspiracy, I think that really we have to say that it depends what you mean by that. Of course, the government isn't trying to deprive us of the benevolent life force in raw products that defends us from calcification of the pineal gland.

On the other hand, the need for pasteurization was born by the development of industrial agriculture. It wasn't until dairy companies that gathered milk from several smaller farms, mixing it all into large batches for distribution, grew in earnest that the listeria outbreaks which led to the laws happened. These same companies were then able to use the pasteurization laws against individual dairy farmers. The drop in prices paid to farmers per gallon of milk without a corresponding price drop for the consumer are a matter of historical fact, as are a number of government raids on smaller independent farms during the period of consolidation.

I don't believe it's conspiracy theory to speculate how much industrial agriculture firms are involved in fostering the current rash of raids. The regulatory agencies and industry in agriculture are just as intertwined as those of the FDA and pharmaceutical companies, or the Defense Department and weapons manufacturers. It's a fiefdom that's seeing profits drop as people see the unsustainability and danger of the current food system lashing out.
 
This event reminds me of a sting near my hometown a short while ago...

Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally

I'm no food/pathogen expert, but from what I understand, the risk of getting diseases/bacteria from raw milk from cows on small farms that are fed "proper" diets not based on the ridiculous mass-produced commercial feeds is incredibly small. The fact that the FDA busts small-scale farmers engaged in selling raw-milk locally to people who want it is absurd, especially when you consider the practices of large-scale dairy farms. Many of those cows are sick and in horrific shape due to the abysmal living conidtions and drugs they are supplemented with. Monsanto's rBGH was shown to create all kinds of illnesses that led, in some cases to massive bacterial counts in certain batches of pasteurized milk. Regulating food in this particular manner is no more effective or beneficial than drug prohibition, imo.

EDIT: Yea, what ragabr said 😉
 
SnozzleBerry said:
...I'm no food/pathogen expert, but from what I understand, the risk of getting diseases/bacteria from raw milk from cows on small farms that are fed "proper" diets not based on the ridiculous mass-produced commercial feeds is incredibly small. The fact that the FDA busts small-scale farmers engaged in selling raw-milk locally to people who want it is absurd, especially when you consider the practices of large-scale dairy farms. Many of those cows are sick and in horrific shape due to the abysmal living conidtions and drugs they are supplemented with. Monsanto's rBGH was shown to create all kinds of illnesses that led, in some cases to massive bacterial counts in certain batches of pasteurized milk. Regulating food in this particular manner is no more effective or beneficial than drug prohibition, imo.

EDIT: Yea, what ragabr said 😉
Click to expand...
Pasteurized milk from a large-scale diary farm has less potential for causing foodborne illness than does unpasteurized milk from a small family farm. Keep in mind that most cases in the US of listeriosis associated with milk are associated with unpasteurized milk, and considering the volume of pasteurized milk produced compared to unpasteurized, I don’t think we can say that small producers are doing anything (or can do anything) to prevent pathogenic bacteria from showing up in the milk they produce.

I’m not defending the actions of overly aggressive law enforcement officials, and I’m not defending industrial-scale farming, and I’m definitely not defending any anti- small business agenda that big corporations may have.

All I’m saying is that consuming unpasteurized dairy products carries with it some risk, regardless of where or how the dairy products were produced. An informed consumer should weigh the risks against the benefits and should be allowed to make a free and informed choice.
 
Where are you getting your information that most cases of listeriosis come from unpasteurized milk?
 
ragabr said:
Where are you getting your information that most cases of listeriosis come from unpasteurized milk?
Click to expand...
Epidemiologic Notes and Reports Update -- Listeriosis and Pasteurized Milk

(Not just milk, but also other foods that haven't been sufficiently heat-treated to kill L. monocytogenes.)

After reviewing these studies, a World Health Organization Working Group on foodborne listeriosis recently concluded that "pasteurization is a safe process which reduces the number of L. monocytogenes occurring in raw milk to levels that do not pose an appreciable risk to human health"
Click to expand...
 
