By Dr. Mercola
Under the guise of
protecting public health, the Wisconsin Department of
Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection targeted Wisconsin
dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger, who was charged with four
criminal misdemeanors for supplying a private buying
club with raw milk and other fresh produce grown on his farm.
After the recent listeria outbreak from pasteurized cheese
actually killed someone, it makes you wonder why raw dairy
products are unfairly targeted even when sold under private
contracts which is protected directly by the constitution.
State prosecutors tried to convict Hershberger for operating
a retail food establishment, a dairy farm and a dairy plant
without a license. However, since he only supplies food to paid
members in a private buying club, he maintained that he was not
subject to state food regulations.
The trial has become a symbol for the war being waged against
raw milk in the US, where aggressive regulators are attacking
small farmers producing wholesome raw food products for loyal
customers.
Fortunately, the trial ended mostly favorably for Hershberger
and made such an impact on the jurors that several are now
interested in getting their own raw milk from Hershberger’s
farm.
Jurors Angered Over Injustices Against Hershberger, Want to Join
His Buyer’s Club
On May 25, Hershberger was acquitted of three charges of
producing, processing and selling milk without state licenses.
Then the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion to
revoke Hershberger’s bail and instead send him to jail for a
fourth charge of violating a holding order.
This required that he not sell any food or milk from his
store as a condition of his bail. Hershberger openly admitted
that he had violated the order and broke seals to get into his
coolers, in part to retrieve food to feed his own family.
As a result, jurors had no choice but to find him guilty of
this charge, and he was sentenced to pay a $1,000 fine plus $513
in court costs. Hershberger avoided jail time and the maximum
possible fine of $10,000, but several of the jurors noted that
state prosecutors and the county judge withheld key information
that would have exonerated him of even the hold-order charge.
Specifically, the jury only determined whether Hershberger
had violated the hold order… not whether the holding order was
valid. Since he had been acquitted of the charges that led to
the holding order being placed, it means that the state had no
right to be barring Hershberger from accessing his food in the
first place.
Baraboo News Republic reported:1
“'… we weren’t allowed to judge whether the holding
order was valid,'” [juror Michele] Bollfrass-Hopp said. She
added that since Hershberger was acquitted of the other
charges that the state used as its basis for placing the
holding order, the order itself should have been been a moot
point. ‘You have to have common sense when you apply the
law.’”
Several of the jurors were so moved by the case that they now
want to join Hershberger’s buying club to be able to access raw
milk for their families, noting that this is an issue of food
freedom.
“The trial was about freedom, Bollfrass-Hopp said.
‘That’s what it comes down to. It was about our freedom to
choose the food that goes into our mouths. That was the
underlying theme,’ she said.”2
Regulators Are Worrying About the Wrong Kind of Milk…
If you believe that you have the right to choose what type of
food you’re ‘allowed’ to purchase and eat, then you can
understand just how much is at stake when state and federal
regulators start attacking this very basic right.
Farmers and consumers should be able to engage in private
agreements for food without regulatory oversight of any kind,
yet states like Wisconsin have rather successfully disguised
their attacks on freedom by claiming they are ‘protecting’
consumers from the villainous raw milk.
Assuming it is produced with high standards, however, raw
milk is no more a threat to public health than sunshine or
natural supplements (against which similar “public-safety” wars
have been aged). You’re actually more likely to get sick from
pasteurized milk than from raw milk!
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data
shows there are about 412 confirmed cases of people getting ill
from pasteurized milk each year, while only
about 116 illnesses a year are linked to raw milk.3
And research by Dr. Ted Beals, MD, featured in the summer 2011
issue of Wise Traditions,4
the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, shows
that you are about 35,000 times more likely to get sick from
other foods than you are from raw milk!
That federal and state regulators are wasting time and
resources prosecuting farmers supplying consenting customers
with wholesome food is just outrageous, especially when they
allow
truly dangerous foods – like poultry, beef, pork and eggs
raised on CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) – to be
sold freely…
Dr. Beals wrote:5
"From the perspective of a national public health
professional looking at an estimated total of 48 million
foodborne illnesses each year [from all foods]… there is no
rational justification to focus national attention on raw
milk, which may be associated with an average of 42
illnesses maximum among the more than nine million people
(about 0.0005 percent) who have chosen to drink milk in its
fresh unprocessed form.”
Should You Really Be Afraid of Raw Milk?
The same regulators who defend the use of mercury in your
dental fillings and fluoride in your drinking water want you to
be afraid… very afraid… of a wholesome food known as raw milk.
I currently use about one pound of raw butter per week, and for
those who have tasted the difference will never return to
pasteurized products.
Cream, butter, yogurt, milk - it all tastes so significantly
better in the raw form, there is an inherent recognition it is
better for you. There are also well documented differences, raw
milk is:
- Loaded with healthy bacteria that are good for your
gastrointestinal tract
- Full of more than 60 digestive enzymes, growth factors,
and immunoglobulins (antibodies)
- Rich in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which fights
cancer
- Rich in beneficial raw fats, amino acids, and proteins
in a highly bioavailable form, all 100 percent digestible
- Loaded with vitamins (A, B, C, D, E, and K) in highly
bioavailable forms, and a very balanced blend of minerals
(calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron) whose absorption is
enhanced by live lactobacilli
Pasteurized milk is another food entirely, as the price of
killing the pathogenic bacteria with pasteurization is that you
also kill the good bacteria that helps digest milk, fight
infection and make it such a nourishing food. Plus, proteins and
enzymes are completely destroyed or denatured, made less
digestible and less usable by your body. Not to mention, cows
raised in CAFOs, from which most pasteurized milk comes, are NOT
raised in a manner that makes their milk suitable for drinking
raw (or at all, in my opinion).
CAFO cows are typically raised on high-protein, soy-based
feeds instead of fresh green grass, and instead of free range
grazing, they stand in cramped, manure-covered feed lots all
day. These conditions are perfect for the proliferation of
disease, and yes, this milk MUST be pasteurized in order for it
to be safe to drink.
These cows also need antibiotics to keep them well, and some
are also given genetically modified growth hormones to increase
milk production. Needless to say, these hormones and antibiotics
also wind up in the milk. Quite simply, the Big Dairy business
depends on pasteurization, and that is why their
powerful lobbyists will stop at nothing to
persuade government agencies to keep raw milk bans in full
force.
This Is About Much More Than Milk; Your Food Freedom Is at Stake
It’s encouraging that Mr. Hershberger’s trial had a mostly
positive outcome, and was so overwhelmingly unjust that even the
jurors are angry about it. Still, right now your food freedom is
on the chopping block. In North Dakota, a new bill threatens to
make herdshare illegal. In New Mexico, a bill has been
introduced that would ban the sale of raw milk, while a proposed
regulation in Illinois that is currently in the drafting stage
would similarly restrict access to raw milk.
But this fight for food freedom isn’t just for those who love
raw milk – it’s for everyone who wants to be able to obtain the
food of their choice from the source of their choice. So please,
get involved! I urge you to embrace the following action plan to
protect your right to choose your own foods:
- Get informed: Visit
www.farmtoconsumer.org or
click here to sign up for action alerts.
- Join the fight for your rights: The
Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) is the only
organization of its kind. This 501(c)(4) nonprofit
organization provides a legal defense for farmers who are
being pursued by the government for distributing foods
directly to consumers. Your
donations, although not tax deductible, will be used to
support the litigation, legislative, and lobbying efforts of
the FTCLDF. For a summary of FTCLDF’s activities in 2012,
see
this link.
- Support your local farmers: Buy from
local farmers, not the industry that is working with the
government to take away your freedoms.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.