No one got sick from their milk and their customers were part of a private club. This was not being marketed to the public. Raw milk is much safer when properly prepared, in fact it has to be properly prepared, no cow shit, blood, etc or else it will spoil. Boiling milk is only necessary when the milk is tainted.
 
Are you guys for real?

They raided a raw dairy store with a SWAT TEAM !

GET REAL! Two sides to the story? I must have missed out one HELL of a chunk of info here guys.

*EDIT* Hmm perhaps i lost my temper. I'm stickin with it though.
 
Gibran2, your source doesn't make the claims you attribute to it. (Edit: All it says is "case reports have shown that disease in humans can be caused by consumption of unpasteurized contaminated milk," without making any comparison of rates. Funny, since it goes on with a specific example of pasteurized milk causing it) Quite the opposite in fact, if you go and look at it's sources. Only two are readily available to me online, but both of them make very different points from what you would suggest.

Foodborne infections and intoxications said:
Today, many countries have developed policies that range from 'zero tolerance' to tolerable limits, depending on the food item. Available data would suggest that listeriosis, averaging 2-7 cases per million population is neither increasing nor decreasing in developing or developed countries.
Click to expand...
Foodborne infections and intoxications said:
L. monocytogenes has been shown to be quite persistent in manufacturing plants... It would seem that [L. monocytogenes], through its ubiquitous nature, has ample opportunity to enter the food chain at all points of the farm-to-fork continuum.
Click to expand...
Source
WHO Working Group Bulletin - Foodborne listeriorsis said:
Soft-ripened cheeses (especially with white mould and red-smeared surface) appear to be most suitable for both contamination and growth of L. monocytogenes... In theory, cheeses manufactured from contaminated raw milk are more likely to be ultimately contaminated, but only a low percentage of contaminated raw milk has been reported. Surveys in the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland and France strongly suggest that cheeses made from pasteurized milk are as frequently contaminated with L. monocytogenes as cheeses made from unpasteurized milk, the contamination occuring during manufacturing and handling.
Click to expand...
Source
Of course, soft cheeses are particularly of interest having been the postulated source of two of four of the known outbreaks of listeria. One of the others known to have come from pasteurized milk. The fourth was from mayonnaise, which doesn't have milk.

Also, if you look into many of the cases of listeria outbreaks attributed to raw milk online, they involved home-made cheese. You can find as many examples of pasteurized milk leading to such outbreaks. I found sites blaming the raw milk, even though follow-up tests at the dairy farm found no listeria contamination in any of the vats of milk.
 
Orion said:
Are you guys for real?

They raided a raw dairy store with a SWAT TEAM !

GET REAL! Two sides to the story? I must have missed out one HELL of a chunk of info here guys.

*EDIT* Hmm perhaps i lost my temper. I'm stickin with it though.
Click to expand...
When these issues are examined in a simplistic and superficial manner, it’s easy to get upset. But things are rarely as simple as we imagine them to be. In this story, there are numerous issues:

1. Does law enforcement have the right to use intimidating, strong-arm tactics against people who, at most, are violating State food licensing requirements? Guns drawn, SWAT uniforms?

2. How should society treat groups of people who openly flaunt their non-compliance with the law? (Based on Shaolin’s post - #8, it’s legal to sell unpasteurized milk in California. The problem is that the “private club” didn’t have proper licenses/permits to do so.)

3. Listeria monocytogenes is a bacteria that is often found in dairy cattle, even in those that appear healthy, and even in those raised in very good conditions. L. monocytogenes is found in soil, and cows come into contact with soil. It isn’t just a disease of cows raised on mega-farms.

4. Listeriosis has a very high fatality rate. (I don’t have the source right now, but I think it’s around 20%.) Listeriosis in pregnant women can cause spontaneous abortion.

5. Consumers have a right to know what is or isn’t in the products they consume.

6. Consumers should have the right to make informed decisions about what they will or will not consume. (It seems that they have this right in California, at least with respect to unpasteurized dairy products.)
 
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